Medium Use Multi-Function Laser Printer

[Brian Stirling]

I'm researching the purchase of a new multi-function laser printer for work and would like some suggestions. I may have to go with a B&W one but would also like to see the options for a color one. Here's is what I expect we'll need:

1. About 1000-5000 sheets per month of text and drawings

2. Must have a scanner of at least 8.5x11

3. Color would be nice but cost is important

4. Cost per page is real important


So, how do HP and Canon compare? What about the other makers? What can I expect the cost for OEM toner carts and how many pages per cart?


Thanks,

Brian

 

[ecom]

What is your price range?

Do you need to print 11x17?

At work we are mostly using Xerox machines. I've noticed that the newer HPs don't seem to hold up as well as the older ones.

In most situations, adding color printing capability will increase B&W cost per page also. For example: For letter size document Xerox Phaser 5550 is a B&W 11x17 laser will print b&w pages at less than 1c per page but Phaser 7500 color 11x17 laser is around 2c per page for b&w page.

 

[Brian Stirling]

Thanks ECOM. My boss is looking at a lower price, more like $200, than a decent laser so it looks like I'm going to have to go with an inkjet. Also, since the printer will have to travel to different work locations around the country I don't think I can plan on after-market refill so the lowest OEM ink based system seems the way to go. I could be wrong but doesn't Kodak have the lowest cost OEM ink cost per page for both B&W and color?

I'd like to know if the new ESP Office 6150 is available or will be soon as I have a pretty immediate need (ie next week). What I'd like, in addition to the things I mentioned yesterday, is to know how practical the wifi feature is on these printers. I need to provide access to this printer for upwards of a dozen or more techs so being able to give them the driver/software disk to install the drivers and software and then be able to print without a cable would be very helpful.


Brian

 

[ecom]

For home use, within the last month, I purchased a refurbed Brother MFC-8670DN laser AIO from Staples for $175 after rebate. I should have waited a few weeks because they have another promo going on right now and it can be bought for $125!!

Print speed when duplexing is ~15 pages (sides) per minute not the 30 ppm they claim, but I haven't printer single sided so I cannot verify it.

It came with a refurb toner that's good for 3100 pages (90% of new standard cartridge) and there is a high capacity 7000 page cartridge available. I see on amazon that the 7k one is $68. But this printer also has a separate drum good for 25k pages and I see that for $130. Cost per page (assuming u replace the drum) will be 1.4c or 0.9c if not.

You do need to give them a broken printer to recycle for $50 discount to make that price happen. I found a broken inkjet on Craigslist for the discount.

$300 - $50 recycle a printer promotion - $50 rebate - $50 promo discount (not sure when this ends) - $25 coupon from Internet

If your organization can purchase this way (mine cannot) definitely consider this; I doubt you can get anything better at this price point.

Costco store nearby has a very similar unit for $400 new with a high capacity toner.

 

[Lemon law]

To Brian Stirling,

What ever you do, don't call your boss an idiot, but please tell your boss that I think he is an idiot if he ever thinks buying an ink jet will save any money with the 1000-5000 pages you print every month. Maybe if you refill and can find one of the few remaining Canon printer that take the BCI-3&6 cartridges on ebay, you could beat a laser on economy. But with kind of printing volume, you are going to spend a long time waiting for the printer to print.

But if you use OEM inkjet cartridges, your boss will have a busted budget trying to feed that no armed bandit. And by the end of month three, your boss will probably have
more money wasted on ink than it would take to buy an expensive color laser.

That Laser deal Econ got sounds very good. Its better than my All in one brother laser in terms of price per page, but my laser printing volume is low, and yours is fairly high.

 

[sgaliger]

Listen to Lemon Law! Any printing above 1000 pp a month will kill you with an inkjet. There's a reason HP sells its inkjets so cheap--they make far more money on the cartridges and they eat them like mad. Get a laser, any extra cost will be more than made up by the lower cartridge cost.

 

[Brian Stirling]

No, I wouldn't call my boss an idiot because the cost control edict comes way higher up the food chain. Often times the bean counter mindset is counter productive as it pushes you to make short term purchases that are bad in the long term.

Well, that is thankfully moot as I was able to pickup a Brother MFC-9120CN for $349. I would have preferred wireless but I think I can rig that with a wirelless router. The 9120 may not be the cheapest for consumables and it is LED not laser, but it will be half the cost in the long run over the inkjet I was using and it is MUCH faster...


