Printers, Inkjet vs Laser

[0iD]

I need a printer to print out upto A2 size. But I'm not rich, so I need something economical to run & maintain. Does anyone have any experience in the costs of running a Laser over an Inkjet, or vice-versa?

Cheers.

[j.o.s.h.1408]

laser inks are more expensive and are only good for printing 100's of pages black and white in quick succes.

inkjets have better quality in photo printing and the ink still cost alot but not has much has a laser one

[s3ds]

have you considered an a1 plotter ? thats what i use for a1 and a2 prints a3 and a4 are
done with a laser printer

[TheAnimus]

A2 size. But I'm not rich

You'll be looking at the inkjets then!

But do you really need to print much at A2?

you considered just using one of the many online print services?

[directhex]

a2 means ink (or similar tech). you won't get that size out of laser

[Saracen]

laser inks are more expensive .....

Depends how you work it out ... and what printer you're talking about.

Yeah, laser cartridges cost a lot more than a set of inkjet cartridges, but then, they last far longer too.

It's been quite a while since I've done any actual testing of this, but I did do exactly that a few years ago. I got several inkjet printers in on loan from manufacturers, and did a cost per page comparison. At that time, and using my test page (a 8"x6" photo), full-colour inkjet printing was costing between 30p and 67p per page. By contract, a laser cost about 3p per page. That is for ink/toner alone. and not factoring in either paper, or hardware costs.

Oh, and the life of a set of inkjet cartridges can vary hugely too. On those specific printers, I got 49 pages from a Lexmark, 63 from an Epson and 124 from an HP. The lowest cost per page, however, was Epson, despite the HP giving nearly twice as many pages per set.

And a warning. Those figures apply to those printers. It would most certainly not be safe to assume they apply to any others, including those on the market today. That's why buying on the basis of economical running is such a lottery.

Oh, and just to be clear about my methodology .... I ran a brand-new and sealed set of cartridges through to exhaustion, printing repeated copies of the same test page. A cartridge was determined as "exhausted" when ink density of any colour started to noticeably drop. This was measured on test swatches on each page with an XRite colour densitometer. It was a fairly carefully controlled test.


Of course, lasers are still more expensive, typically, than inkjets (though there are some very cheap lasers and still some very expensive inkjets), and some lasers have almost no user-serviceable parts (because they're in the replaceable toner cartridges), while others (like Kyocera) have much more in the way of replaceable parts, which is how they keep their cost/page down. When you look at laser running costs (and I've done that, too) you need to be VERY careful about what parts can be changed, and what their cost and rated lifecycles are, and then try to average out the cost of replacing those parts, perhaps several times, over the predicted life of the machine. It certainly isn't as simply as the upfront cost of the machine, and the price of paper and toner.

[peterb]

Somewhere to start...

Large Format CAD and Graphic Solutions

Google for A2 printers will give more help.

Saracen has made an excellent post above - but as a general rule of thumb - the lifetime cost of ownership of a cheap printer will be higher than one that is more expensive up front. More expensive printers generally allow you to replace inks(for inkjet) colour by colur, while cheaper ones require you to replace all the inks when one is exhausted, although black is usually separate.

[Saracen]

Oh, and just to show off a bit, I have an (old) A2 inkjet, three A3 inkjets and gawd knows how many A4 inkjets, not to mention a slew of lasers (A4) here. And, for completeness sake, about half a dozen A4 scanners, several film scanners and an A3 flatbed scanner too. And by 'eck is that A3 scanner a big, heavy barsteward.

[s3ds]

Oh, and just to show off a bit, I have an (old) A2 inkjet, three A3 inkjets and gawd knows how many A4 inkjets, not to mention a slew of lasers (A4) here. And, for completeness sake, about half a dozen A4 scanners, several film scanners and an A3 flatbed scanner too. And by 'eck is that A3 scanner a big, heavy barsteward.

lol

i got rid of all my old printers / plotters in a skip
But i agree the A3 scanners do take up room
The last two lasers i got from e-bay HP n8000 for about £250. I had to con them into thinking a service had been done but at £65 for a toner that does 20,000 a4 it was cheaper than the old Espons i had from new, toner cost £170 for 10,000 ( about a months worth )
as for plotters i got the last one from ebay ( a1 colour ) £499 with a warenty ( prior to this i have always got new )
for inkjets i always now buy HP ( due to past experiance ) but one tip is to check the size and cost of ink before buying

[Saracen]

Personally, for inkjets I still buy Epson for photo work. I'd certainly agree that the others have closed a gap a lot, but I still haven't found another (inkjet) photo printer that I think matches Epson. Of course, I know a lot of people don't like Epson for other reasons, like problems with clogged jets, etc, but personally, I haven't had the problem.

For office type inkjet printing, then yes, HP take some beating and would generally be my first choice. But even with high-end HP inkjets (and I mean £700 workgroup printers) I've had some quality (design) issues that really surprised me.

[nichomach]

And by 'eck is that A3 scanner a big, heavy barsteward.

QFT; we had an Epson GT10000+ A3 (with ADF) go tits up on us just before Christmas, and that was an absolute sod. That said, we replaced it with a Fujitsu fi 5530C, which takes up a lot less space.



On the printer side, A2s are fairly thin on the ground; I like Epson as well, but something like the Stylus Pro 3800'll set you back over £900 inc VAT - LINKY.

HP do the dabs.com - HP Designjet 70 64mb A2 18" (ENG) (Q6655A#ABU) for £660.50, though. That might do.

[Saracen]

QFT; we had an Epson GT10000+ A3 (with ADF) go tits up on us just before Christmas, and that was an absolute sod. That said, we replaced it with a Fujitsu fi 5530C, which takes up a lot less space.

I don't know the Fujitsu. The A3 I was referring to is either the GT-12000. If I remember correctly, the GT-10000 replaced the 12000. But they're both about the same size. No ADF on mine, though. I have an HP5590 (with ADF) for that .... A4, though.

[arthurleung]

Saracen，I'm not sure how you did you Laser photo testing.
I live in Student Hall and our Laserjet 2600n's set of new (original) toner will last 500 pages of A4 poster printing which end up costing a staggering 48p per page. Glad it was the college who paid for the toners.

In a quite unfair comparison, my Epson inkjet with CISS used 1/15 of its ink to print 100 pages of A4 poster at 1/20 the speed, which is 2p a page of 95% coverage!

I never find it cheap to print at home unless some sort of compatible ink is used. But printer in college is quite crap too:S

P.S. It was hell to prepare and print 20000 pages in 5 days to prepare student packs consider hall seniors only get like 3% off rent!