Inkjet or Laser Printer... A frequently asked question?

Based on the price of some ink cartridges, printer ink costs about $2,000 per litre.

(And you thought petrol was expensive!)

This goes some way to explaining the “cheap or even FREE” printers that are regularly on offer.
So with ink being so expensive is a colour laser printer the answer?
Well, ‘yes and no’. Colour laser printers can be less expensive, per page, but when it comes to printing photos, the quality is just not up to scratch.
Colour laser printers are great for spread sheets, colour documents, brochures but not photos. Again remember the running costs of the colour laser printer (this is often forgotten).
So, how do you reduce your printing costs?
Well the first thing is to review and quantify your printing needs.

• How much total printing do you do?

• How much colour printing do you do?

• The nature of the colour printing (i.e. photos, or documents)?

• The amount of purely black and white documents?

By correctly analysing your printer usage and printing from the most appropriate printer, you will significant savings.
Listed below are examples of the different types of printing with pro’s and con’s of the different types of printer.
 

• General Office Documents
• Photographs
• Black & White Documents

General Office Documents

This category of printing includes any colour documents such as newsletters, brochures, spread sheets or even just printing a web page in colour. These documents may include photos but photo quality is not the major requirement.

Inkjet Printer – Most inkjet printers on the market can print general colour documents on standard paper. However, if you print a lot of pages the price of the ink can make this a very expensive exercise. NB: If your printing needs consist of regularly printing more of one colour than another (such as a colour logo on every page), then a colour printer that has individual ink tanks for each colour will save you money. Some people have two sets of cartridges for their printer (a) set of original cartridges for the high quality photograph printing, and (b) a set of the substantially cheaper compatible inks for general purpose printing use (storing the original set in the fridge in a Zip loc bag with a damp tissue, to be pulled out when needed).

Colour Laser Printer – The colour laser printer is ideally suited for general purpose colour printing and typically has a lower cost per page then the inkjet printers. Colour Toner cartridges generally last between 2500 and 5000 pages instead of a few hundred pages for an inkjet cartridge. NB: That even though you can buy a colour laser printer quite cheaply, a set of toner cartridges can be almost as much as the cost of  the original printer, and that the original cartridges that come with your new printer are rarely full (most being only 50% of a normal cartridge capacity). Read more....