Posted on 09/01/2009 12:06:38 PM PDT by JoeProBono
Of all the extras that can be bought to make more of a PC, the humble printer is probably the most popular.
But that humility might conceal a house guest that costs much more to run than most people realise.
While the device may be very cheap to buy initially, especially if bought at the same time as its companion PC, the running costs can, and do, mount up. Particularly if a printer is used to produce a lot of high-quality colour copies.
It is well known that printer ink costs more per millilitre than the finest champagne. And it is in the costs of the ink that manufacturers claw back what they lose every time a printer is sold.
Long-term costs
Lizzie Russell, a computer expert at consumer organisation Which? counsels people to look at a printer's long-term running costs.
With our cartridges you can get anything from 200 - 2000 pages
Martin Hurren, business development manager for HP Supplies The cheaper a printer, she warns, the sooner its cartridges were likely to need replacing and the higher the ongoing costs.....
(Excerpt) Read more at news.bbc.co.uk ...
Why anyone would settle for an INKJET these days is beyond me.
What they rape you for the cartriges can’t touch the printing quality and output you get from even the cheapest laser printer, and the up front price differencial is more than worth the cost.
That’s what is known as a “loss leader”, isn’t it?
Bought a Continuous Ink System with archival grade dye for my wide bed photo printer.
My per picture costs have dropped into the basement and I do not worry about what I want to print any more.
/violin
Can't get real photos from a laser.
Same here. CISS is the way to go.
I’m interested... Make & Model? And how large are the prints? I’ve looked at some instructions and kits for converting my Epson to a continuous ink system but I also want to print wider images ... I’m limited to 16” right now. They can be as long as the roll of paper but only 16 inches wide.
High end inkjet printers are the only way to duplicate high quality digital photographs. For office work, laser printers win hand down. For photographers, we’re doomed without expensive and very high quality 8 or 10 color inkjet printers that cost a palatable fortune to maintain.
When I upgraded my computer last year and went from XP to Vista, I had to replace my printer (Vista did not, and HP would not, have a driver for my old Deskjet 722C). I bought an Epson Stylus RX595 all-in-one, and so far I am ecstatically happy with it. The quality is good, the speed is good, it makes good copies on those rare occasions I need it and it scans too.
Even though it is a printer/scanner/copier all-in-one with some decent features, a full replacement of all six (yes, six) Epson ink cartridges costs 2/3 of what the printer did new. $150 for the nicely-functioned printer, nearly $100 for a full rack of ink cartridges to get a few hundred more pages out of it. Quite a racket.
I do agree with the article regarding printers using one or two cartridges versus one for each color. My old Deskjet had two, one black and one for all other colors. We did a fair bit of business card printing for my wife that tended to use a lot of green...didn’t matter. When the green ran out, all the other colors may have been OK, but sorry, $37 for a new one please. With the Epson, I’m still using two of the original six ink cartridges that I bought with the printer 15 months ago, and just replacing the other four as I need to. It’s very handy.
}:-)4
And the original cost of the printers is even cheaper now than a year or two ago, but the ink cartridge cost will quickly make things expensive again. Have had some luck refilling cartridges, which is fine for general printing, but not if high quality color is needed.
You have a point.
I switched to inkjet to get color when laser color was simply out of the question. And I gave up my trusty black and white (and huge) HP laserjet in the process.
So make a recommendation if you can for a printer that will out perform an inkjet at an affordable price. And, if you can, comment on the possibility of a laserjet that can print on printable CDs and DVDs. I'm betting there is no such thing but, as my wife tells me, it never hurts to ask. I do a lot of CD/DVD printing and my $80 Epson R200 inkjet with my (relatively) cheap Chinese ink cartridges really works well for that function.
One obvious reason is that color inkjets are much less expensive than color laser printers, even when the costs of ink (or toner) are factored in over the printer’s lifetime. For the home user whose requirements are modest, this is decisive.
High quality paper is expensive too. My favorite art paper costs a couple bucks per 13x19 sheet.
Then if you're serious about printing you'll need to have a color managed workflow from camera through computer to the printer. That can mean getting an expensive monitor and keeping it calibrated.
As an aside, I just bought a cheap HP color printer to use in a temporary seasonal office. It was $39 at Wal-Mart. The replacement ink cartridge cost $38. Ran all summer on the cartridge that shipped with the printer.
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