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Reducing TCO of an Inkjet Printer?

Posted by Cliff on from the lowering-the-lifetime-pricetag dept.

AtariDatacenter asks: "Everyone knows that inkjet printers are cheap, but the cartridges cost a bundle. I was trying to find one with the lowest total cost of ownership for a modest twenty or so pages a week. This PC Magazine article kind of takes this on, but with a small sample group. Are there any printers today that should be avoided? Is ink reducing software like inkSaver as good as they claim?" Inkjets have a lot of drawbacks when it comes to laser printers except one thing: the initial price. When it comes to printing lots of text that you intend to keep for an indefinite period of time, which works out better over the short-term and long-term? I've already had Inkjet printers die after a few years of normal usage, are laser printers any better?

2 of 77 comments (clear)

  1. The cheapest way??? by OneFix · · Score: 3, Insightful

    I don't know if this is cheaper, but I do it this way...

    First, find the cheapest printer you can...Circuit City has the Lexmark Z25 for $39.99 after rebate this week, but a better deal is at Office Max...Hewlett Packard DeskJet 825C for $49.99 (no rebate required), plus it's USB and it also comes with a free USB cable ($15 value).

    And, don't worry about the speed of the printer, because if you wanted speed you'ld be buying a Laser Printer for much more $$$.
    Then make sure you buy one of the InkJet refill kits...WalMart and CompUSA sell a Universal kit for Color and Black (seperately), but if you go to a Computer Show, you can buy a huge kit that should last you a while for the cost of both.

    Now, sit back as the Printer pays for itself in saved cartridges. I don't know about you, but I'm reluctant to use refills on a $200 printer, but have no problems with doing it to a $50 printer. Most cartridges can be refilled 2 or 3 times before they go bad...this means that after only 6 refills, the printer should have paid for itself...

    A few notes, in general, stay away from Lexmark and No-Name printers...try to stick with HP, Cannon, Epson, etc.

    And don't worry about speed or resolution, if you wanted that, you'ld be buying a Laser Printer, and $$$ wouldn't be your first concern.

    The whole idea of this is that Moore's Law works for you here...by the time you need to get a new printer, you can get something much better for the lower price...

  2. Reduce the TCO with a baseball bat by Bald+Wookie · · Score: 2, Insightful

    Step 1. Rent Office Space.

    Step 2. Beat the hell out of your inkjet while listening to gangsta rap.

    Step 3. Find a decent used HP laserjet. Older 'office model' HPs are built like tanks. I've found a few with page counts into the 100-200 thousand range that still print fine. Look around and you can find refurbed IIs, IIIs, and 4Ps for about a hundred bucks. With a bit more effort you can pick up free IIs and IIIs from small offices cleaning their closets. They might need a fuser or rollers but the work is easy and the parts are usually cheap.

    On a 4P (the personal sized version of the 4 series) the toner lasts about 4000 pages. At 20 pages a week you can get nearly four years out of a $70 toner cartrige. Since a lot of refurbs come with some toner, you might spend a hundred bucks for the printer and be printing for a couple of years.

    Now that is a reduced TCO...