Colour laser or inkjet?

[Leggie]

Hello all,

The Epson C86 Photo Edition in the office is getting so unreliable that I've been asked to buy a new printer. A further aggravation is Epson's trick of claiming cartridges as being "empty" when there's clearly ink left.

We don't actually do too much printing; when we do, it's mainly letters and the like. The consensus seems to be that colour lasers are cheaper than inkjets for long-term use. In practise, though, are the savings that striking? Are there any manufacturers of lasers which prevent compatible toner being used? What models of printers can people recommend?

Finally, the printer should ideally be as small as possible, as there's not a great deal of space to spare.

Any information welcome. I'm starting to get dizzy at looking at printers.

Thanks,

Leggie

[Saracen]

Lasers generally are quite a bit cheaper to run than inkjets, though there's three caveats to that:-

- the more expensive the inkjet, generally the lower the running cost because they use high capacity cartridges.

- be careful with cheap lasers, because the very cheap ones tend to have "starter" toner kits, and a full set can cost as much as the printer.

- while both have come down in cost a lot, even a cheap laser will still cost a fair bit more to buy than a cheap inkjet.

For instance, you can pick up (decent) budget inkjets at around £30-£50, while a decent cheap laser is more like £100-£130. That £80-£100 margin pays for quite a bit of ink, if you're a light user.

Having said all that, were it me and the £100-£150 range was an acceptable spend, and for the type of printing you do, I'd go laser every time. Exactly which ones .... well. I haven't looked recently so I'm not sure if the models I short-listed last time I went through this are even still current.

[Leggie]

Hi Saracen,

Thanks for your reply. £100-£150 should be fine provided we'll get a few years of service out of it.

[Nerval]

I'd go laser too. The PCPro recommended budget laser is within that price range.
Lexmark C540n at £146 or Brother HL-2270DW at £120 (both ex VAT)

When my inkjet packed in at home, I thought it out and decided I didn't really need a colour one, so got a mono laser, the Brother HL2035 for about £70 inc VAT, again as recommended by PC Pro. I've not really missed the colour - the odd few photos I've just had printed by Boots over the net at very low cost.

[Pob255]

I'd like to clarify Saracen's points
- the more expensive the inkjet, generally the lower the running cost because they use high capacity cartridges.
The cost of toners is far higher the ink cartridges, However not per page basis.

- be careful with cheap lasers, because the very cheap ones tend to have "starter" toner kits, and a full set can cost as much as the printer.
Not just cheap one even the expensive ones only come with a set of quarter filled toners.

- while both have come down in cost a lot, even a cheap laser will still cost a fair bit more to buy than a cheap inkjet.
True, but not excessively so.

The Big thing is toner costs esp with colour lasers where a full set of "official" toners will regularly cost, very nearly as much, sometimes more than the printer originally cost.

You can get re-manufactured and compatible toners for most laser printers which are far cheaper, however the quality varies greatly.
At work we've been trying out a couple of companies due to toner cost (which has massively risen in the last year)
We've had a lot of issues with "compatible" toners from IDNSupplies (I think that's the one)
Re-manufactured toners from Vitesse have been much better and the couple that where dodgy where replaced without fuss.

There's no make that will not except non-original toners that I know of, however worth checking checking availability of non-original toners, also you may need to try a few places/brands on non-original before you find one you can trust.
Also consider the cost of original on non-original toners for any laser printer you get as you do need to factor that in not just the base cost of the printer.

ps the trick of claiming cartridges as being "empty" when there's clearly ink left, isn't just epsion, nor is it just inkjets
All current printers do it, it's only on older models where you can just set the printer to keep going and ignore an out of ink/toner warning.

[Saracen]

I'd like to clarify Saracen's points
"- the more expensive the inkjet, generally the lower the running cost because they use high capacity cartridges."
The cost of toners is far higher the ink cartridges, However not per page basis.

True, but not the point I was making. The point was that inkjets with high capacity cartridges tend to cost a lot less in cost per page than those with low capacity cartridges, though the capital cost is higher for the printer itself.

Cost per page will nearly always be lower for lasers than toners. I would say "always", but I haven't checked all possible combinations .... or indeed, any for a couple of years. But that wasn't my point. There are, for instance, inkjets intended for entry-level domestic use and inkjets intended for workgroup use with multiple users. The latter tend to have ink cartridges with capacities much higher than the "domestic" ones. The cost of that type of inkjet cartridge may well be two or three times higher, but if you get 80ml-100ml of ink rather than 8ml, then the cost per page drops.

