Buyer beware.

The same thing is happening in the laser printer business as happened in the ink jet printer business over the past decade. Ink jet printer manufacturers were practically giving their colour ink jet printers away, or selling them for $39.99.

That's because colour ink jet printers ate cyan, yellow and magenta ink like a horse eats alfalfa, and a new colour ink jet cartridge would cost you $79.99.

Printer manufacturers had discovered that they can make more money selling the ink for their printers than they could selling the printers themselves.

So, nowadays you can buy a new laser printer for $129 instead of $429.

Beware that the toner cartridge in the $129 printer has a microchip on it. That microchip tells you when the cartridge has printed the estimated number of pages that cartridge should be able to print. Once that number of pages has printed, the chip shuts the printer down.

Before, with the $429 printer, you could take the cartridge apart, empty out the waste hopper bin, dump the unused toner out of the supply hopper bin and refill with new toner. Put the cartridge back into the printer, and you're good to go again.

Now, with that chip, you can't do that anymore. Now, you have to buy a new OEM cartridge or a rebuilt toner cartridge with a new chip in it for anywhere from $50 to $150.

So, what looks like a great price is a wolf in sheeps clothing. It means that you no longer have the option of refilling the cartridge with toner. Unless you also replace that chip with a new one, the refilling won't work. The printer won't print a page unless and until there's a new chip on the toner cartridge.

You can, however, buy the chips online along with all the other parts you need to rebuild a toner cartridge, but the cost of the parts and shipping will be about the same as a rebuilt toner cartridge.