When you buy an hp LaserJet printer you expect a certain amount of reliability and sustained quality in your use of that printer over time. After investing so much into an expensive piece of equipment that you no doubt plan on using day in and day out in your office, school, or library you cannot afford to have it fail or produce documents of inconsistent quality. However, the printer is only part of the equation. The toner that large printing centers devour, mowing through cartridge after cartridge, actually quickly develops into an expenditure much larger than the initial cost of the printer. Knowing the details specific to hp toner cartridges, such as HP CP1215 toner, for instance, is very important to any modern printing center which uses HP technology, and can save you time and money in ways you might not expect.
Modern printer users may often be tempted to use non OEM (original equipment manufacturer) toner cartridges or remanufactured cartridges from third parties. In both cases the cartridges in question are not produced by HP industries themselves, but rather by other corporations using old cartridges and refilling them or reproducing them to fit HP type printers. These toner packs are much less expensive than genuine HP hardware and can be obtained both on the internet and in office supply stores the world over.
The diminished cost to these toner packs can be startling. For instance, a cartridge of HP CP2025 toner in black from the actual HP website costs 125 dollars. Color cartridges are similarly priced, but more expensive as it takes cyan, magenta, and yellow together to create color images. On eBay, reconstructed toner cartridges for the same model are only one hundred dollars for the entire set of 4 (black, magenta, yellow, and cyan). These savings are startling and should certainly be considered when you are investigating obtaining large supplies of toner for the future.
However, according to research sites, these remanufactured cartridges (from among a wide selection of reputable remanufactured cartridge retailers) had a 33.8 % rate of reliability failures. That is, 7 % were dead on arrival and failed before they could actually be used, and 27 % printed 50 % of pages that were below useable quality standards for an office or professional setting. HP cartridges simply did not exhibit these issues, in all tests. As far as print quality, 96% of all the pages printed by the name brand HP toner were classified as acceptable for all uses. Only 65 % of the remanufactured toner packs could be called the same. Thus, HP decidedly proved to produce products which were far superior to their knock-off competitors.
Which only goes to say that you get what you pay for. HP toner, which is far more expensive in every case, is also of much higher quality. In fact, it can be said that if you calculate the price spent on reprinting failed pages with the remanufactured toner, and compare it to genuine HP toner, you actually save somewhere in the realm of seventy dollars a cartridge. While this figure may be rather inflated (as it does come from the HP press releases) it is something that should be considered as you choose which toner to use for machine. It should also be noted that if you do buy remanufactured or third party toner rather than genuine HP toner cartridges, it is very possible that the low quality toner, combined possibility that the hardware might not quite line up (not be perfectly constructed or compatible) you can damage your printer—if not all at once then slowly over time as the mechanisms become gummed up.
This may be a tough line to swallow considering the massive price increase when going from remanufactured to genuine toner. However, there are other options. Consulting large retailers of genuine toner can often lead to the real thing, but at a decreased price. Especially with large orders or the occasional storewide special or discount. If you happen to find such a deal, do not hesitate too long to jump on it. Landing a good solid source of toner that will last at a good price is worth a little impulsiveness—provided that the toner does tend to genuine and the store is reputable (check the reviews to get a feel for this).
Genuine HP toner also has another important benefit. If you have real cartridges you can actually go to the HP website and get prepaid envelopes to recycle your old toner packages. These will then be recycled and reused, helping the environment. By donating these cartridges to schools and libraries you can also help them raise funds, doubling up on your philanthropic impact with very little effort on your offices part.