September 28, 2010, 11:01 AM — If there’s one thing I’ve learned from running a small business, it’s that a lot of my business comes from printing. On top of brochures and reports, there are invoices and letters, and all of them have to look perfect.
Today’s laser printers are technological marvels that have decades of evolution behind them. As a result, the toner cartridge and print engine need to work together to end up with perfect printing.
Having used recycled, remanufactured cartridges and refilling my own used cartridges, I’ve found that they don’t reliably produce the high-quality output that I need. Often the pages have stray marks, incomplete black areas or odd stripes that mar the surface.
That’s why I only use HP LaserJet toner cartridges for my work. I spend hours working on many of my documents and I don’t want to waste it with second-rate toner.
The key is that all HP cartridges are brand new with no reused parts or generic toner. Each toner module is what the printer was designed to use and is as good as the one that came with the printer. In other words, it reliably delivers top quality output. In fact, a survey by QualityLogic shows that while recycled, remanufactured or off-brand toner cartridges may cost less than the real thing, one out of three pages produced don’t make it in today’s business world.
I’ve also found a way to bring the cost of printing down to the level of used or fake toner cartridges without sacrificing quality or reliability: I get the high capacity version of the toner. It can cut my printing costs by about 30 percent, and I don’t have to change the cartridge as often.
