A printer without a cartridge is like a boat without oars. If you want quality printouts, you must have a good cartridge at the heart of your printer. Printer cartridges, whether inkjet or laser toner; can be of three varieties. Knowing about them will help you choose the right one according to your needs and budget.

The first category of cartridges is called the Original Equipment Manufacturer or OEM cartridge. These are usually of the brand name as your printer, whether they are manufactured by the same company or their licensees.

They are better than most other cartridges in terms of quality and safety, but they are expensive too. Brands such as Canon, Epson and Lexmark have OEM cartridges.

The high price of OEM cartridges may be a reason why compatible printer cartridges are so popular these days. These cartridges are modeled on OEM products and so, provide the same features, minus the brand name, because they are manufactured by independent manufacturers.

But even though you pay only about half of what would be required for an OEM product, make sure that it is 100% compatible. Partially compatible cartridges may cause your printer to malfunction. A compatible cartridge should also have a new replacement chip, so that the printer software can detect it.

OEM cartridges are refurbished too, to give you remanufactured products. Used cartridges are cleaned, refitted, refilled and checked for errors.

So, you can guess that these cartridges cost more than replacement cartridges, because you basically get to use the OEM product albeit refurbished, which is why it costs less than the OEM cartridge.

Destruction of used cartridges involves the disposal of non-biodegradable parts. So if you use remanufactured printer cartridges you will be doing your bit for the environment.

When you have a printer at home you have to buy nye printerpatroner at one time or another. If you look around a bit you can find billige printerpatroner which is a lot cheaper than other printer cartridges.