The Printer Ink Trap-gctid50335

[Ajamu]

The Printer Ink Trap | PCWorld

Buyers don't realize how expensive a 'cheap' printer really is until they start replacing the ink.

By Barbara Krasnoff, Computerworld                             Mar 28, 2012 8:47 am



Several  years ago, I did a six-month stint at a company that tested  enterprise-level printers and scanners and issued reports based on that  testing for companies planning to make purchases. We would run various  documents through the systems and time the speed of the monochrome and  color printing, how long it took to print a long document or several  short ones, and the difference in performance when you printed heavily  graphic documents as opposed to text documents.

 A major purpose of our tests was to verify how accurate the  manufacturers' cost-per-page estimates were. (We did others, of course,  for quality, color accuracy, etc.) Individuals purchasing small desktop  printers have the same problem, but theirs is almost greater than those  of enterprises -- if you look at it in proportion.

 For years, vendors have issued a steady stream of low-cost printers  that seem like bargains to unwary buyers until they start replacing the  ink, and realize how expensive that "cheap" printer really is. I was  actually caught that way several years ago, when my brother bought a new  computer which came with a "free" inkjet printer. He didn't need it,  and he sent it to me. It only took a few months for me to realize that  the printer ink was costing me much more than I had bargained for. I  tried third-party ink, figuring to save money that way, but the quality  of my printing (which wasn't high to begin with) degenerated noticeably.

 

In  the end, I gave up, gave away the printer (with suitable warnings) and  bought a reasonably-priced multifunction device that served me well --  and cost me a lot less over the long run.

 I was reminded of that when I read Lamont Wood's article Printer ink: Tired of feeding the cash cow?.  I haven't followed the printer market closely for a while, but from  what Lamont writes, it seems that things haven't changed a lot. Printer  manufacturers are still playing the "razor blade game" -- selling simple  inkjet printers practically at cost in order to make their money on the  steady stream of ink that the consumer will have to supply it.

 The answer, in the end, is the same as it always was. Individuals  buying small desktop printers for personal use -- and especially for  business use -- need to be assiduous in checking the expected page yield  of a printer's cartridges before making a purchase. While vendors will,  of course, use the best figures they can, they can give you a general  sense of how much use you'll get out of each cartridge. And to keep in  mind that, whatever that yield is, your mileage will certainly vary.

[Ajamu]

The Best Deals on Printer Ink

The Best Deals on Printer Ink | PCWorld

Sick of getting gouged for ink? We did the math to figure out  which printer manufacturers offer decent deals and which ones really  stick it to you.

                                                         By Melissa Riofrio, PCWorld                             Apr 1, 2012 9:00 pm        
                                                                                                                       

If  you buy a cheap inkjet printer, you're going to pay a small fortune for  the ink to run it (assuming that you use the ink that its manufacturer  specially designed for it). Even so, the size of the bill depends to a  great extent on which brand of printer you buy. Some printer makers,  like Kodak, work hard to keep their ink prices reasonable, while others,  like Dell, consistently charge top dollar.

  When you look at as many inkjet printers and multifunction printers as I  do--about 40 per year, representing about half of the total number of  models currently available from major vendors--you start to see trends  in ink pricing. I maintain a dynamic average of ink costs that shifts as  I add new printers to the list and retire old ones. The averages have  remained fairly stable over the past few years: For standard-size ink  cartridges, which generally yield about 250 pages or less, the average  price per page is about 4.8 cents for pages that use only black ink, and  it's about 13.8 cents for prints that use all four colors. High-yield  cartridges have more ink and print more pages--in some cases, thounited snakesnds  more pages--and like most bulk purchases, they cost less in the long  run. The average costs for large, high-yield cartridges are about 3.4  cents per page for black and 10.4 cents for a page with all four colors.

 Kodak's Inks Remain the Cheapest

  Kodak's ink is one of the best deals on the market, regardless of the particular model you buy. For the $100 Kodak ESP C310  multifunction printer, for example, the cost of black ink works out to a  very reasonable 3 cents per page, whether you're using the printer's  standard-size or high-yield ink cartridges. Add in cyan, magenta, and  yellow, and the cost rises to 9.5 cents per page for a standard-size  cartridge, but that's still more than 4 cents per page below the average  ink price per four-color page. For high-yield color cartridges, Kodak's  price is 9.2 to 9.5 cents per four-color page--still well below the  average.


 
Cheap ink isn't everything, of course. We've encountered problems with  the speed, features, and print quality of Kodak printers in the past.  The company has improved its most recent models somewhat on those  variables--just in time for its bankruptcy filing.

