Home > Consumer Reviews > Original HP LaserJet 12A Black Print Cartridge in Retail Packaging

This toner cartridge is for the HP 1012 (and others). As fas as toner goes, this one lasts a long time. I use it often and for heavy duty printing, including resumes on resume paper, term papers for school on high quality laser paper, and websites, which usually contain images that come out in black and white, using up more toner. I would say that the toner gave me just about 2,500 sheets, and it is just now fading. When you balance the price of this printer with the price for toner every 2,500 sheets, it is a very good deal (less than 3 cents a page when calculating just the toner). My printer does not make any noise with this toner! If you have this printer, then you wont be sorry when using this toner replacement.

We have had the printer now for over a year. We do a lot of printing on it. It is absolutely the best printer we have ever had and works quietly with this cartridge. Our environment is not kind to electronics. The print is crisp, the cartridge lasts a LONG time - about 2800 sheets and no noise.

HP makes great printers and this cartridge provides long use and easy installation. I found after about 6 months of steady use that the toner was running low. I got another month of use by removing the cartridge and gently moving the cartridge back and forth to re-distribute the toner. I was able to get hundreds of extra copies before the well ran dry. A good value!

While refilled cartridges seem like a bargain, my side by side comparison showed that the print quality was much poorer. I would dearly like to find a reliable supplier or manufacturer of refilled or compatible cartridges but I am not aware of any. We buy the HP original cartridges regularly for our home office. I have never had a problem with the HP originals. The current Amazon price of $61.99 (previously $62.99) is cost competitive with New-egg and HP itself. If you use several of these a year as we do the subscribe and save option for single cartridges is an even better price option (15% savings) even compared to dual packs. The price per printed page works out to something in the range of 2 to 3 cents for the toner.

This particular cartridge seems to hold up well and produces nice quality prints. When Ink powder does get low after many copies you can remove the cartridge and give it a shake or two and it is good for more prints. I have never counted the number of prints from this Cartridge...that will depend on individual setup and use. It certainly produces many more than the standard liquid ink type. I may cost twice as much but produces about 4x as many prints.