The LaserJet Pro 400 M401dw is a printer with a large array of features which would suit office use. Some of the best features of the LaserJet Pro 400 are the direct USB port, wireless connectivity and auto duplexing. It also comes with a 3.5" touchscreen. The touchscreen is a bit flimsy but still adds better functionality than you would get with a button layout. The printer also supports printing through email and Google Cloud Print. 

It is a reasonably good looking printer that, as previously mentioned, features a 3.5" touchscreen. This screen can be swivelled out to view at different angles, but the result is a unstable touchscreen when it is all the way out, making entry of details somewhat frustrating. The rest of the printer has a solid feel about it and it looks comfortable in withstanding the day to day wear and tear that a printer like this would experience. The front has a 250 page input tray and the USB access point is also featured on the front of the printer for ease of use.  It comes in at 11kg with dimensions of 36cm x 36cm x 27cm.

Comparable, the HP LaserJetPro 400 provides quick printing, clocking in at 33 pages per minute. The print quality is mixed. For plain text this mono laser does a good job but for anything more demanding the printer begins to struggle.

The running costs of this printer add a real positive. The cost per black page is $0.05 while the cost per colour page is $0.13. The toner cartridges that are suitable for this printer are the HP 80A and 80X, which we provide as a genuine toner cartridge and a remanufactured toner cartridge.

Overall, this is a quality printer but does come with a hefty price tag in comparison to it's competitors models.

The Brother HL3170CDW is a colour laser printer.

Some of the major plus factors for this printer is the automatic double printing option, wireless and wired networking capability (Apple Airprint and Google Cloudprint) and also this printer has very good energy usage. It also has 1 paper tray and 1 manual feed tray, allowing for 2 different variations of paper to be used at any one time.

The printer is 41cm x 51cm x 28cm so reasonable in size. The control panel is a bit awkward to operate due to it being fixed - there is no tilt option available.

The print quality of the HL-3170CDW is mixed. It does a decent job of printing plain black text which will very much appeal to it's small business target market, it does an average result of of graphical printing, lacking detail and quality.

The running costs of the printer are $0.05 for an A4 page of text while the cost per page of graphics comes in at $0.42.

There are 2 toner cartridge options for this printer - the TN251 and TN255. The TN251 toners have a yield of up to 2,500 pages for black and 1,400 pages for colour. The TN255 colour toner set however offers colour toners that yield up to 2,200 pages.

Overall, this is a reasonable printer for anyone wanting quality text printing with the occasional ability to print colour when necessary.

Often we receive calls from customers and also others looking for a way to recycle their cartridges. There are many programs around that use old cartridges and recycle them in some way or another but we thought we would give you a quick run through on HP's Planet Partner Program.

Typical cartridges are manufactured with glass-filled PolyEthylene Terephthalate (PET). This material is great as it provides a reliable and quality cartridge but the downside is that it uses materials that have to be sourced from nature. However, HP manufacturers PET from recycled ink and toner cartridges. When HP then manufactures it's ink and toner cartridges, it mixes it's recycled plastic with it's regular PET. These cartridges meet the same high quality standards that HP prides itself upon.

Overall, HP has recycled over 500 million cartridges across 70 counties. All cartridges that are sent back to HP are recycled. Once the process has been finished it starts all over again. 

If you use HP cartridges check out where you can recycle your cartridges.

We often hear from our customers that they cannot believe the cost of printer ink. We do our best to keep the prices as low as possible, but unfortunately there is no getting around the fact that ink and and toner cartridges are expensive. But not all is lost - What we can do is give you some helpful tips on what to do to save on your ink consumption.

1) The best ink saver is not to print at all. This might sound odd coming form a company that sells ink but we suggest you be selective about your printing needs. If you can proof read a document on the screen rather than on a print out, it saves ink. Also, if you only need 1 page of a 20 page document, don't print all 20 pages! Just select the 1 page you need and print that. this may sound silly to some but a lot of people waste ink and print ours that they do not require.

2) One of the best ink savers is to print in "draft" mode. If you are not concerned about the quality of a print out this can be a great way to save printer ink. It will be slightly lighter in colour and less accurate. But as an added bonus it will print faster!

3) Select black and white printing. Even when you are printing a black and white document, some printers may add in colour ink, even though you are not printing anything with colour. So the easy way to fix this is to choose black and white print from the properties.

4) Some people suggest to turn your printer off when it's not in use to save printer ink - and in some cases this is true! But not always. A recent british study tested the cost of printing 50 pages of coloured documents continuously, over a few weeks turning the printer off and over a few weeks leaving the printer on. There were dramatic differences depending on what printer you have. Basically the message is, if your printer sounds like its cleaning its heads each time it is turned on, it may be cheaper to have the printer put itself to sleep than turn it on and off.