 Brother, HP Costs Are Average

  Inks from Brother and HP aren't close to Kodak's prices, but they do tend to be about average. The Brother MFC-J430w  MFP, which costs just $100, offers high-yield inks that ultimately cost  4.2 cents per page for black and 11.7 cents for all four colors; both  of those figures are slightly above average. For the same printer price,  the HP Photosmart 5510 MFP matches the MDC-J430w's 4.2 cents per page for high-yield black and costs 11.4 cents per page for four-color pages.

  Epson's ink prices are a slightly different case. You'll find reasonable  pricing in its creativity-oriented Artisan and business-minded  WorkForce product lines: The Epson Artisan 837 MFP, for instance, costs just 3.3 cents per page for black and 9.2 cents per page for four-color printing, while the Epson WorkForce 845  all-in-one charges 3 cents for black and 10.2 cents for all four  colors. The home-oriented Stylus product line is an exception.  Standard-size ink cartridges for the Epson Stylus NX430  MFP have higher-than-average costs of 5.8 cents per page for black and  15.7 cents per page for all four colors. The Stylus product line also  gives users the option of buying what Epson calls "moderate" cartridges,  with page yields lower than those of the standard-size cartridges: just  200 pages or so. Those inks are even pricier: 6.2 cents per page for  black and almost 18 cents for a page with all four colors.

 
 
Dells and Some Canons Are Pricey

  Dell's multifunction inkjet printers historically have some of the priciest inks around. The Dell V715w  MFP has standard-size cartridges that currently cost 8.9 cents per page  for black pages and 20.6 cents per page for four-color pages. The  high-yield cartridges drop those figures to a more palatable 6 cents per  page for black and 13 cents per page for all four colors. The company's  newly announced V525w and V725w models have standard-size cartridges  that cost a slightly above-average 5 cents per page of plain black text,  but an atrocious 27.5 cents per page for all four colors. The  extra-high-yield black is an affordable 2.4 cents per page, but the  four-color cost remains high at 14.4 cents.


 
Canon printers priced at $200 and above tend to have reasonable ink  costs. Among the company's sub-$200 models, however, such as the Canon Pixma MG4120  MFP, you'll find black-ink costs of 7 to 7.3 cents per page. The color  inks are more reasonably priced, with a four-color page coming in at a  middling 13.8 cents. Canon's only inexpensive printer with reasonably  priced inks is the $150 Canon Pixma MG5320 MFP. At 4.7 cents per page for black and 12.9 cents per page for four-color, the MG5320's cartridges are cheaper than average.

 Lexmark's Polarized Ink Pricing

  Recent inkjet printers from Lexmark have improved noticeably in overall  quality, but the company's ink prices remain a mixed bag. Lexmark's  high-yield cartridges often have startlingly low costs per page. But the  prices go up sharply for standard-yield cartridges.

  If you use high-yield cartridges for the Lexmark OfficeEdge Pro5500  all-in-one, for instance, the prices are just 1.5 cents per page for  black and 7.9 cents per page for all four colors--both figures being way  below average. The standard-size cartridge prices, though, are  significantly higher. The 4.2 cents per page for black is about average,  while 17.4 cents per page for all four colors is a hefty 7 cents per  page higher than average.


 
Among other Lexmark inkjets we've tested, two MFPs--the small-office Lexmark Pinnacle Pro901 and the Lexmark Platinum Pro905--use  standout high-yield inks: a special 510-page black cartridge (the  105XL) costs $5, or a scant 1 cent per page. With that black and the  high-yield colors, you'll currently pay 11.5 cents for a four-color  page, which is about average. Unfortunately, the prices for the  standard-size ink cartridges are outrageous: 11.2 cents per page for  standard-size black and 29.2 cents for all four colors

 How to Find the Best Deal

  Of course, many more printers are available than I've mentioned here. So  how do you figure out whether the ink for a particular printer will  break your budget? The math is actually pretty easy.
  For any printer you're considering, look at each ink cartridge and  divide its price by the vendor's stated page yield. This computation  will give you a simple cost per page, just for the ink. Most vendors use  an industry-standard yield test that makes comparison much easier than  it used to be. If the manufacturer offers high- or low-yield cartridges  in addition to standard-size versions, figure out those costs as well.

  It's also important to think about how much you'll likely be printing.  High-yield cartridges are relatively cheap, but if you print  infrequently, you'll end up with more ink than you need and risk having  the print head dry out. If you buy low-yield cartridges but end up  printing a lot, you'll be replacing cartridges constantly--and shelling  out serious bucks for them.