There are two main types of printer, ink (inkjet/deskjet) or laser. Ink printers make dots on the paper to form your text or pictures. Better quality inkjet printers are often known as “photo” or “photo-inkjet” as they have a special set-up for images. Laser printers work in a similar way to photocopiers, using a toner powder.
Ink printers are slower, but are noticeably cheaper. The ink cartridges are normally expensive, but colour printing is standard, and the quality of printing is usually high. Reasonable quality ink printers are available for well under £80, although you should be careful of expensive ink cartridges on some very cheap models.
Laser printers are quick, and generally provide an excellent quality print; they can however be more expensive. Colour is not standard on laser printers, and will take the cost into a minimum of several hundred pounds.
The toner cartridges are also expensive, but they last for a very long time, and work out cheaper per page than most ink cartridges. Laser printers are now available for as little as £90, although the running costs are often much higher than more expensive models.
One disadvantage of laser printers is that many models require the ‘drum’ unit to occasionally be replaced (normally after an average of 3-6 toner cartridges). This can be very expensive, costing up to £200+ depending on the make and model of printer. Some models have a combined drum and toner unit, which makes each toner cartridge more expensive, but without the need to buy additional drum units.
Example 1: A current £170 laser printer requires £50 toner cartridges that each print up to 7000 pages, the drum needs replacing after around 20,000 pages at a cost of £100. Although this may seem like a huge amount of printing, an active business can go through hundreds of pages a day.
Example 2: A current £90 laser printer requires £50 combined toner/drum cartridges that each print up to 2500 pages. This means that buying two cartridges (i.e.: 5000 printed pages) costs the same as a new printer.
If the cost of replacing the drum is high, it may be worth looking at buying a new printer; with the examples above, you could buy a whole new laser printer for just £20 or £40 more than a replacement cartridge and drum. This would give you a new unit, as well as a new guarantee to cover the item in case of a fault. Not only that, but you could probably make some money back by selling the old unit.
When looking at the printing quality, one of the key factors is the resolution, or DPI (dots per inch); this specifies the detail of the printing, and generally increases with quality and price. The minimum you should look for is 600dpi, which is suitable for all general office printing and letter printing needs. Resolutions above this are very common, and will provide a better quality print; although they are not essential unless you are printing colour images or very formal letters.
In a busy office, the speed of printing can also become important. This is commonly measured in PPM (Pages per minute). Every new printer will have a PPM for black, and one for colour; but this is only a guideline, and will vary depending on the detail of the page printed and the quality setting (E.g.: Normal, Draft, etc).
If you are looking to print in colour, then a good quality ink printer is usually the most cost-effective option. If you are looking to print just in black (I.e.: For letters and invoices) then a laser printer will usually provide better long term savings, as well as a faster, high quality print.
Ink / Toner
Printer ink/toner is probably the most expensive consumable item in the majority of offices. However there are ways to make sure the cost is as low as possible.
When buying an ink printer, be careful of cheap models with a single ink cartridge (Black, Red, Blue, and Yellow in one block cartridge). These may look good value, but as soon as one colour runs out you have to replace the whole cartridge, wasting all the ink remaining in the other colours.
Be careful also of colour printers with just a colour cartridge (no black), as when these models print black they have to use all 3 colours. This gives a poor quality black colour, and will drain your cartridge very quickly, making it extremely inefficient and costly (especially as black ink is cheaper than colour ink).
You should look for a printer with either 2 cartridges (one black, one with three colours), or preferably a printer with 4 individual cartridges (black, red, blue, yellow), as these will work out the cheapest to operate in the long run, as there is no wastage of any colour.
With a laser printer, check the average lifespan of the toner and drum unit before buying, as it can often be worth paying more for the printer in order to save money on the long term printing costs.
Many makes of ink cartridge (and a small number of laser toner cartridges) have the capacity to be refilled up to four or five times. This is done using special third-party refill packs. They allow you to make huge savings on the cost of new cartridges. However, refilling cartridges is not recommended by most manufacturers, who claim that printing quality is lower.
Non-branded cartridges (both ink and laser toner) offer a cheaper alternative to the official printer cartridges. They can save you up to 50% or more on the cost of each cartridge. Printer manufacturers claim that the cheaper cartridges do not print as well as official cartridges; although in most cases they are comparable with the official ones. Non-branded cartridges are not as cost effective as refills, but are generally more reliable, and a lot less complicated.
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