Bottled Toner May Be Better

Enterprise-level printers, copiers, and multifunctions have a variety of ways to replace their toner or ink. While some use replaceable cartridges (much like the cartridges used on desktop models), many of the larger monochrome units are refilled using bottles of toner. Some bottles are simply placed within the printer, in the same way that a cartridge is. Others are poured into a hopper, which can be located either on the top or side of the printer (so that you can pour the toner in without opening the printer door), or behind the front door of the printer. While replacing a cartridge or bottle may seem easier than pouring in the toner, there can be advantages to the latter. Some printers and multifunctions take more than one bottle of toner at a time, which means less time between refills.

However, the best of all worlds is when the toner hopper can be filled without interrupting the job that the machine is working on. In other words, if you have three or four 200-page reports that are in the process of being printed, you don't have to stop the printer and delay the reports in order to refill the toner hopper.

Just because you have an external hopper, however, doesn't mean that you can refill without stopping the machine. So make sure that this is one of the questions you ask the salesperson -- it can help you decide between two competing units.