Often people buy printers without consideration of the on-costs such as consumables. Sure it is great to by the latest and greatest printer with the fastest print speed, wireless access, or colour LCD screen but before you commit to any printer purchase you should carefully consider the total cost of ownership of your printer.
As a general rule of thumb the lower end inkjet printers are the most expensive to run. This is in part because the duty cycle on the printer is much lower and also because the cost of the ink cartridges are much higher.
When buying a printer consider what it is you will be printing and how often. Look at the specification of the printer to determine the recommended duty cycle of the printer. Most manufacturers give the duty cycle as a pages per month number. So in cheaper printers it could be as low as 500 pages per month and on higher end hardware this number can often be north of 100,000 pages per month! As a general guide looking at the warrantee period and multiplying that by the recommended duty cycle will provide a baseline of the life of the printer. For example, a printer with a 12 month warrantee and a life cycle of 10,000 pages per month has a 120,000 page life, as a baseline. Of course, it is common for some printers to last well over the baseline before problems are encountered.
As all regular printer users know the cost of ink cartridges can really mount up. Although some recommend ink cartridge refills these are both detrimental to the quality of your printer, your printer life, and the warrantee of your machine. When considering laser printers take the cost of the toner and the drum and divide by the manufacturers recommended life for these consumables. Ink jet cartridges use the same principle; however, you may need to apply it to many different cartridge types inside your printer.
To calculate the total cost of ownership add up the hardware cost per page and the ink consumable cost per pages. It goes without saying the lower the cost per page the cheaper the total cost of ownership will be.
For most home users who print out 15-20 pages of text and a few photos a week the total cost of ownership will be less important. But if you’re a heavy user it may well pay to upgrade your printer to lower the cost per page. So next time your printer is up for replacement do some quick sums to check if that slightly more expensive printer will pay for itself in the short term. Not only will it have better features and give you better prints but it could save a few bucks for you too!
Source: http://www.ArticlePros.com/author.php?Sean Norris
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