Inkjet Vs laser

Colour laser technology is the Holy Grail of office printing and hardware purchase prices are now so competitive that it has come within reach of most businesses and many families. But, are we rejecting inkjet technology too quickly and for the wrong reasons? Peter Maude of CharisCo Limited [ www.charisco.com ] argues that people's objections to inkjet printers are based on prejudice not hard facts.

However, it must also be said that the equation changes when factoring in maintenance costs, and when considering the business environment where volumes are much in excess of the 1,000 pages monthly quoted here. In such environments, the total cost equation alters significantly. For volumes above 1000 pages per month consideration should be given to larger MFD products as the Total Cost of Ownership (TCO) favours these devices at higher volumes

To discuss your own circumstances and requirements, call Officemagic today on 0870 111 0710

The Article

Colour laser is a very attractive technology for a variety of reasons: text is crisp; business graphics are vibrant; printing is quiet; and print speeds are high - even multifunction machines costing only £250 (ex VAT) are capable of printing at 8ppm in colour.

Inkjet on the other hand is unattractive because text is ragged; colours in business graphics are washed out; printing is noisy; and print speeds are slow - normal print speeds rarely exceed 3ppm .... or so the perception goes.

It would be difficult to enter into a full analysis of these positions without taking up an entire magazine, but consider these pointers:

• Pigment inks are capable of producing text and business graphics that are of near-laser quality. This means that to the naked eye, at normal viewing distances, print quality is more than adequate for general-purpose business printing on plain paper.
• Ink technology has advanced so much over the last decade that business graphics do not have to look washed out. It has long been accepted that inkjet technology is best for printing high quality glossy photos, so if we are looking to produce in-house marketing material, even if laser technology is now much better at printing photographs than it used to be, inkjet may still be better.
• In recent tests, we have measured noise pressure from one of the best inkjet printers and found it was as much as 24dBA lower than a colour laser! With every 6dBA representing double the volume, this 24dBA extra sound pressure from the laser device means that it is 16x noisier than the inkjet!
• Inkjet printing technology in general has advanced so much that we are now seeing print speeds in draft mode as high as 40ppm (black printing). Printing office documents in draft mode is not likely to satisfy many business users - even if the pages do appear at the rate of 40ppm. However, there are inkjet printers on the market, designed for business use where print speed at correspondence quality is claimed to be as high as 10ppm in mono and 12ppm in colour.

The Deciding Factor

If we are prepared to accept the premise that we can achieve equivalent print quality at an equivalent print speed and that noise is not an issue, we are left with Total Cost of Printing as the deciding factor.

For the sake of direct comparison, we will illustrate the point with products from Hewlett-Packard because it has a wide product range and because it is the market leader.

We have chosen four machines to demonstrate how the Cost of Printing dynamics work and to illustrate where much of the misunderstanding over the cost of inkjet printing has come from.

The basic comparison is between the HP Office]et Pro L7580 and the HP Colour LaserJet CM1017 MFP. These two machines are broadly comparable in specification, though the Officejet Pro does have a higher print speed than the laser device and fax functionality.

We have added the Officejet Pro L7780 into the equation because it offers an additional 350-sheet paper feed and auto-duplex capability at a purchase price that is only a little higher than the laser device.

Check out the figures - they are compelling! The more expensive, higher specification Officejet Pro L7780 is up to 50% less costly to run over three years than the Colour LaserJet CM1017 MFP. Yet the cheap and slow Deskjet F2180 costs as much as 77% more than the laser device.

Note: Light use is 250 pages per month; Heavy use is 1,000 pages per month. The total expenditure over three years shown in the table is calculated on the basis of 70% pages in mono and 30% pages in colour; is based on the use of maximum capacity supplies where available; takes into account any standard, or starter, supplies shipped with the device; and also includes the cost of purchase. All prices are street prices without tax and are from a single source.

A full version of this article is available at >> http://www.tcpblogal.com/total-cost-of-printing/people-say-colour-laser-is-cheaper-than-colour-inkjet-true-or-false/

Peter Maude is director of CharisCo Limited (CharisCo Printer Labs), an independent research house, consultancy and test lab that offers software, data services and management reports, together with independent research and testing capabilities to help cut through the uncertainty surrounding the total cost of ownership (TCO) of print devices. For more information on its services please visit www.charisco.com or call 01442 231321.

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