Frequently Asked Questions

Half my incoming faxes are junk — am I burning toner on pages I never wanted?

Some, yes, and every fax line owner knows the feeling. A dedicated fax-and-phone machine like the L190 prints what arrives, including the junk. What you can control is the math: at $26.19 for a rated 2,100 pages, even the wasted pages cost you about 1.25 cents each, and plain-text junk faxes are among the lightest pages a cartridge ever prints. Blocking repeat junk senders through your phone provider trims the waste further; the cartridge side of the equation is already about as cheap as a single cartridge gets.

How long should one cartridge last on a front-desk fax and phone line?

Think of the L190's line as shared duty: the faxes it receives, the pages you print or copy from the desk, all come out of the same cartridge. A small office receiving and sending a combined 150 to 200 pages a month will typically see a year or more from one cartridge; a front desk handling double that should plan on roughly half as long. Because incoming volume is set by other people, the honest answer is a range — light lines measure this cartridge in years, busy ones in months.

This page is for the L190 — is the cartridge actually the right one?

It is. The Canon FAXPHONE L190 runs on the Canon 128 cartridge, and this listing is that cartridge, black, rated at 2,100 pages. If you want to confirm before ordering, the cartridge already in your machine carries the number on its label — a 128 coming out means a 128 goes in. Installation is a straight swap with the cover open, and there are no settings on the machine to adjust afterward.

Received faxes look washed out even though the cartridge is fairly new — what is going on?

Before blaming the cartridge, look at the sender's side: faxes arrive at whatever quality the sending machine scanned them, and a faint original makes a faint print no matter how fresh your toner is. The test is your own output — print or copy a page you generate yourself. If your own pages are dark and even, the cartridge is fine and the sender's machine is the problem. If everything is faint, take the cartridge out and rock it gently side to side to level the toner, then try again.

How should a spare cartridge be stored next to a machine that might need it at any hour?

Sealed in its bag, lying flat, somewhere cool and dry at the desk or in the supply cabinet — not on top of the machine where heat rises, and not in a sunny window. A compatible cartridge kept that way is ready the moment the line goes quiet mid-fax. Writing the month it arrived on the box keeps rotation honest if you ever hold more than one spare.

If the cartridge turns out to be defective, what does the coverage look like?

Every cartridge carries a 1-year warranty, and returns are free for a full year as well, so a cartridge that leaks, streaks from day one or dies early comes back to us at no cost to you. The complete terms are on our shipping & returns page. Your order ships from whichever of our warehouses — Illinois, Pennsylvania, Georgia or California — is closest, and support answers Monday through Friday, 9 AM to 5 PM CST.

About This Canon 128 Cartridge for the FAXPHONE L190

Listed for the Canon FAXPHONE L190, this compatible Canon 128 black cartridge yields a rated 2,100 pages at $26.19 — sized for a fax-and-phone line where the pages arrive on other people's schedules and a dry machine means documents waiting in memory. It is backed by a 1-year warranty and 1-year free returns, and ships from our IL, PA, GA and CA warehouses. See the rest of the cartridges for this platform on our Canon toner page.

The installed base for it includes the ImageClass MF4412, ImageClass MF4420n, ImageClass MF4450, ImageClass MF4550, ImageClass MF4550d, ImageClass MF4570dn, ImageClass MF4570dw, ImageClass MF4580dn, ImageClass MF4770n, ImageClass MF4880dw, FaxPhone L100, FaxPhone L190, ImageClass D530 and ImageClass D550. Related listings in this family include the Canon 128 black cartridge and the Canon 128 black two-pack.