The same is true of larger 'photo' inkjets. If you print an A4 photo on a large (say, A2) inkjet, it'll usually cost a lot less than printing it on an A4 photo inkjet, but you may be paying £1000 for the printer instead of £100.

Similarly, even if you only want to photos up to A3, it may well still work out a lot cheaper to buy a £1000 A2 printer to do it than a £500 A3 printer if you print enough A3 photos, because the cost per page is usually lower.

In other words, there are broad comparisons between inkjet and laser whereby by going for machines intended for high volume printing, you will pay more for the machine but reduce the running costs. Even so, even at the workgroup end, lasers tend to be significantly cheaper to run than inkjets.

To really compare, you need to look at all the consumables involved over the projected lifetime of the printer. To do that, you need to have an idea of how many pages per month it'll end up printing. Usually, with inkjets, the only consumable (other than paper or other media) is the cartridge, though there are a few exceptions. But with some lasers, it's very different, with maybe a part that has to be replaced every 20,000 pages, another part that lasts 50,000 pages and another one than may last 130,000 pages.

As Leggie says they don't do much printing, the 130,000-page item may never need replacing, but if it does, it's a good idea to know about it when working out cost over the life of the machine and, of course, to know what it costs. Maybe they'll never hit 50,000 pages either, but if they do and it turns out the part costs 80% of the price of a replacement printer, then it may well signal the end of the effective life of the machine, and what costs need to be take into account, which would be toner cartridges, plus two of the 20,000-page parts, to get to 50,000 pages.

Whether it's worth doing all this for a single office printer at £100-ish is another question. Last time I did it, it was for a corporate client that was preparing to buy new laser printers in volumes in the many hundreds, so getting it wrong could be very expensive.

[Leggie]

Thanks for the in-depth advice, it's helpful.

We've done some estimates of the amount of printing we do and we reckon it averages out to no more than 5 pages a day, which works out at fewer than 2000 pages a year.

With that in mind, does a colour laser still make sense? As I said, we've got no problem in paying £100-150 for one, if the mathematics make sense.

Thanks again,

Leggie

[Saracen]

The cost argument is more marginal for low print volumes, though I'd still think it works out in favour of laser. But it's not just cost. Another factor is the absence of having to keep changing cartridges, and implicitly therefore, to keep stocking and buying them. You're also less susceptible to problems because nozzles can't clog on lasers, though to be fair, they do have their own issues. Then there's speed - lasers tend to be a fair bit faster. Of course, if you're going to be printing photos, then inkjets come into their own, but personally, for general office use, I think a colour laser wins hands down. But then, that's my assessment for my usage, and your mileage may vary.

[jim]

Issue 1: Lasers take up a bit more space
Issue 2: Tying up £200 in spare cartridges so that I'm never in an ink crisis is a pain in the neck.

For those two reasons alone, I personally went inkjet. Laser is better, generally speaking, but different people will value different issues differently. As a student, who needs to regularly transport their printer, and who may not have £70 for a new laser cartridge (but can guarantee that I'll have £20 for a new inkjet cartridge), my needs are significantly different to Saracen's.

For the record, when I was working in my previous (office-based) job, I'd have needed to have a crowbar through my skull before I would have contemplated buying an inkjet.

[Pob255]

Actually Saracen that's pretty much what I ment, however you put it a lot more clearly and in more detail than me feeble effort

Jim also makes a good point, colour lasers are generally far larger the inkjets.
And if you're not printing much can be a better deal, sometimes.
There's a couple of additional things to remember as well, if a ink jet stands unused for a couple of months the heads can often clog up and ink cartridges often have a use by date and a new printer can refuse them if it's past (depends on printer)

Print quality/difference, one other thing to mention is that the finish between an ink jet and laser is rather different down to the way they work.
Inkjets often use finer dots of ink, however they are dots and you get stippling, where as laser printers melt the toner which gives a far more seamless blending but slight loss of sharpness.
Lasers also give a glossy finish.

I'll also mention the Xerox Phaser in passing, Wax sumblimation, it's sort of half way between a laser and inkjet.
Glossy but slightly stippled, large (esp foot print) printer not cheap, print costs are fairly low (slightly low than laser) very idiot friendly (refilling the printer involves taking a new wax block out of a yogurt pot type container, lifting the printer lid, dropping the wax block into the correct hole colour and shape coded, closing the lid, that's it), will fill a room with the smell of molten wax.

