New Products Release: HP CF281A CF271X MICR Toner for HP M604, M605, M606
HP LaserJet M604dn Laser Printer
HP recently released the new HP LaserJet M604, M605 and M606 monochrome laser printers. We’ve just finished developing new MICR toner for the CF281A and CF281X that are used in these new laser printers. As with the CE390A and CE390X toner cartridges the CF281X High Yield toner cartridge will not fit in the slowest LaserJet in this series, the M604. These cartridges are new, not remanufactured. We start with a new HP cartridge, remove the original toner, replace the toner with MICR toner for check printing. All toner cartridges are tested to be sure they meet ANSI standards.
HP CF281A MICR Toner – New, Page Yield: 10,500, Cost: $269, Cost per page: 2.69 cents
HP CF281X MICR Toner – New, Page Yield: 25,000, Cost: $446, Cost per page: 1.78 cents
We ran our first CF281X MICR Toner cartridge dry, printing at only 2% coverage. The printer printed 65,000 pages flawlessly. We were impressed that the other components of the toner cartridge didn’t wear out despite printing far beyond it’s 25,000 page rating.
LaserJet M605 & M606 Highly Recommended
The M604, M605 and M606 printers are really just the M601, M602 and M603 printers with a new look and a few new features. We feel that is a good thing as the previous series of these printers has proven them highly reliable. If you are a heavy user, this is a great printers and you can’t go wrong buying one.
Buy the M605 or M606, not the M604 printer
The downfall of the M604 printer is that it cannot use the higher yield CF281X toner cartridge. When you look at cost per page, the CF281A MICR Toner prints at 2.69 cents per page at 5% coverage, while the high yield CF281X prints at 1.78 cents per page. That’s almost one cent per page. At first it doesn’t sound like much but over the life of the printer, the savings is significant. Assuming you are printing checks with new MICR toner cartridges and over the life of the printer you print 500,000 pages at 5% coverage, you’ll use 20 81X cartridges or 50 81A cartridges. The savings would be $4,530 if you opt for the 81X high yield cartridge. Easily covering the extra $400 you plunk down to buy the M605 over the M604. Plus as a bonus the M605 and M606 printers print faster anyway.
Set paper type to Bond
If there is a downfall to these printers, it’s that they print almost too fast to fuse properly. In our tests, when printing check stock (24 lb) which is heavier than standard copy paper (20 lb), we had to set the paper type to bond to slow the printer down a bit. With the paper set to plain paper, we found with some effort we could use our thumbnail to remove some toner. With the paper set to bond mode the toner could not be dislodged. Setting the paper type to bond slows the printer down from 60ppm to 50ppm giving the printer time to properly fuse the toner to the paper.
Note: the CF281A and CF281X also fit the HP LaserJet Series M630 and M625 MFP printers as well.
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