Brian

 

[Lemon law]

Ok, Brain Stirling you some how won and will make your boss look good. Short term, what econ advocated would have saved you an initial $200, but over the years, that initial extra cost will amount to not much.

In short, you could have done better, but thankfully you did not do much much worse.

But as the Admiral said to Jimmy Carter, why not the best?

 

[Brian Stirling]

Ok, Brain Stirling you some how won and will make your boss look good. Short term, what econ advocated would have saved you an initial $200, but over the years, that initial extra cost will amount to not much.

In short, you could have done better, but thankfully you did not do much much worse.

But as the Admiral said to Jimmy Carter, why not the best?

Well the laser printer that ECON mentioned is only black and for our needs we need color. I expect the ratio to be about 65% black and 35% color or maybe a bit more color. No laser, or LED for that mater is going to compete with a good inkjet for photo color, but my company doesn't need photo quality. What we do need is to be able to print AutoCAD drawings in color. We have a larger format inkjet (HP 1220C) for many of the AutoCAD drawings but we still do plenty of AutoCAD drawings at 8.5x11.

Now, I really would have liked wifi capabilities and may wind up buying a wifi router to do so but given the economic situation (we've laid off quite a few in the last year) and the edict from on high to curb spending, I couldn't justify the $100 additional for the wifi model color laser/LED.


Brian

 

[ecom]

Ok, Brain Stirling you some how won and will make your boss look good. Short term, what econ advocated would have saved you an initial $200, but over the years, that initial extra cost will amount to not much.

In short, you could have done better, but thankfully you did not do much much worse.

But as the Admiral said to Jimmy Carter, why not the best?

That suggestion would have saved up to $200 but may not be possible in many businesses because of what you have to go through to buy it. In the long run, the cost per page on the 9120 is roughly 2 times higher for b&w prints. But in the original post, he did make it sound as if color was not an absolute requirement.

For the 9120 based on Amazon's current pricing, $48, for a 2200 page toner, it's approximately 2.9c per b&w page if the drum ($106) is changed every 15000 pages or 2.2c without drum changes. Compare that with the 1.4c and 0.9c that I mentioned earlier.

My math is like this:
(15/2.2 * 48 + 106) / 15000 = 2.888c

Given the short yield of the toners and your rate of consumption up to 5000 pages per month, you may want to pick up a few spares.

Another consideration is that of labor. If these toner carts have to be switched out 2 to 3 times a month, it will also be an expense because it requires you or other staff to take time to change it rather than doing their primary tasks.

I convinced my organization to spend $300 more initially for a more expensive printer because the toner lasted about twice as long. But also based on usage stats from the dying printer, the lower cost per page would make the printer less expensive (initial cost plus consumables) after 2.5 to 3 years not including the labor required to change out consumables. Also the printer had duplexer so there is there is less paper use making it more green -- generally good reasoning for my organization.

The restrictions Brian has are a bit unrealistic. For 5000 pages a month, I personally would not buy that one I suggested -- I was trying to stay within his price restrictions mostly. The MFC-9120 has a recommended monthly print volume up to 1500 pages which barely meets his 1000 to 5000 page per month requirement. Hopefully the printer does last a while because it doesn't seem stout for the environment where it is to be used.

If it breaks down sooner than expected, it could be a good thing because it can be used to argue with the the bean counters to get more money to buy a more robust printer.

 

[Brian Stirling]

The 9120 is listed as having a 25,000 "maximum monthly duty cycle" with a "recommended monthly print volume" of 300-1500. I estimate the actual volume is likely to be 1000-2000 with short term needs of about 1000 a week. I'm able to handle the volume with the MP160 and it's nearly 3 years old with a total page count at about 25,000 so I would hope the 9120 would be able to handle 2000/month or less.

I fully appreciate that when you get a lower cost laser/LED that does both black and color the cart sizes will be smaller and the cost per page will be higher -- not much I can do about that given the need for color.

For the mix of black and color documents I expect to print the cost per page for ink/toner should wind up being less than $0.06/page versus over $0.12/page for the same mix using the inkjet I'm now using (Canon MP160) so the cost per page will be half that of the inkjet and the payoff period will be about 3-5 months!

If we had an appreciably greater monthly volume, say 10,000/month, I'd look to have a dedicated black laser with $0.015/page as well as a color laser that's a class or so higher than the 9120 I now have. If we did any high quality photo work I'd go with a dedicated photo inkjet. But, our monthly volume is not there and I do have to stay within the budget constraints the bean counters impose.


Brian