A Review of HP Laser Toners

Hewlett-Packard is, along with Brother and Samsung, one of the most readily available brands of laser toner. This is due, in part, to the fact that HP was first to release a laser toner inexpensive enough to catch the attention of the average consumer, in 1984.

Prices on laser printers were much higher back then, sometimes costing $500. But the price on laser toner refill was a lot lower – about $30 a cartridge. Today, you can buy an HP laser printer for less than $200, but the toner replacements can cost as much as $80 if bought new from the manufacturer.

You can also buy remanufactured laser toner cartridges from HP. These are cartridges that were used up by the previous user and sent back to HP to be remade and refilled. These remanufactured cartridges cost about half as much as the new ones. These are almost exactly the same quality of new, and most people can’t even tell. You only really need to buy new cartridges if you are a professional businessperson who needs to create documents of completely reliable quality.

HP laser toner can range from 50 cents for an unrated third-party remanufactured cartridge, to several hundred thousand dollars for a bulk shipment of a few thousand new cartridges direct from the manufacturer. Your needs probably fall somewhere between these two extremes. One popular HP cartridge is the HP No. 56 Black Inkjet print cartridge. This well received toner refill starts at about $14 and can climb as high as $30 via PC World-approved third parties.

A popular color laser toner refill from HP is the HP 97 Tri-Color Inkjet Print cartridge, starting at $23.

You can also buy new from HP at their website.