Will a laserjet serve me better than an inkjet?

[RobCur]

90 percent of all inket printer is completely crap imho, i really like a b/w laserprinter but it's so damn expensive

 

[0roo0roo]

well decent ones can be had for 120~ range now. refurbs are cheaper

 

[Boogak]

I went exclusivley to a laser printer a couple of years ago and I'll never go back to a slow arse inkjet printer. Your print habits sounds like mine, I only print once in a while - either directions or rebate forms usually and I've never had a problem with the laser printer gumming up, misaligning, or anything. I'm still on my first toner cartridge too.

 

[erichbf]

The neat thing here is that you can be very economical and environmentally responsible at the same time. I bought a used HP IIIP for about $70 about three years ago, and it does great for B&W printing. Save the old printer from the land fill, and get cheap but good B&W printing. The IIIP is a much smaller footprint version, DON'T get just the plain laserjet III. Mine is rated at 300 dpi but it has PCL5 and it looks much sharper than most plain old 300 dpi.

 

[bupkus]

It seems today that 600 dpi is about as low as you can go.

 

[wseyller]

First of all you need to look at how much your printing to determine whether a laser will be cheaper.

If your printing very little then stick with a cheap crappy inkjet. If your printing a high amount of pages and going through ink once a month then I would consider a laser. The last thing you want to look at to get the best value is the cost of the printer. The reason that the printer manufacturers can sell you a brand new inkjet for $25 is because they want to draw you in. They make nothing from the new printer they sold you when you first bought it. It fact they probably lost money. They know your gonna need ink for that printer when it runs out you have to buy cartridges that sometimes cost more than the printer. They make their money on the consumable they sell you.

To find the cheaper solution you need to look at price per page. This means the average amount of money you spent on ink per page.

For example an HP 1200 toner cartridge C7115A at an anticipated yield of 2,500 pages at 5% lets say the price is $65(staples price). Price per page is $0.026

For example an HP 1200 toner cartridge C7115X at an anticipated yield of 3,500 pages at 5% lets say the price is $82(staples price). Price per page is $0.0234

Not much difference there but a little cheaper for the high yield cartridge.

Now let's look at the more heavy duty printers.

For example an HP 8100 toner cartridge C4182X at an anticipated yield of 20,000 pages at 5% lets say the price is $200(staples price). Price per page is $0.01

You can see that this printer prints many pages but we know this isn't a printer for the home. Sometimes even a desktop version like the HP1200 isn't suitable for someone who prints very little. Most people would think " $200 for a printer cartridge that's expensive". If your have a good sized business and print alot your going to be better off with a large format laser printer.


Lets look at an inkjet.

For example a real common cartridge the C6615DN used in the Deskjet 810C and many other HP inkjets. Staples price was $30. Yield is advertised as 495 pages. Price per page is $0.06 which is almost 3 times the cost of the Laserjet HP1200. This is if we were only printing black.

The color cartridge. We will use the C6578DN. Staples price is $35. Yield is advertized as 450 pages. Price per page is $0.077

So in conclusion if you print alot, you don't care for color paying almost 3 times less for toner cartridges as opposed to ink, laser printer don't sound so expensive.

 

[BFG10K]

Lasers are far faster. cheaper and reliable in the long run.

 

[0roo0roo]

Originally posted by: wseyller
First of all you need to look at how much your printing to determine whether a laser will be cheaper.

If your printing very little then stick with a cheap crappy inkjet. If your printing a high amount of pages and going through ink once a month then I would consider a laser. The last thing you want to look at to get the best value is the cost of the printer. The reason that the printer manufacturers can sell you a brand new inkjet for $25 is because they want to draw you in. They make nothing from the new printer they sold you when you first bought it. It fact they probably lost money. They know your gonna need ink for that printer when it runs out you have to buy cartridges that sometimes cost more than the printer. They make their money on the consumable they sell you.

To find the cheaper solution you need to look at price per page. This means the average amount of money you spent on ink per page.

For example an HP 1200 toner cartridge C7115A at an anticipated yield of 2,500 pages at 5% lets say the price is $65(staples price). Price per page is $0.026

For example an HP 1200 toner cartridge C7115X at an anticipated yield of 3,500 pages at 5% lets say the price is $82(staples price). Price per page is $0.0234

Not much difference there but a little cheaper for the high yield cartridge.

Now let's look at the more heavy duty printers.

For example an HP 8100 toner cartridge C4182X at an anticipated yield of 20,000 pages at 5% lets say the price is $200(staples price). Price per page is $0.01

You can see that this printer prints many pages but we know this isn't a printer for the home. Sometimes even a desktop version like the HP1200 isn't suitable for someone who prints very little. Most people would think " $200 for a printer cartridge that's expensive". If your have a good sized business and print alot your going to be better off with a large format laser printer.


Lets look at an inkjet.

For example a real common cartridge the C6615DN used in the Deskjet 810C and many other HP inkjets. Staples price was $30. Yield is advertised as 495 pages. Price per page is $0.06 which is almost 3 times the cost of the Laserjet HP1200. This is if we were only printing black.

The color cartridge. We will use the C6578DN. Staples price is $35. Yield is advertized as 450 pages. Price per page is $0.077

So in conclusion if you print alot, you don't care for color paying almost 3 times less for toner cartridges as opposed to ink, laser printer don't sound so expensive.

kewl

don't forget photo inks.. even more

 

[wseyller]

Originally posted by: BFG10K
Lasers are far faster. cheaper and reliable in the long run.

This is correct for the most part. Laser printers currently on the market run any where from approx. 12 to 50 ppm (pages per minute). These printers are very reliable, and most are pretty tough. I used to work on HP and Lexmark laser printer and parts are easy to obtain and are reasonable (Lexmark is a little high). Maintence kits for these printers are available to change at certain page intervals which normally includes the fuser unit, paper pickup roller, separations pads, and the transfer roller. Inkjet parts are hard to obtain sometimes in that sometimes you have to change entire assemblies to get just a single part. I remember once a latch broke off that hold the ink cartridge in place. I found out that to replace the latch, I had to replace the entire cartridge assembly that cost about $150. The printer new cost less. I've seen logic boards costing $400. So depending on the part you better hope when you bring a printer in to be fixed or maintained that it only needs a cleaning which I have to agree is what's needed more than half the time. I probably have every model of HP and Lexmark, IBM and a few other niche laser printers, some of the older ones that have lasted a long time while small amount of maintenance. There are still many HP Laserjet series II out there, which those printers are about 20 years years old. You will do good for an inkjet to last 3 to 5 years. But if you want to print nice photo's then inkjets are the way to go.

 

[RobCur]

nice photo's f0r pron? lmao