5) When your ink starts to get low, take the cartridge out and give it a very gentle shake. This allows the last ink to be redistirbuted within the cartridge and may give you some extra life from your cartridge.

6) This isn't a ink saving tip, but it is a paper saving tip! If your printer has duplex mode - Use It! Duplex mode allows you to print on both sides of the page saving on paper. Not only will you save paper but also helping the environment at the same time!

Well there are a couple of tips that might help. Does anyone else have any suggestions?

A lot of people don't consider this question when buying a printer. They might find a cheap model, with all the functionality they need only to find that it is costing them a huge amount to keep it running. So what printer is a good one to buy? Well it depends.

Unfortunately there isn't really one answer on what the best printer to buy is however we can help point out the things to look for so that when you do purchase a printer, you can find one that is cost efficient for what you need.

One of the first things you should do is work out what the cost per page is for the replacement inks. The manufacturer may provide a standard yield and a high yield ink cartridge so it is worth working out what the price of the pages will be. As mentioned in a previous post, to do this you need to take the yield of that cartridge divided by the cost of the cartridge and that will give you your cost per page. It is amazing how different printers can have huge variations in the cost per page. Also do not that the higher yield cartridges are not alway a cheaper alternative! It is worth doing your homework!

Another factor to consider is the type of printing you are doing. Tests by Consumer.org showed that the Lexmark Z1420 gave the most cost effective text printing at 3.7 US cents per page. While the HP Photosmart D&560 produced the most cost effective photo prints at US$1.2 per page. 

The final consideration is whether there are compatible or remanufactured cartridges available for the printer that you are looking at. Compatible and remanufactured ink and toner can be a great way to print cost effectively. If bought from a reputable supplier, like ourselves, they can provide good quality print outputs and extremely cost effective prices.  

Well - there are a couple of things to consider when purchasing a cost effective printer.

Do you have any other suggestions?

Cartridge yields are a way of calculating how many pages, on average, will be printed per cartridge, and then also how much each page costs to print. This same principle applies for ink cartridges for inkjet printers and toner cartridges for laser printers.

Generally, yield is expressed as a number of pages and often is accompanied by a reference saying at 5% coverage. So what does this mean.. 5% is used as an average as the sort of coverage you would expect when printing a page of text. But it is worth keeping in mind that if you are printing things like photos, there will be far greater coverage than 5% and for that reason you are likely to print a lot less pages per cartridge

The other occasion when the word yield tends to get used is in the description of different types of cartridges. So for example a cartridge might have a standard version, a high yield version and an extra high yield version. The theory behind this is to give high volume print users a more cost effective cartridge than one meant for low volume print users. Selecting the right cartridge for your needs is entirely based on your printing habits. If you feel that you are having to replace your cartridge frequently you could consider a higher yield cartridge.

It is always great to compare the cartridges before purchasing so it can be worth working out what the price per page is for each cartridge. To do this you take the price and divide it by the yield. As an example a $40 cartridge which had a 500 page yield would have a price per page of $0.08. 

If you have any further questions on what cartridge might be best for your printing needs, we would be more than happy to help.

Recently Brother released a new range of business colour laser printers that they are aiming to target the small to medium business market with. This printer range is aiming for small to medium companies that are printing up to 5000 pages per month. The company is hoping that it can extend it's dominance in the mono laser printer market into the colour laser market. 

The new range of printers is very much designed to work in modern day workplaces embracing the move to BYOD (Bring Your Own Device) offering features such as Airprint, Google Cloud Print and iPrint&Scan. The L8000 range is made up of 6 printers that have high yield and super high yield cartridges, while the larger L9000 range is only available with super high yield cartridges.

If you have been browsing our site you may have come across our 100% satisfaction guarantee. But we thought that some of our customers wouldn't actually know what we meant with this guarantee so we thought this might be a good opportunity to clarify what our 100% satisfaction guarantee actually means.

Put simply, our satisfaction guarantee is exactly as it sounds. If you are not satisfied with the product purchase or service we provide we will give you a full refund on the purchase price. No matter whether you are purchasing from our paper roll, inkjet cartridge or toner cartridge range, it's the same story.

We stand by our products and our service and for that reason we feel comfortable offering a 100% satisfaction guarantee. Not only is it a way for us to show our commitment to delivering outstanding products with outstanding service but it also gives our customers the knowledge that if they have any issues with their experience with us we are happy to refund their purchase.