C331

The Okidata C331 brings the same Type C17 four-cartridge system to a compact color machine built for small offices: 44469801 black beside 44469703 cyan, 44469702 magenta and 44469701 yellow. One detail worth knowing before you shop: the C331 is a digital LED printer rather than a traditional laser design, imaging each page with a row of light-emitting diodes — and that changes nothing about the toner it takes.

Small offices pick a printer like this when color is a daily tool rather than an occasional event: letterheads, invoices with a logo, charts that have to read at a glance. The LED engine suits that work with fewer moving optical parts to wear, and the desktop footprint keeps the machine within arm's reach of the people feeding it. Its supplies routine is deliberately boring — four cartridges, four separate levels, no surprises.

Toner Cartridges for C331

Complete sets available here: the C331 4 Color Set, the C331 Premium Quality 4 Color Set, the Type C17 Premium Quality 4 Color Set and the Type C17 4 Color Set.

Which cartridge should you buy?

Let the driver do the first round of saving: set black-and-white as the default and promote a document to color only when it genuinely needs it, and the three color cartridges can sit untouched through weeks of ordinary correspondence. When a color does run down, replace that single cartridge — the whole point of this layout. A four-color set makes sense as a shelf reset when the machine changes hands, when several colors are fading together, or when ordering for a small fleet of C17 machines at once. Note that the listings on this page are the standard-capacity cartridges; offices whose volume keeps climbing should plan reorder intervals around that rather than expecting a larger cartridge to appear for this shelf.

Chip, toner and everyday use

Every cartridge carries a chip the printer reads for its level estimate, and a firm seat is all it takes for a new cartridge to register as full. Quoted yields throughout this family rest on the standard five percent coverage page, so judge your own mileage by how much of each sheet your documents actually cover. Fading that affects a single color points at that color's cartridge, and a gentle end-to-end rock levels the toner inside for a short reprieve. Keep unopened spares in their packaging, lying flat, in a cool and dry place, and they will be ready whenever the panel asks.

Frequently Asked Questions

Which toner cartridges does the C331 use?

Four separate Type C17 cartridges — black, cyan, magenta and yellow. Each color lives in its own cartridge, so you replace only the one that runs out instead of a combined unit, and that separation is a large part of how this compact machine keeps its running costs reasonable.

The C331 is an LED printer, not a laser. Does that change the toner I buy?

Not in the slightest. The imaging method differs — a bank of LEDs writes the page instead of a scanning laser beam — but the cartridges, the slots and the ordering numbers are exactly what the Type C17 family specifies. Shop by the cartridge numbers and the LED-versus-laser question never enters into it.

What is the cheapest habit I can build around this printer?

Defaulting the driver to monochrome. In mono mode the machine leaves the cyan, magenta and yellow cartridges completely untouched, so color toner is spent only on pages where color earns its place. Adding toner-save mode for internal drafts stretches the black cartridge further still.

More printers that use the same cartridges

Because the Type C17 shelf is shared so widely, offices running several OKI color models can standardize on a single set of spares. Every model that draws from the same shelf appears below:

MC351, MC351DN, MC361 MFP, MC361DN, MC362, MC362w MFP, MC362W, MC561 Color MFP, MC561 MFP, MC561DN, MC562, MC562dn, MC562dnw, MC562W MFP, MC562W, MC890, MC950 MFP, MC950, C17, C310, C310DN, C330, C330DN, C331 C530dn, C331DN, C510, C510DN, C511DN, C530, C530DN, C531, C531d, C531DN