Considering how hard the poor economy has hit many small businesses and individuals across the country, combined with how exorbitantly expensive buying new HP ink and toner cartridges can be these days, it is understandable that so many people would try to use less expensive ink and toner cartridges in their printers to save money. Printing expenses are one of the first places that schools, businesses and even home consumers turn to when looking for ways to cut costs and stay within what the budget allows, and as often as not that translates into using discount toner cartridges as one strategy to reduce printing expenses.
Make no mistake, operating a printer these days is not cheap. If you made the mistake of purchasing an ultra cheap model the chances are high that your ink and toner replacement cartridges cost significantly more money than you initially expected, and even the high end printer models are averaging a per-page cost of several cents for text documents, never mind pictures or color photographs. Several cents may not seem like a great deal of money at first, but for a bustling office that prints on average about 50 pages a day that adds up to more than $1,500 in toner every year! This is completely ignoring paper costs, repair service fees, and other unforeseen expenses.
There are several other options that people can choose from when buying their replacement toner cartridges. Many companies sell refurbished toner cartridges made from a discarded original-equipment manufacturer cartridge that is cleaned, with worn out parts replaced, and ultimately refilled with generic toner. Other companies will skill the refurbishment process and simply sell an entirely new generic cartridge known as a compatible cartridge. Lastly, the truly brave will occasionally risk taking the old cartridge out and refilling it on their own in order to save money, since the plastic and metal cartridge is by itself very expensive in addition to the toner that fills them.
However all of these ideas can quickly end up costing you as much or even more money than you saved by cutting the corners if you are not careful. It is always wise to use genuine HP toner in your laserjet printer rather than risking anything manufactured by a third party source because HP cartridges are guaranteed by the company. You are extremely unlikely to receive a faulty HP cartridge or poor toner quality thanks to the stringent testing that HP products undergo before being distributed to retail store shelves. Third party cartridges, on the other hand, are often a risky proposition.
The problem with buying generic or refurbished cartridges is finding a reliable place to purchase them from. Many consumers choose to buy these products from online vendors that carry many different brands with a fairly wide range of prices, most of which do not conduct independent testing or produce terribly high quality toner. In fact numerous independent studies have found that generic toner often has problems holding onto its color over long periods of time, making archivability an issue. Other brands simply never had particularly vibrant colors, and sometimes even monochrome cartridges produce faded copies.
Additionally, and perhaps most worrisome, other cartridges have been found to malfunction in the printer and leak toner over the inside. This is a worst case scenario since toner fuses to a surface after heat is applied. The internal temperature of a laser printer is enough to make that a serious concern for causing permanent damage–damage that is generally not covered by the original warranty. Although this is certainly not an overly common occurrence, it does happen often enough to be cause for concern and a solid reason why choosing original toner is much safer.
If you must choose to purchase your toner and ink cartridges from third party vendors at least only choose well known and reputable sources rather than the absolute cheapest one that you can find. The cheapest of third party toner manufacturers will give you a great deal, but you will be getting what you pay for: a poor quality, low page yield cartridge that is ultimately more trouble than it is worth. Pick up the brand names, businesses that people have done research resulting in earning a good reputation. Even these companies will be subject to a higher degree of errors and issues, but many of the brand names—such as Staples generic toner—at least offer to cover the costs of any damages incurred by their products. It is much safer than buying a questionable cartridge from a very inexpensive (and shady) company on the internet.