Inkjet Versus Laser Printers

Color inkjet printers have been fixtures in most small businesses for many years. They're cheap (under $60 in some cases), last a couple of years and everybody uses them. So they must be the perfect office tools, right? Maybe not.

When you do the math on printing, inkjets may well cost you a whole lot more than you realize.

The general rule of thumb is that the cheaper the printer, the more expensive the disposable costs for refills and so on."

While the printers are almost given away, the refills bring in a fortune for the big-printer, original-equipment manufacturers (OEM). The cartridge replacement market is now worth $21 billion annually. HP for example, makes over $10 billion a year from ink cartridge sales, and Lexmark earns over $2 billion from ink supplies, more than half its total revenue.

Example: Canon i320 Color Bubblejet

For a Canon i320 Color Bubble Jet Printer, the cost for the hardware can be as little as $55, depending on discounts and where you buy it. The average cost of the ink cartridges from Canon is $19 but the yield from that, he says, is only 170 pages. Even if you print very little, the cost quickly adds up:

Seven pages a day times 300 days equals 2100 pages — an ink bill of $235.60 per year. If you own the printer for three years, the cost of cartridges comes to over $700 or about 13 times the original cost of the printer. For the Epson Stylus C62, a similar calculation shows the ink bill would be over $1000 for three year's worth of printing.

Of course, seven pages a day is a conservative estimate — some SMBs businesses print a lot more. Suppose your company prints 50 pages a day, 300 days a year. Using the above examples, that equates to printing 15,000 pages annually. At that same rate, your annual ink cartridge bill would total $1,596.

Cost isn't the only obstacle working against ink jets. Speed is another factor to consider. They typically don't print pages nearly as fast as laser printers. They can also be a major hassle.I frequently have cartridge-error messages when there is nothing wrong with the cartridges. (My inkjet printer is an HP Officejet All-In-One d145.) The printers are also set up in a way that makes it difficult to minimize the amount of ink they use. It appears they are designed to make you use more ink than you need to with no way to revert to "draft quality".

As a result of such factors, the market for laser printers is catching fire. According to Lyra Research, worldwide desktop monochrome (one-color) laser printer shipments grew 15 percent last year to 14.1 million units. More than half of those are what's known as Multi-Function Printers (MFP), which do print, fax, copy and scan. Lyra predicts that over 10 million MFPs will be in circulation by 2008.

Laser Printers by the Numbers

In comparison to ink jets, laser printers are quieter, faster and remarkably hassle free. But it's the math that makes them stand out. The numbers are as follows:

An HP laser printer with an estimated machine cost of $400, combined with a $115 toner cartridge, yields 8000 pages. Printing 40,000 pages costs you $400 plus $460 for the ink for a total of $860. A Brother 1440 laser printer works out at about $930 for the same number of pages. That comes to around two cents a page, or eight times less than an inkjet printer.

I paid $500 for my HP Laser 4L when it was introduced in 1995. It is still going, producing quality text printed pages. I buy the high yield cartridges (4000 pages+ yield)for $79. I print a fair amount of pages but still, I rarely use more than one cartridge per year.

SpencerLab, a digital-color laboratory in Melville, New York, tested the HP LaserJet 1320 and the Dell 1700 Laser Printers. According to Catherine Fiasconaro, director of SpencerLab, even when you calculate the cost of the toner and the drum (which has to be replaced about every 20,000 pages), HP high-yield monochrome cartridges cost about two cents per print, with Dell costing slightly more.

Adding to the attraction of the laser, printer prices continueg to fall and the range of available products in the market is steadily mounting. The HP Color LaserJet 2600n prints about eight pages-per-minute, at 600 x 600 dots-per-inch (dpi) resolution. It has a recommended maximum monthly volume of 35,000 pages. Its estimated street price is $399.

If you don't need output, consider the monochrome HP LaserJet 1020 — rated at a maximum monthly volume of 5,000 pages. This printer prints up to 15 pages-per-minute and offers 600 x 600 dpi output. It has an estimated U.S. street price of $179.

Cost Of Laser Printing

The costs of laser printing can be lowered further, you can purchase inexpensive replacement or remanufactured ink cartridges.

"Replacement ink cartridges are cartridges that are manufactured by a company other than the original manufacturer. A remanufactured ink cartridge is the original OEM cartridge that has been professionally cleaned, refilled with quality ink that is made in the USA and tested prior to leaving the factory."

With so much money being poured into ink cartridges, it's no surprise that hundreds of companies have sprung up offering refill kits for ink jets and replacement/remanufactured cartridges for ink jets and laser printers. Refilling works for some people, but many find them too much trouble, you can have your blackened their hands, injected the yellow ink into the red receptacle or ruined the carpet with refill kits (This happened with our Canon Pixma, and I can verify the ink cannot be removed from the carpet.)

Replacement cartridges, too, are catching on for ink jets and are widely available. But the success rate is sporadic to say the least. Not every cartridge can be refilled. The actual numbers are estimated to be 20 percent of black inkjet cartridges and 50 percent of colors can't be refilled or reused.

On the other hand, almost 99 percent of laser toner cartridges can be remanufactured to provide a product that meets or exceeds the OEM yield and quality. A handful of high-end companies produce "compatible" cartridges — products that equal of improve upon the quality of the big OEMs. At the low-end, a horde of remanufacturers offer refill kits and replacement toner cartridges at a fraction of the cost. I went with a remanufactured cartridge with my HP laser printer and I have had the same performance as with an HP laser cartridge.

"HP own research revealed that 66 percent of people who try alternative cartridges never go back to the more expensive OEM models. Most of the cartridge remanufacturersl guarantee their cartridges will perform equal to or better than OEM cartridges or it will either replace the cartridge or offer a full refund. The guarantee covers not only the cartridge but also the printer. The quality matches or exceeds OEM standards, with a defect rate of less than one percent on toner cartridges. The OEM defect rate is one percent. One thing must be understood:

The manufacturers of the printers will do everything they can to protect their revenue stream on ink cartridges and laser cartridges. In every case I have seen, they state your warranty is void if you used refilled or remanufactured cartridges. The low cost of a new printer renders this tactic moot. It is simply easier and less expensive to buy a new printer.

If you print very little, stick to your inkjet or replace it with a more modern model. But if you print consistently in a reasonable volume, it is probably time to take a serious look at a laser printer. HP, Lexmark, Brother, Dell and others offer a wealth of choices. Cheap replacement cartridges are probably good enough if your printing volume and company size aren't that big. But if you spend a lot on printers and printing, remanufactured cartridges give you wonderful quality and peace of mind for less than OEM cartridges.

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