Printers: the hidden costs

Replacing the toner or cartridge in a laser printer can cost you over 40 per cent of the purchase price while, for some inkjet printers, cartridge (black and colour) costs can be nearly 70 per cent.

The hidden costs of laser printing are the consumables (toner, drum units and, on some printers, replaceable parts), maintenance and support, as well as the cost of paper and electricity.

Don't assume a printer that's inexpensive to buy will be cheap to run. IBM-sponsored research claims that supplies and service can cost you eight times as much as the printer over five years.

The common impression is that running costs on inkjet printers are much higher than for laser printers. In fact, the average costs for inkjets are higher than the average costs for lasers, but the two price bands do overlap.

You also need to consider the operating range over which you make the comparison. Print duty cycles for inkjet printers tend to be lower than for laser printers, while duty cycles for typical inkjets range from 1,000 to 5,000 printed pages per month compared to 8,000 to 15,000 pages printed per month for our review group of 12 laser printers.

Although manufacturers don't generally quote lifetime page counts for inkjets, you can expect most laser printers to last for 100,000 pages and a typical inkjet for around 30,000.

While eight of the printers we looked at have costs per page of less than 1.5p, the HP LaserJet 1000W and Lexmark E210 laser printers are both more expensive to run than some inkjet printers, at 2.28p and 3.25p per page, respectively.

Both have relatively expensive, low-capacity combined toner and drum cartridges and the Lexmark cartridge is by far the most expensive out of our review group. Oddly, though, HP and Lexmark inkjet printers are among the most economical to run.

Calculating how much a printer costs to run isn't easy, even when the manufacturers quote how many pages you can expect from a toner unit or cartridge.

The printed pages won't be the 'standard' five per cent of the standard monochrome letter reference page or 15 per cent of the reference colour page. Some companies calculate coverage based on the printable area, rather than the whole A4 page, giving an artificially high page count.

Start by checking the page count when you look at the price of toner and ink: many toner cartridges will only last for 1,000 to 3,000 pages and 6,000-page toner units can be more economical.

Compatible and remanufactured cartridges might yield fewer pages than new own-brand consumables and you could void any warrantee on the printer by using them.

On a laser printer, check for combined or separate drum and toner. Although combined cartridges are perhaps easier to change, they tend to cost more per page and print fewer pages between changes. On the other hand, changing a long-life drum can be expensive.

There are other ways of saving on print costs as well. For instance, look for a printer than can shrink your document to fit two, four or more pages on a single sheet or handle double-sided printing.

Some models offer toner or ink-saving modes for draft documents: you'll be able to print more pages, but check the quality and readability.

One area where inkjet printers do save money is electricity costs: inkjets use up to 90 per cent less energy than lasers. Because we tend to leave printers switched on all the time look for Energy Star-compliant printers, which use less electricity in sleep mode.

With both types of printers, maintenance costs can be high. Even for a small company support costs, such as time spent clearing paper jams and troubleshooting problems, can be high.

While it's impossible to calculate these costs accurately, Lexmark estimates that over half of its helpdesk calls are about printer problems so, if you intend to connect your printer to a network, look for network administration options, clear controls and easy-to-clear paper paths.

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