CF248A black · standard

CF248A is the only toner HP built for its smallest LaserJets. In our catalogue it fits the LaserJet Pro M15w and the LaserJet Pro MFP M29w, and there is no high yield version of it, so whatever those machines print, they print at the rate this one cartridge sets.

That rate is 6.00c a page: 1000 rated pages against a list price of $60.00. For a mono laser it is steep, and it is steep by design. The cartridge is a starter size sold behind a printer that was cheap to buy, and HP makes the money back afterwards.

Both of these printers do lock their supplies, whatever a cheap cartridge listing may imply. HP publishes a dynamic security notice for both the M15w and the M29w on its own store pages: they are intended to work only with cartridges carrying a new or reused HP chip, and a firmware update can refuse a compatible CF248A that had been printing for months. With no XL tier to fall back on, a compatible cartridge is the only thing that moves the running cost on these printers at all, so hold firmware updates before the first one goes in rather than after.

The imaging drum is built into a CF248A, which is why a defect that repeats at the same spacing down every page leaves the printer when the cartridge does. Before writing one off, take it out, rock it slowly end to end and put it back. Toner packs down at one end, and a nearly new cartridge printing pale on one side is usually badly distributed rather than faulty. A panel message about a non HP supply is a notice rather than a block, and on its own it does not stop the printer.