Ah, the smell of a new work printer. It is a beautiful thing. It works, it has new toner, and sometimes people have not discovered its location which means that you have a reliable source of printing for the foreseeable future. However, newness is temporary and like all investments your printer will require care, maintenance, supplies, and the occasional TLC. This article aims to firstly help you understand the basic function and issues which may arise from your new printer depending on the make, model, and theory of printing it falls into. Secondly this article aims to help you understand online printer ink and toner shopping, whether you are after Xerox 8570 ink, solid ink packs, HP 21 ink, photosmart color packs, or any other type of ink, and the best way to go about resupplying your system—and thirdly to remind you never to fall victim to the toner scams common in modern industry.
There are two main types of printers on the market today. Other styles exist of course, but these are the two you are most likely to run into. The heavy weight is the laserjet printer, usually several feet tall and across. Laserjets excel in high volume environments where they can print fairly consistently throughout the day. This is because Laserjets like to run HOT. When you send data to a laserjet printer it converts that data into a shape which is literally lasered onto the paper, creating each of your letters and lines in negative charge on the page. As the paper continues through positively charged toner particle (solid particles of ink) are attracted to the negative charge and stick there, and are permanently fixed as the paper quickly passes through a heating chamber. Because this solid ink is basically fused to the paper it will not run when it gets wet. However, it can rub off if pressed against other documents. Also, if the machine is cold it does take a significant amount of time before it can print its first sheet.
Inkjets are always ready to go, however. These printers literally fire tiny dots of liquid into onto the paper as the cartridges travel back and forth over the page. Because the ink is always wet (unless it dries out during long storage, an issue these printers sometimes face) it doe not really have a start-up time, but is much slower when printing large assignments. These printers are typically much smaller and more portable, and the cartridges are much cheaper. Unfortunately they don’t last nearly as long. Also the quality of the text is different, and sometimes worse than laserjets unless the laserjet is out of alignment or running low on toner. As far as color printing goes, inkjets are much better for photographs and (these days at least) are usually combined with scanners or copiers in addition to special envelope printing options (which are much trickier on the big laserjets).
Now, when shopping for ink or toner online there are some things you should keep in mind. #1 Check a variety of sites including OEM (original equipment manufacturer, i.e. Lexmark.com, Epson.com, Hp.com…) homepages, large internet retailers, and small marketplace storefronts. This will give you a good overview of the available prices, including special options which come as a result of competition in the marketplaces (driving both price and quality down), great large quantity deals due to marketplace competition, and the high quality product available on the OEM sites. Which you settle on depends on what you find. #2 Search using the big addresses: always include make, model, and cartridge number in your search as this will narrow your results to exactly what you are looking for, saving a lot of result sifting. #3 quantity vs quality. Remanufactured and refilled cartridges sold by third parties are much, much cheaper. And sometimes they are worth it. However, studies have shown that these cheaper cartridges have performance to match their discounted price—terrible. Page quality, quantity, and cartridge failure rate are all diminished in significant percentages of these cartridges when they are sold. Sometimes spending more on a great deal from a large retailer is def. worth it. And beware of suspicious overseas knockoffs, as ink and toner of low enough quality can jam and damage your printers with use. Always check review sites to be sure.
Now, a word to the wise. Numerous scams are currently be perpetrated in which a person calls an office and attempts to secure the name of an office supervisor and the toner cartridge your company uses. DO NOT give this information out. What happens is the TONER PHONER as they are called sends an order of ink and toner with the manager name and an invoice later on, then gets threatening over your supposed theft if you fail to pay the invoice (which only results in more product sent). You are under no obligation to talk to these people or to pay their invoices. None whatsoever. Never reveal information to those who do not need it, and never give in to bullies.