need a printer for low volume printing.

[gsaldivar]

an ink jet printer can print in color for even less than a monochrome laser

Color inkjet prints for less than $0.002 cents a page?

 

[Lemon law]

Color inkjet prints for less than $0.002 cents a page?

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In a word yes, I have costed it out. But that is for a standard A4 plain paper mixed color page, and not photo printing which some inkjets can deliver for about a penny a page using refill inks. As you memtion most prosumer lasers can print that same page using the same plain paper print for about two cents of consumables.

Some more expensive office type lasers can get that down to about a penny a page. But if I want to buy refill inks in gallon lots, I can do monochrome ink jet prints for a 1/3 of a cent of consumable ink costs per page.

So now you ask, if inkjet technology can beat Laser technology on costs, why don't inkjets rule the market?

And that answer is rather simple, inkjet printer makers would rather rip off the consumer and if the consumers buy their rip offs, why should inkjet technology be consumer friendly.

99.99% of consumers are too lazy to learn how to save huge money on inkjets, and until the consumer demands better, they will continue to get ripped off.

Not hard to understand at all.

When inkjet printer makers can make ink for $30.00 a gallon and vend it in cartridge form for $2500 to $15,000 a gallon, that is a rip off that would tempt even the most sainted.

 

[gsaldivar]

Wait... 1200dpi laser $0.002 = 1/5 of a cent vs. 1/3 of a cent for your gallon technique.. How is that cheaper?

That's not even refilling on the laser, that's for cartridges with brand new drums. The cost goes lower than 1/5 of a cent if you want to really want to bother with the refill mess...

There is also the time consideration. You can probably print an entire case of paper on a midrange laser printer in the same time it takes you to print a single ream on an inkjet. Time = money?

Frankly, I don't think it's possible for any inkjet to beat laser on cost. Yes, all consumables markets are about a company seeking to recover the bulk of its development and overhead costs through consumer dependence on supplies. It's the oldest game in the book.

 

[Lemon law]

Wait... 1200dpi laser $0.002 = 1/5 of a cent vs. 1/3 of a cent for your gallon technique.. How is that cheaper?

That's not even refilling on the laser, that's for refurb cartridges with brand new drums. The cost goes lower than 1/5 of a cent if you want to really want to bother with the refill mess...

There is also the time consideration. You can probably print an entire case of paper on a midrange laser printer in the same time it takes you to print a single ream on an inkjet. Time = money?

Frankly, I don't think it's possible for any inkjet to beat laser on cost. Yes, all consumables markets are about a company seeking to recover the bulk of its development and overhead costs through consumer dependence on supplies. It's the oldest game in the book.

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First of all, you are incorrect, most prosumer lasers weigh in at 2 cents a page consumable costs, I have no idea where you come up with a 1/5 a cents page. Yes it may be possible to refill laser printers and slash costs, but the skill level is far higher than refilling a Canon Cartridge. Nor do I buy ink in gallon lots, four ounce and eight ounce lots of refill ink don't cost much more with all colors costing about the same. And unlike inkjet cartridges, Laser printer cartridges have moving parts that wear out, and if those are not maintained, the resultant refill is worthless. A frequent complaint when consumers buy refilled aftermarket
Laser toner cartriges on line.

But you are 100% right on one point, for most of business printer output, color does not matter, and when time equals money, a laser printer will spit out pages way way faster than any inkjet even in low quality draft mode. Watching a inkjet printer printing is every bit as exciting as watching paint dry. But for the low printing volume of the average consumer, that time does not equal money, especially since they can say print and do other things meanwhile.

But you miss another thing meanwhile, I do not bad mouth Laser printing technology in any way. Its a technology I use and I am thrilled with my brother 7820N.

What I bitch about is the the fact that inkjet printers do not deliver the economy that their technology has the potential to deliver because of rip off manufacters And the blame, in my mind is a combination of rip off vendors and ignorant consumers unwilling to demand better.

The other thing to point out, any time we have competing technologies able to do much of the same things, one technology will be better at certain things and worse at other things, but given the fact that printers are realively inexpensive, I find its best to have both technology options rather than choosing one or the other.

 

[gsaldivar]

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First of all, you are incorrect, most prosumer lasers weigh in at 2 cents a page consumable costs, I have no idea where you come up with a 1/5 a cents page.

I never said "prosumer", but I did mention the HP 4000 series previously in this thread. High quality, fast as hell, cheap as hell, reliable as hell, and widely available.

http://cgi.ebay.com/Toner-C4127X-27.../300429011414?pt=BI_Toner&hash=item45f2f6e9d6

~$24.95 / 10,000 pages = ~1/5 of a cent per page

If you're worried about parts wearing out, maintenance kits and most other parts are also dirt cheap for this printer:

http://cgi.ebay.com/Maintenance-Rol...59?pt=Printer_Accessories&hash=item4aa4486b93

~$20.00 / every 200,000 pages = ~1/100 of a cent per page!!

 

[gsaldivar]

printers do not deliver the economy that their technology has the potential to deliver because of rip off manufacters And the blame, in my mind is a combination of rip off vendors and ignorant consumers unwilling to demand better.

I totally agree. In my opinion, the printer companies are trying to extract far too much profit from consumables, trying to lock consumers into their brand through the use of chipped cartridges and other countermeasures, and by trying to sell shiny new printers with clearly inferior workmanship and quality than the old printers made a decade ago (planned obsolescence!!!).

For these reason I'm a big advocate of buying refurbished and simply sourcing consumables from resellers like eBay. Once you find a good seller, just stick with them.

What will ultimately change the game is money. Not a bunch of people complaining about the price of ink... If enough people vote with their pocketbook AGAINST buying any of the new crap printers with chipped ink cartridges, they may start to think twice about taking that revenue for granted...

 

[Lemon law]

To gsaldivar,

I am quite impressed with your linked in HP 4000 series laser printer, sadly now discontinued. Nor could I use it out of the box, because it lacks USB connectivity.
I could buy an add in card to add either a parallel port or another Ethernet port, but most modern computers now ship with only one ethernet port and no parallel port.

But I should point out that the HP4000 series Laser was quite pricey when new and does not fall in the prosumer laser class with typical toner cartridge page yields in the 2500-4000 page yield range.

Nor does the HP 4000 series seem to have what I really need, namely faxing and scanning capacity. Nor am I a high volume laser printer, given the fact I am still going on the same original toner cartridge that came with my brother 7820N I bought used many years ago.

But I definitely think your link may have greatly helped anyone who needs high volume laser printing capacity. And I did do the other bit of checking, it looks like HP has kept supporting the 4000N with drivers for most OS's up to and including windows 7 32/64 bit. Even though the original drivers were for win 95.