It doesn’t take much to get us excited about technology, but we’ll be the first to admit that printers — essential as they may be — can be pretty boring. That said, HP’s new Neverstop 1202w tank printer has changed our minds. This unique cartridge-free laser printer is not only a joy to use, its one-of-a-kind refillable toner tank can save a bundle for small business owners, contractors, people working from home, and anybody else who does a lot of high-volume printing. Read on to find out why we love this printer so much and how much it can save you.
If you do a lot of printing, then even the cheapest printer can quickly turn into a large expense once you factor in the recurring cost of replacement ink or toner cartridges. Laser printers, despite their efficiency for high-volume professional smudge-free printing, are especially likely to cause sticker shock when it comes time to refill thanks to the average cost of toner cartridges sitting at around $40 to $60. This is a vital consideration for small business owners and other professionals looking to save money, especially now with so many people working from home.
The HP Neverstop 1202w laser tank printer ditches those expensive toner cartridges altogether. Instead, this unique multifunction printer is the first to utilize an easily refillable toner tank with refills that ring in at just $16 a pop. With the Neverstop’s toner reload kit, each toner refill yields up to 2,500 monochrome prints, and considering that businesses refill their laser printers twice a month on average, it’s not hard to see how quickly the Neverstop tank printer can rack up the savings.
The total four-year cost of ownership for the HP Neverstop tank laser printer comes to $378* for the printer itself (which includes up to 5,000 pages’ worth of toner) and the cost of three additional toner reload kits. The cost of using the Neverstop laser tank printer is less than a penny per page. Compare that to the $0.03 cost per page of average in-class cartridge laser printers, which also typically include much less toner in the box.
Even if it’s initially cheaper, the total four-year cost of ownership for a $200 in-class laser printer plus the six toner cartridge refills you’d need to buy to match the Neverstop’s output comes to $582*. That’s with relatively moderate use, as well; if you’re a small business owner who prints a higher volume than that, the Neverstop laser tank printer will save you even more.
In our tests, we found the Neverstop refill system easy to use and mess-free. The printer’s refill port is located on top of the printer. You gain access to it by removing a small cover that slides off to reveal the tank inlet. Then, simply insert the toner refill into the refill port, depress the plunger, and you’re good to go.
The high-capacity toner reservoir can actually hold two refills. That’s up to 5,000 pages’ worth of toner. This tank system is arguably even easier to use than standard toner cartridges as well. It comes with a full tank of toner, too, meaning it’s ready to print up to 5,000 pages right out of the box (up to seven times more pages than in-class laser printers) before you even need your first reload kit.
The drastically reduced per-page printing cost and cheap toner refills are the things we love the most about the HP Neverstop 1202w laser tank printer, but there are some other great qualities that are worth mentioning. The HP Neverstop features wireless connectivity that lets you easily set it up on your local Wi-Fi network; however, it’s more advanced than your standard wireless laser printer thanks to the HP Smart app for iOS, Android, Windows, and Mac.
We found HP’s own Smart app to be the easiest way to hookup and use the printer from a mobile device. Setting up the printer was easy using the HP Smart app and took only a couple of minutes. From within the HP Smart app, we were able to easily send tasks (including faxes) right to the printer from a smartphone, and the app can also be used to scan, copy, and print from both a smartphone and from cloud services like Google Drive. We found these Smart app features to be huge time-savers that made it easy to collaborate with others when working on team projects.
The HP Neverstop 1202w tank laser printer retails for $330. With the money you’ll save on toner, this one-of-a-kind laser tank printer is one that we fully recommend to all small business owners, remote workers, office administrators, and anybody else who does a lot of high-volume printing — and is tired of shelling out a small fortune every year for toner.
*For more details, see here.