[GoNz0]

epson M1200 for B&W epson C100 for colour

M1200 is cheap with onsite swap out if it packs up, its also the same size as a small inkjet

[Saracen]

Actually Saracen that's pretty much what I ment, however you put it a lot more clearly and in more detail than me feeble effort
...

It was brought home to me a while ago when I was looking at replacing a current A3 photo inkjet. I priced up A3 models, and then A2 models, and it was surprising how quickly the £1000 A2 became cheaper than the £500 A3, once you'd bought a few cartridges. And after that crossover point, it's sunshine all the way. In the end, the project that was driving it didn't happen, so I stuck with my current model .... sadly.

Leggie ... it's also worth emphasising that even once you've decided (if you do) on laser, different 'laser' printers are designed in different ways. With some, changing the toner cartridge is about the only user-serviceable component, but with others, the "consumables" can consist of several bits. Given that, and given your projected usage, you might be best off looking for the latter. The toner tends to be cheaper, but you'll incur extra costs when the extra bits need changing, at perhaps 20,000 or 50,000 pages.

So .... if you were doing 5000 pages a month, those extra bits will need changing over the course of the lifetime of the machine, so you need to factor them in. But if they need changing at 20,000 and you only do 2000 a year, you've got 10 years before worrying about it much.

My advice now .... start looking at what needs replacing in which machine, and when. And start looking at consumable prices, because it's not just what machine you get, but where you buy consumables.

There was one company doing a deal recently on, if I remember correctly, a Dell colour laser and two complete sets of genuine colour toner for about £150. I don't remember who did it, but it cropped up in a couple of threads, so 'search' may bring it up, if nobody else can point you at it. If you get the machine and two or three years of toner for £150 .... well, job done, perhaps???

[Saracen]

Never mind 'search', found it .... offer here.

There's a couple of threads about it, but one is here - post #9 from Flibb.

[Pob255]

Very nice find looks idea as long as the load isn't too heavy
Samsung makes some decent low volume laser printers too, with pretty low toner cost.

[scaryjim]

We've done some estimates of the amount of printing we do and we reckon it averages out to no more than 5 pages a day, which works out at fewer than 2000 pages a year.

What's the balance within that of mono:colour printing? My preferred solution for clients (although this is going back a few years now) was mono laser + colour inkjet unless they had specific requirements for regular rapid turn-around small- to mid-sized colour print runs (like my friend who did dissemination for educational projects and regularly had to turn around 50 - 100 colour A4 leaflets).

IMNSHO colour laser is only really useful in specific circumstances. For instance, if your colour printing usage comes in a large bulk (says, 20 copies of a 100+ page report) and then there's very little need for colour the rest of the year, it might be better to have that one print run done by a professional printer (for one thing, if you insist on having a colour laser printer then complain to the consultant who provided it that it can't cope with a 2000+ page print run he might laugh at you and point out that he advised against the damn thing in the first place... ). If the colour is largely for printing a letter head, buy pre-printed letter headed paper (yes, I have had to give someone that advice rather than buying a colour printer ). I also used to advise that low volume printing (which 2000 sheets/year is, frankly) was unsuitable for colour laser, but it looks like prices have dropped to the point where that statement doesn't apply any more.

But if the majority of your printing needs colour and is spread evenly throughout the year then it sounds like times have moved on and a colour laser is the thing to go for - apparently I'm getting left behind by technology again!

[Leggie]

Good advice flowing, thanks.

What's the balance within that of mono:colour printing?

Our colour printing is spread throughout the year. Colour will often be used for formatting text and occasional in-line photo printing (photo quality is unlikely to be an issue here; they're not going to be framed!). So I think trying to split mono and colour jobs to different printers will be more trouble than it's worth.

There was one company doing a deal recently on, if I remember correctly, a Dell colour laser and two complete sets of genuine colour toner for about £150. I don't remember who did it, but it cropped up in a couple of threads, so 'search' may bring it up, if nobody else can point you at it. If you get the machine and two or three years of toner for £150 .... well, job done, perhaps???

The Dell looks like a good printer. After a bit of looking around, however, it seems that it may not actually come with 2000-page toner, but just 2 x starter sets. Even so, it might be worth it at that price.

Thanks,

Leggie