Buying printer toner cartridges at your local shop is a certain way of losing money. You can save up to 70% if you buy your toner cartridges online - compare toner prices and go with compatible cartridges instead of the originals.

About Laser Toner Cartridges

Laser Toner Cartridges (often called Laser Toner or just Toners) are used in office machines such as Laser Printers, Fax Machines and Photocopiers and increasingly in home laser printers.

The basic role of the toner cartridge is to supply the machine with a dry powder or liquid substance called Laser Toner. If dry toner is used, the printer melts the toner by heat of the fuser thereby binding the toner to the paper and forming images and text.

Toner cartridges are heavier and significantly larger in size compared to ink cartridges. As with Ink Cartridges, different types of toner cartridges exist on the market:

Compatible Toner Cartridges are produced by third party manufacturers. Instead of producing new cartridges many often re-use empty toner cartridges and refill them.

The toner will be of good quality if you buy from well known and established online ink and toner stores, such as UK Ink Supplies. These stores most often have a written product guarantee and a generous refund policy.

We recommend you to use compatible toner cartridges. Our Compatible Cartridges article contains more information and advice on the subject.

OEM/Original Toner Cartridges are produced by the printer manufacturer themselves. This cartridge alternative is almost always more expensive compared to a compatible cartridge.

Remember that a 100% perfect printout is in the eye of the beholder and that the printer and paper quality is also very important to the result. Read more about OEM Cartridges.

However, it should be noted that both Compatible Cartridges and OEM cartridges can be of a Remanufactured origin. What this normally means is that old toner cartridges are reused and refilled with new toner after being examined, cleaned and tested. Read more about Remanufactured Cartridges.

You can learn more about how toner based office machines works by reading below articles:

Laser Toner, the substance encased in Laser Toner Cartridges

Laser Printers, a printer technology that uses Laser Toner Cartridges

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Article by UK Ink Supplies, based in Lincoln, Lincolnshire stock an extensive range of printer ink cartridges and laser toner printer cartridges.  For more information visit UK Ink Supplies for the latest Jet Tec ink cartridges, laser toners and other digital media products for your Dell printer. Article posted 4th February 2011.