Toner Cartridges

Toner is used in most high volume type print jobs and is available in both color and mono forms. Historically the mon (black) laser was the mainstay of many business printing situations, chosen for a combination of speed, reliability and ease of operation.

Toner is a powder used in laser printers to form the printed material. The carbon based toners are still available but most are now polymer blended. Toner particles are melted by the heat of the fuser, causing them to bond to the paper. The specific polymer used varies by manufacturer. Toner formulations vary from manufacturer to manufacturer and even from machine to machine. Typically formulation, granule size and melting point vary the most. This is critical because you cannot take toner from one system to another, the thing here is to check the pricing and availability of supplies prior to purchase of any laser printer.

More on toner

In earlier machines toner was poured by the user from a bottle into a reservoir in the machine. Although usually a messy procedure once you got the hang of it it was reliable and pretty quick. The use of the term ink cartridge is not really correct when referring to laser printers but rather toner cartridge though many suppliers confuse these terms for advertising purposes so be careful when sourcing supplies.
Modern machines feed directly from a cartridge so we now just swap out the empty with a full cartridge. This is quick and easy, not so messy but a bit more expensive.
Empty cartridges are sometimes refilled by third party vendors. Be careful with these though as non genuine toner may damage the printer so much so that replacement parts may be prohibitively expensive.