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Inkjet or Laser? Now,
that is the question!
Isn’t technology wonderful, inkjet printers are truly
amazing examples of what can be accomplished when there is a buck to be
made. A classic example of this is the inkjet colour ink cartridge. We
think it amazing that manufacturers have come up with ways to package
ink into small plastic containers and we are willing to pay up to $40 a
piece for them. If my calculations are correct, that $35.99 ink
cartridge I purchased the other day with 21ml of ink in it, would come
out to about $1,700 per litre. And my printer isn't the bee's knees,
some cartridges work out to about $3,000 per litre. Of course you can
get your cartridges refilled, but they are still extremely expensive
when you work out the "per litre" price of the ink. If you really want
to do it on the cheap, you can have a go at filling your cartridges
yourself, but it is messy and the colours are likely to be dubious. And
you thought petrol prices were ridiculous.
 This
is exactly the reason why, in some cases, they can afford to give you a
printer for free when you purchase a computer. There's not a lot of
profit in printers, but there's heaps of profit in ink. So, if inkjet
ink is so expensive, is laser the way to go?? - well, perhaps not,
especially when it comes to printing colour photos. Colour laser
printers are far less expensive, per page, but the print quality is just
not there when it comes to photographs. They are great for printing
colour documents, spec sheets and brochures etc, but they do not cut the
mustard when it comes to printing high quality photos. So, how do you
lower your overall printing costs and get good quality printing? In many
cases the least expensive way to go is to have more than one printer but
the first thing to do is step back and evaluate your total printing
needs.
1. How much total printing do you do?
2. How much of it needs to be printed in colour?
3. What kind of colour printing? Are these Photos or just general
purpose printing?
4. Are you printing a lot of letters and other black and white documents
to an inkjet printer?
If you divide up your printing so that you use the most economical
printer for that specific type of job, you will save a fortune in the
long run. Here is a look at the different types of print jobs and which
printers to use for what.
Photographs
Printing high quality photos is the most difficult and costly type of
printing. Not only do you have the high cost of ink, but you need high
quality photo paper which can also be very expensive.
DO IT AT HOME. Inkjet printers have become very popular mainly
because of their excellent colour printing capability as well as their
low initial cost. Even though you may even get one for free, the cost of
ownership is very high due to high ink replacement costs. In many cases
just purchasing a NEWER model printer can save you a bundle. Printer
manufacturers are constantly improving the print quality and lowering
the cost per page to keep their printers competitive with sending your
photos out to be printed. For the best photo reproduction, select a 6
colour version.
OUTSOURCING - In the long run after you add up the cost of ink, photo
paper and factor in waste, printing errors and paper jams and if you
are printing mostly standard 4x6 and 5x7 photos then your best bet may
be to send them out to be printed or take your memory stick or burnt CD
to Big W, Harvey Norman, Kodak or the like. You can get standard 4x6
prints for under 30 cents each just about anywhere and I have seen them
advertised as low as 15 cents (on special). That is less than the price
of the photo paper alone. The trick, of course, is to shop around as
prices can and do vary considerably from shop to shop. A professional
photographer told me that
Digital City,
which has several outlets in Sydney and also Canberra was a particularly
good place to get photos printed, and I have found them to be excellent.
Give them a try.
General Purpose Colour Documents
This category of printing includes any colour documents such as
newsletters, brochures, spec sheets or even just printing a web page in
colour. These documents may include photos but the photo is not the main focus and
photo quality is not the most important requirement.
INKJET PRINTER – Virtually any model inkjet printer can print general
purpose colour documents on standard paper. However, the cost of the ink
can be very costly if you print a lot of pages. If your specific
printing needs consists of printing more of one colour than another such
as a colour logo on every page, then purchasing a colour printer that
has individual ink tanks for each colour can save you money in the long
run.
COLOUR LASER – 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 2,500
and 5,000 pages instead of a few hundred pages for an inkjet cartridge.
Some colour laser printers can be rather noisy and may take up to a few
minutes to warm up to print the first page. Keep in mind that even
though you can purchase a new colour laser printer for under $400,
replacement toner can cost you another $300 or more.
Black and White Documents
This is just your normal black and white printed page such as a document
from Microsoft Word, spread sheet or could even be printed pages from
the internet or other sources that are actually in colour but do not
need to be printed in colour.
BLACK AND WHITE LASER – The Black and White (monochrome) laser printer
is one of the best deals you can get when it comes to printing. The cost
per page is roughly 1/10 that of an inkjet printer and the printing
speed is equally impressive. You can get a monochrome laser for under
$200 now and I have seen some units on sale for under $100.
INKJET – Any inkjet printer will print black and white documents, well,
except maybe the small dedicated 4x6 photo printers. If you print
a lot of documents, inkjet is not the most economical way to do this and
you will find that you are constantly replacing ink cartridges.
DOT MATRIX –These are not used that much anymore, especially in the
home, but still have a place where impact printing is required.
Applications that require printing multi-part forms or printing through
special mailing envelopes still use this type of printer. Some business
users still prefer printing reports on a dot matrix or line printers.
AIO (All-IN-ONE) Printers – Both Laser and Inkjet printing technology
come in the very popular All-In-One format. These units combine
Printing, Copying, Scanning and sometimes Faxing in one unit. Although
they do all those things, they do none of them very well, and if quality
is your number one requirement you would be better off using individual
components.
NETWORKED Printers – Many printers are now available with built-in
networking and some even with built-in wireless networking capabilities.
This feature can add anywhere from $50 to $100 to the price of the
printer, but may be well worth the investment. If you have a network,
either wired or wireless, a printer with networking would allow any user
in the home or office to print to this printer without having to connect
to it directly. Great for those of you who are roaming around with that
wireless laptop.
SUMMARY
No one printer is ideal for all types of printing and there are many
other types of printers that were not discussed here such as thermal
label printers and solid ink printers. In most cases, the most cost
effective way to handle all your printing needs is to have multiple
printers installed on your computer or network.
Probably the most cost effective thing you can do is purchase one black
and white laser printer to be used for all your general printing needs
for when you can get away without colour and one
multi cartridge inkjet printer for your colour needs - and look around
for the cheapest cartridge refiller.
If you don't use a printer a lot, and only need it to print out an
email, or write the occasional letter etc, then your best bet might be
to get an old inkjet (second hand) and configure it to only use the
black cartridge (in the printer properties in Windows select Monochrome
or similar, depends on the type of printer). Then refill the cartridge
yourself when needed. Refilling colour cartridges can give dodgy colour
but black is black. What I have done at our weekender is to put in an
old inkjet and refill the black cartridge myself. You can get 90ml of
black ink for about $20 (or less) at K-Mart of Big W, which works out at about $225 per litre,
and this brings
the per litre cost of ink down to less than "Grange Hermitage."
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