End of Ink printers is near?

[Brian Stirling]

I got a Used Laser printer of CL, bought high yield toner for 12 bucks

My Printing costs were like 11 cents per page with my stupid hp inkjet

Now with laser I'm at 1-2 cents per page (Not factoring cost of printer)

You can come up with almost any cost per page, even zero, if someone gives you the printer, paper, ink/toner and electricity, but quoting those as representative of actual cost for typical users isn't realistic.

In a commercial office environment with a large high volume laser printer printing b&w the cost per page can be as low as a couple pennies not counting the printer. There are no inkjets that are going to match a high volume laser for cost/page for consumables.

OTH, the home office is an entirely different game and unless someone gives you a high end laser printer with the toner and you have the room for it you're more likely to buy or use a home office category laser printer. Many of the makers of laser printers are also making inkjet printers and the business model is similar for both -- give away the printer and make bank on the supplies (ink/toner). So, the strategy is to provide smaller ink/toner carts for the cheaper printers and these smaller carts are more expensive per page.


Brian

 

[ViRGE]

Another vote for Inkjets dying in a fire. I replaced my OfficeJet with a Brother laser a couple of years ago and have never been so happy. The OfficeJet was always clogged or finding some other excuse to run through HP's expensive ink.

 

[irishScott]

Another vote for Inkjets dying in a fire. I replaced my OfficeJet with a Brother a couple of years ago and have never been so happy. The OfficeJet was always clogged or finding some other excuse to run through HP's expensive ink.

HP's have sucked for years. Brother is where it's at. Their ink cartridges are just pieces of plastic, so no ridiculous overpricing. http://www.swiftink.com/product-p/lc61combo.htm

My MFC-J220 has also never had a jam with basic Staples copy paper, despite being on the low end.

 

[VirtualLarry]

You can come up with almost any cost per page, even zero, if someone gives you the printer, paper, ink/toner and electricity, but quoting those as representative of actual cost for typical users isn't realistic.

In a commercial office environment with a large high volume laser printer printing b&w the cost per page can be as low as a couple pennies not counting the printer. There are no inkjets that are going to match a high volume laser for cost/page for consumables.

You should hang out at Fatwallet more. (Even though that place is a shell of it's former self, after the site buyout by Rakuten.)

Brother inkjet, before they chipped the carts, you can get individual carts (in bulk multi-packs) for under $2 ea.

Staples, used to give you $2 ea for spent inkjet carts, even generics. (Now you have to have a minimum spend on ink every 180 days, before you can make money recycling.)

Staples also has reams of paper for $0.01 after coupon and rebate, fairly often. Usually, it's limit 4. People on FW have filled their garages / spare rooms / etc. with free paper from Staples. Heck, some times, they'll even pay you to take it!

So,
1) Cheap but dependable printer, for $50-60 on sale
2) ink that pays for itself
3) paper that's free, or sometimes better than free

Some of us have been doing this for a while. So yes, inkjet printers CAN be cheaper than lasers, by far.

 

[QueBert]

I buy bulk ink for my Canon in 16 and sometimes 32oz bottles, if you buy it by the gallon and refill your own carts you can stomp all over toner prices, even if you re-manufacture them yourself. It is a lot of work since toners can print thousand of pages. But I got it down to where I can refill a cart in about a minute.

 

[tcsenter]

What happened to that 2007 promise of super fast, and affordable paper-width print head Memjet printer technology?
https://wwe.youtube.com/watch?v=i6Z7RqRH3QQ

+1

It's around in the professional volume printing markets. Expensive stuff still, hasn't filtered down to the consumer market.

 

[Mixolydian]

My recent inkjet purchase, an Epson WF-7620, is a large format printer that prints AND scans at 13x19 in color. Cost me $150. Is wifi. How much would a color laser printer that prints and scans at 13x19 cost?


Brian

I'd kill to have a scanner and/or printer that could do 11x17 or larger. But even a stand-alone is just so fucking expensive.

 

[Scooby Doo]

I'd kill to have a scanner and/or printer that could do 11x17 or larger. But even a stand-alone is just so fucking expensive.

How about 13*19? Keep an eye out for Canon Pro-100s, they put them on sale quite often (after rebate I paid $100 and I think they've even been lower). But it's not small! 2 feet long and weighs more than my color laser LOL.

 

[Brian Stirling]

I'd kill to have a scanner and/or printer that could do 11x17 or larger. But even a stand-alone is just so fucking expensive.

Yeah, if you want a large format scanner you either have to spend HUGE money or buy a large format printer with scanner. Not all large format printers have large format scanners so you have to verify that. But, if I wanted a scanner that can do 13x19, and I did, then buying the printer I did with large format scanner at 13x19 makes the cost of the printer almost zero. The scanner alone would be 3x that and wouldn't have a printer/copier capability.

So, I have a 8.5x11 laser printer with 8.5x11 scanner (Brother MFC-9840CDW) and now an Epson WF-7620 inkjet.


Brian

 

[Phoenix86]

Are there portable color laser printers? Powered from a battery and have bluetooth?

I'm sure there's some specific uses where a color hard copy is needed on the spot, but in general there are better solutions. Portable projectors for display, dropbox/email for communication, anything other than print.

 

[mmntech]

Another vote for Inkjets dying in a fire. I replaced my OfficeJet with a Brother laser a couple of years ago and have never been so happy. The OfficeJet was always clogged or finding some other excuse to run through HP's expensive ink.

I had an Epson one in high school that always used to clog. Dumped that for a laser as soon as I got into college. Can't imagine printing out 10 page papers with it.

Another good reason to dump the OfficeJet: those cheeky buggers at HP put DRM in the cartridges now. Won't let you use generic ink or get refills.

 

[MongGrel]

Another vote for Inkjets dying in a fire. I replaced my OfficeJet with a Brother laser a couple of years ago and have never been so happy. The OfficeJet was always clogged or finding some other excuse to run through HP's expensive ink.

I keep trying to tell the wife that, her mother bought her a wireless Inkjet awhile back, but it's a scanner also.

We do not really print out things too often at home so that wireless scanner works pretty well for what she wants if for.

I used to print things out but don't bother here these days I guess.

If I really had a need for one these days, I'd get a laser.

 

[ViRGE]

I keep trying to tell the wife that, her mother bought her a wireless Inkjet awhile back, but it's a scanner also.

We do not really print out things too often at home so that wireless scanner works pretty well for what she wants if for.

I used to print things out but don't bother here these days I guess.

If I really had a need for one these days, I'd get a laser.

I don't think Brother sells the specific model I bought anymore (DCP-7065DN), but it was a multi-function print/scan/copy device. It works great for all 3 tasks.

There's no need to have an inkjet, even for scanning capabilities. All it gets you is relatively cheap color printing.