Photocopiers and printers: The cost of colour
Do we really need colour printers?
Now with the growing range and reduced prices of laser printers it is tempting to buy a colour laser for the home or office. They can be a great piece of equipment, but do you need a colour machine? If you are thinking of purchasing a new colour laser printer, there are some important factors to consider.
Colour printers use four different toner cartridges – 3 colour and 1 black cartridge. Therefore the cost of toner replacement is more expensive than that of a black and white laser printer. Also, take note that colour printers will use more consumables than a black and white printer which increases the running cost a lot.
Making a choice to spend more when selecting colour printers can save you money. As a general rule, the more expensive printers have lesser running costs than, the smaller less expensive printers. A higher end colour printer can represent better value for money if you do a high volume of colour printing.
The Right Colour Machine For You
When deciding which colour printer to purchase here are the important questions you need to answer first.
How many pages per month do you print? It is important to match the monthly duty cycle to your printer requirements. If you chose a printer which is too small, you will have reliability problems and most likely be paying too much on consumables.
Colour quality? Do you want standard business colour, or do you need high-quality graphic printing? The business colour is general office documents in colour, for example, graphs, proposals and basic presentations. Graphic colour would be for promotional material such as advertising, brochures and photographs. Choosing business colour can quite often reduce the purchase price.
Running costs? Most colour printers work out around 14 cents per page or less. Be aware that this is not the case for the super cheap colour printers which can be as high as 45 cents per page. These printers are sold cheaply by the manufacturer in the hope of recovering costs by the purchases of consumables. Cost per page is based on 20% of the page being covered with toner, unlike 5% which is used for black & white. If you intend to print a lot of black and white, we recommend a second mono laser printer.