www.binfo.co.uk
magazine
30
Inkjet
vs Laser
In its most recent reports on printer
and MFP sales in the US andWestern
Europe, InfoTrends states that business
inkjet sales rose by 13.9% in the US
and by 4.7% inWestern Europe.
It defnes a ‘business inkjet’ as a
product designed primarily for business
applications that has at least three of the
following features:
• standard network connectivity;
• paper capacity of at least 250 sheets;
• additional paper capacity or paper
handling features (e.g. duplex);
• high capacity ink tanks; and
• a low cost per page compared to
typical consumer-class inkjets.
For many years, inkjets were deemed to
be unsuitable for business use because of
their slow print speeds, limited fnishing
options and high running costs.
Yet it is equally true that they have
qualities that make them an attractive
option in certain environments, especially
small and home offces: they are silent
when not printing; they don’t emit heat;
they consume much less energy than
laser printers – as much as 80% less when
printing; and they are versatile, capable of
printing at higher resolutions onto a wider
range of substrates than laser printers.
On the downside, print quality on
standard uncoated printer/copier paper is
often inferior to laser output (prints can
have a faded appearance); duplex printing
can be slow if the printer has to wait for
ink to dry before printing on the other side
of the page; there can be showthrough
when printing on both sides; and purchase
prices are high by inkjet standards.
The last point is a major break with
the past when inkjet printers were sold
James Goulding makes the case for business inkjets
Turning the tableS
cheaply with all the proft coming from
ink sales. In contrast, business inkjets
have a realistic hardware price and cheap
consumables, giving a lower – in some
cases, much lower – cost per page than
laser devices within the same price range.
Cheap to run
Take Lexmark’s Professional Series. As
Business Info
readers are already aware,
these devices have a cost per mono page
of less than 1p (a 105XL cartridge has a
list price of £4.99 and a capacity of 510
pages). This is great value, especially when
you think that a cartridge costs just £4.99
– a tiny outlay compared to the cost of a
laser cartridge and a big attraction where
cashfow is a consideration.
The most recent addition to Lexmark’s
Pro series, the Pinnacle Pro colour
four-in-one device has a print speed for
normal output of 16 pages per minute
B&W and 10ppm colour; Ethernet, USB
and wireless network connectivity; a
customisable colour touchscreen display;
web connectivity; a 50-page automatic
document feeder (ADF); and a 5-year
warranty. Its main limitation – a big
one for business users – is the lack of
automatic two-sided printing.
A Pinnacle Pro costs £239.99 ex VAT
from online reseller Printerbase. A high
capacity black cartridge costs £3.72 (ex
VAT) for a mono cost per page of 0.73p
(all prices are ex VAT). The cyan, magenta
and yellow cartridges cost £14.34 each.
With a capacity of 600 pages, this works
out at 2.39p per page. Adding the cost
of each of the colour cartridges and the
black cartridge together gives you a cost
per colour page of 7.7p (3 x 2.39 + 0.73).
Lexmark’s pricing is skewed very
much for business users whose output
HP OJ Pro 8500A
is predominantly mono. Colour output
is cheaper than comparable lasers (see
below) but is more expensive than other
business inkjets.
HP’s range of business inkjets offers
better value if colour output is important.
The HP OJ Pro 8500A e-AiO series has
print speeds of up to 15/11 pages per
minute (mono/colour); built-in Ethernet
and wireless networking; web connectivity;
ePrint capability; and automatic two-sided
printing. It has a list price of £213-255,
but at the time of writing was available
from Printerbase for around £203.
Its colour running costs are
signifcantly lower than Lexmark’s. A mono
page costs 0.85p (at Printerbase’s prices),
while a colour ones costs just 3.49p.
How they compare to laser
The big question, though, is how these
costs compare to laser devices in the
same price range with broadly similar
specifcations. For the purposes of
comparison, lets look at the running costs
of HP’s new A4 colour laser MFP – the
HP Laserjet Pro 100 CM175nw. This has
similar functionality and is marginally
cheaper to buy, costing £200.30 (ex VAT),
but is much more expensive to run.
The cost per black and white page
is 3.33p only slightly less than the cost
of a colour page printed on the HP OJ
Pro 8500A. The colour cost per page is a
massive 15.43p – that’s four times more
than the 8500A.
For many
years,
inkjets were
deemed
to be
unsuitable
for business
use...
Conclusion
The suspicion with which business
buyers view inkjet devices is
thoroughly justifed based on past
performance and running costs.
However, things have moved on
and today Epson, HP and Lexmark
supply inkjet models with similar
performance and much lower
running costs than laser devices
in the same price range. Print
quality on standard paper doesn’t
have the high impact, glossy look
and feel of much laser output and
there are still problems caused by
the liquid nature of ink, including
slow duplex printing speeds (on
some models), but for printing
internal and low value documents
or for use in the home, where
versatility is important, business
inkjets are better value and in
many ways superior to entry-level
laser devices.