Genuine vs compatible toner cartridges – any difference?

Need a new toner cartridge for your printer? Before you buy a pricey manufacturer toner, find out why compatible toners are a cost-effective alternative. 

If you’ve ever needed to buy toner supplies for your laser printer – either at work, home or both – you may have noticed terms like Original Equipment Manufacturers (OEM), compatible, manufacturer-made, original and re-manufactured.

What do they all mean? Which types of toner cartridge are safe to use, while offering the best value for money? And which ones should you avoid?

If you are a seasoned printer owner you would know how OEM sell printers at huge bargain prices and make their profits by making the customer buy the OEM toner cartridges at insanely expensive prices. Before you are went into that store to buy that brand new laser printer, you probably never took the people complaining about the cost of toner cartridges that seriously.

Generic Toner Cartridges?

To keep it simple and easy to understand, OEM toner cartridges are made by the company that make the printers they fit in, while generic toner cartridges are made by third party manufacturers to fit in for branded printers. So actually generic toner cartridges are cartridges that are compatible to the brand of printer you are using, hence they are also referred to as compatible toner cartridges, which are alternatives you can go for instead of the OEM cartridges.

So are compatible toner cartridges “refilled”, “remanufactured”? – No, they are not.

A remanufactured toner cartridges is basically a recycled form of OEM cartridges that has been emptied out by replacing some parts that needed to be replaced and refill. While a refilled toner cartridge is basically the same toner cartridge you emptied, refilled with toner again. Remanufactured and refilled cartridges poses more variables of complications such as issues of wear and tear, and also parts being taken apart and being put back on.

Generic or compatible toner cartridges are manufactured fresh from scratch and contained no recycled parts or whatsoever. This is why they are considered to be a better quality than remanufactured or refilled toner cartridges.

So with that note, that makes the compatible cartridges the prime competitor when it comes to the battle between genuine and alternatives.

Where the generics win?

The biggest and most important reason, yes , you guessed it right – the cost! People start considering generic toners because they are worried that constant replacing of their toner cartridges will hit them hard financially.

As previously mentioned, printer manufacturers sell their printers on massive losses because they think they’ll make up for basically paying  for the printer you bought earlier and for the cartridges as well as for the manufacturer’s profits.

Third party manufacturers of generic toner cartridges price their cartridges in a way that their costs are covered and they make slight profits and focus only on improving their production of compatible cartridges than on research and development of printers like the OEM. This minor difference of third party manufacturer profits means that you can end up saving up to 70%, if not more, by opting for generic toner cartridges. Its not just about the cost of one genuine toner cartridge. It is all about the cartridge you will ever buy. What this means is that your savings will add up extensively over a few years.

Where the genuines win?

When you opt for generics, the main areas where you are sacrificing really is quality. The effect of the quality difference is best visible when it comes to high quality prints, and that means high-end colour printers. The best example of this is images or photographs.

In terms of the battle between generics versus genuines, you will find that genuine toners almost always provide better quality and clarity when it comes to images, but not so much with texts. The durability of printed images tend to also maintain their integrity over a longer period than images printed with generics.

However the situation is now improving because generic toner manufacturers are now picking up their games as their production quality keeps improving over the years. Generic toners always used to be a match for genuine toners when it came to printing of texts, they have now become a match for genuine toners even with regard to image printing.

Will using generic printer cartridges cause problems to my printer?

Generic toner cartridges are a big threat to OEM profit margins, they are many rumours and myths designed to make the generics look bad. Some of which include:

• Myth #1: Voiding of Warranty
  

This is the most common myth regarding generic toner cartridge – voiding the warranty of your printer. In fact, there is no truth to this myth at all. The laws forbid any company from absolving itself from the warranty provided, if the recommended consumables are not used unless those consumables damage the printer.

• Myth #2: Damage to Printer

This is probably the next myth – being generic toners causing damage to your printers. This myth is due to the time when third party compatible cartridge were not of high quality. It is also a result of refilled cartridges malfunctioning because that happens quite often. Generic toner cartridge manufacturers have improved since the last decade, not just the moulding and parts of the cartridges but also the toner powder quality. However you should not let these myths deter you from considering generic toners. At generictoner.com.au, we provide the highest quality of compatible toner cartridges.