A typical toner cartridge will produce anywhere between 2,500 and 4,000 pages, based on a coverage of 5% (roughly third of a page of double-spaced text). Dense pages filled with small font text or graphics will dramatically reduce this output and you may only get up to 1,000 pages per cartridge.

Inside a Toner Cartridge

• Toner Powder.
• Seal.
• Doctor Blade.
• Developer Roller & Toner Hopper.
• Wiper Blade.
• Primary Charge Roller (PCR)
• Organic Photo-Conductor Drum (OPC Drum)
• Drum Shutter.

Use the HP SureSupply app or a generic QR code reader to scan the QR code on the cartridge's security seal. If you cannot capture QR codes with a smartphone, go to www.hp.com/go/ok to validate online.

There are likely two reasons for this: Printer companies price their devices very competitively, in order to entice customers into buying their products. This leads to a nearly microscopic markup, if any, on most printers. And those devices still require investment, time, engineering and resources in order to produce.

Check ink or toner levels from the printer control panel Many HP printers display ink and toner levels on the control panel. Look for an Ink drop icon ( or ), a Cartridge icon , an Ink Levels menu, or a Toner Level indicator.

So, to review, some of the reasons why your printer cartridge is prematurely running low vary. Your team may be printing ink-rich or toner-heavy documents in high quantity. You may be printing off unnecessary graphics or imagery. Your cartridges or printer may be defective.

Here is an explanation of each type, along with their pros and cons.

• OEM Toner Cartridges. OEM stands for “Original Equipment Manufacturer” and is made by the company that manufactured your copier or printer.
• New Compatible Cartridges.
• Remanufactured Cartridges.
• Refilled Cartridges.

Toner cartridges contain toner powder, a fine, dry mixture of plastic particles, carbon, and black or other coloring agents that make the actual image on the paper.

Generally, you'll find OEM toners are a bit more expensive, but they're also the most precise and most capable of producing the best quality print your printer can create.

In the simple terms, original ink or toner cartridges are manufactured by the company who built your printer whereas a compatible cartridge is one that has been manufactured by a third party.

Is it actually cheaper to buy a new printer rather than replacing ink cartridges? Are printers cheaper than print cartridges in many cases? Spoiler alert - yes. Even the cheapest ink cartridge is comparable to the cheapest printer, price-wise.

Be sure that a bargain-basement cartridge won't leak or cause your printer to break down. A poor choice could lead to service calls or parts and labor costs to repair printer damage. Remember, using non-genuine toner could even invalidate your printer warranty.

Generally, you should start paying close attention to your printer once its toner levels reach about 10%. This means looking for those too-light print jobs or low toner alerts while regularly checking printer status pages.

If your machine's cyan, magenta, or yellow toners run out, you can choose Mono in the printer driver to allow you to keep printing. You'll be able to keep printing until the black toner runs out. When the black toner runs out, you won't be able to print until you replace it.

"Ink companies spend a lot of time to get the right blend of pigment, dye, and vehicle to be able to have a very stable small droplet for high-resolution printing," Williams says. All of that research and development, of course, costs a lot of money - and that's where the price comes in.

If you are attempting to use cartridges on a new computer, you can activate them using these steps:

1. Remove the new ink cartridges and reload the old ink cartridges into the printer. Let them sit for approximately 10 minutes.
2. Remove the old ink cartridge and install the new ink cartridges again.