I looked at 22 monochrome laser models that we've tested over the past three years, and compared their toner costs per page at the time of our reviews with their toner costs today. To determine the latest prices, I shopped online, starting with the sites of major office superstores (Office Depot, OfficeMax, and Staples), and sticking with other established players (such as CDW and NewEgg) whenever possible. Of course, if your office has a service contract or some other special arrangement for your printer supplies, you're likely getting a much better deal than the public retail price.

During my research, I discovered that the costs per page for models from Dell, HP, and Lexmark had bumped up in small increments of between 2.2 percent and 5.8 percent in the time since we reviewed them. Meanwhile, models from Brother, Samsung, and Xerox that PCWorld had reviewed showed cost-per-page hikes of anywhere from 5.5 percent to a whopping 28 percent. Considering that the cumulative rate of inflation from 2009 to 2012 is just 7 percent, the sharply higher costs imposed by some vendors appear particularly egregious.

When we reviewed the last year, we warned readers that its toner costs per page were high--as is typical of products that carry modest price tags. Unfortunately, the printer's cartridge prices today are even higher. The standard-size TN420 cartridge had a cost per page of 3.2 cents in April 2011. Today that figure is 3.5 cents, a 9.4 percent increase in less than 18 months. Meanwhile, the high-yield TN450 cartridge's cost per page has risen from 2.1 cents per page to 2.5 cents per page in the same period--a 19 percent increase. The closely related uses the same toner cartridges.