Which Printer Should I Buy?

At last count, there were more than 300 brands of laser printers in the world. Six of those manufacturers sell over 90% of the printers and two manufacturers, alone, (HP and Lexmark) account for the lion's share of that 90%! It’s important to stay with a well-known brand. The major brands do a great deal of advertising and are typically available at a wide range of stores – local stores and mail order.

There is no "official" answer to that question, so we’ll help you decide which is right for you by first asking you a few questions. As a start, do you want to print in color or black and white? Just as important, if not more so, do you NEED to print in color, or is black and white a better choice? How many pages do you print per month? How many people are sharing the printer? Do you need to print on both sides of the page (the term is "duplex" printing)? Do you need to print pages larger than 8 1/2 inches by 11 inches? The answers to these fundamental questions will help define what machines you should be looking at.

The answer to that is as varied as the answer to the question, "How much does a car cost?" Of course, in general, the cost of a black and white printer is less than a color printer. So, from a cost standpoint, businesses (and many home offices) choose to print the majority of their documents in black and white. We’ve seen black and white laser printers sold for less than $99 and color laser printers continue to drop in price with many entry level models available for less than $500. As with anything, keep in mind you generally get what you pay for. A $300 color laser printer is not made for high-volume printing and could easily "eat you alive" in on-going toner costs.

Again, there is no "right" answer for everyone. Laser printers come in monochrome (black and white) and color. Even today, black and white is your best choice for business communications, invoices, packing lists, documentation, appraisals, legal documents and printing out copies of important documents to keep in a file. Color is best when you want to add some emphasis to your documents.

Owing in large part to the dramatic price drops apparent in entry level color machines, many people initially think of getting a color printer. But, in spite of those price drops, more black and white laser printers are sold than color machines by orders of magnitude. The biggest reason is that the cost of printing a black and white document is much less than printing a color document. And, if you’re printing many pages over a period of time, you’ll want to carefully evaluate the higher cost of color printing. Unfortunately, we have heard from many, many customers who bought a color laser printer because they "thought it would be cool" to be able to print in color, only to realize too late that a more durable, faster, b/w printer with much cheaper supplies would have been the far better choice.

Color printers not only require black toner plus to produce the image, but also need three different colors of toner to produce a color page. In addition, many color machines have separate toner cartridges and drum units so there is four of everything and that really adds to the cost of printing. Black and white laser printers require only black toner. The cost of a printed page is a minimum of four times what a black and white page costs. As an example, copy shops generally charge less than ten cents for a black and white copy. Color copies range from 40 cents to a dollar or more. You’ll generally experience a four to ten times higher cost per page for color printing (with your color laser printer) than you will for a black and white printer. So, do you really need or want color? Probably not.

The artificially low cost of most printers (thanks to the manufacturer's desire to "lock you in" to the need to feed their machine with their toner, even if it means losing money on the printer when it is first sold) is just one of the costs you’ll incur over the life of the printer. You have to feed your printer with paper, toner, and for many color printers, other expensive consumables, drum units, transfer belts, etc.. So, the bottom line? The more you print, the more you pay in paper, toner and consumables costs, so the cost of printing goes up. More importantly, if the cost of the toner and possibly other consumables is more expensive for one printer over the other, the overall cost per printed page is higher.

It’s really rather easy to predict with a good deal of accuracy. Here is one bit of real-world advice based on our more than twenty years in the toner and toner cartridge remanufacturing business. The number of pages you will get from your cartridge will NEVER be as high as the manufacturer claims. And, your total cost per page will ALWAYS be higher than you were lead to believe by their estimates. Take the initial cost of the printer and then research the cost of the replacement toner plus the other consumables the machine might need. Take the number of pages you think you’ll print in a month and figure out how much toner and other consumables you will need in a year. You can arrive at those numbers by dividing the cost of the toner and possibly other consumables by the number of pages those items are estimated by the manufacturer to print. So, in a one year period, for example, you may find your consumables cost will cost you $1000 for one printer (let's say a color machine) and only $200 for a different brand or model (let's say black and white). It can and most likely will be a big difference in price between color and b/w machines. The manufacturers aren't stupid, they know with complete certainty that you are unlikely to dump a machine just because it is expensive to "keep fed", so on the newest, slickest, most "whiz bang" color machines, the cost of the consumables is sky high.

One great option you have for the vast majority of the most popular brands and models is to refill your own toner cartridge with "RIY" (refill-it-yourself) toner refill kits. These kits allow you to significantly reduce the overall cost of ownership of your printer while getting the same performance you get with a replacement toner cartridge. When purchasing a printer, look for a brand and model that you can refill. You can go to TonerRefillKits or www.rechargx.com to see if the machine(s) you are considering have less expensive toner refill kits available for them. Locate the exact toner refill kit for your specific brand and model. Compare the cost of the toner refill kits to the price of a replacement toner cartridge. The cost savings are dramatic, with most people reporting an average savings of 70% for b/w machines and a bit lower for color.

Using the numbers you calculated for the number of times you would need to buy consumables per year the savings are considerable. Here's a quick example. You print approximately 5,000 pages a month. Each cartridge is "estimated" by the manufacturer to produce 6,000 pages. Being a bit more conservative, you will most likely need a toner cartridge per month. For this machine, a replacement toner cartridge costs almost $100 and the ReChargX TonerRefillKits costs $30. In a year, you would spend $1,200 for replacement toner cartridges and only $300 with the toner refill kits. The cost of ownership of that printer is now much lower and you have saved $700. We are estimating the cartridge will have to be replaced either with a new one or one of our EmptyX low cost alternatives a few times per year and even with that number factored in, the savings is substantial.

When you buy a new printer, it almost always comes with the toner included. That's the good news. The bad news is, manufacturers generally include a limited “starter” toner cartridge with a machine. This starter cartridge is designed (through a reduced amount of toner and/or other means) to print fewer than half of the copies the more expensive "real" (non-starter) toner cartridge the manufacturer would like you to buy when you need toner produces. Typically, you’ll see something on the box to indicate that the initial printer will print let’s say 3,000 pages but a regular toner cartridge will print 6,000 (sometimes even more). Or, the box may say something like “comes with a starter cartridge.” Though many starter cartridges are easily refilled, you should check the cross reference pages to determine if you'll need to purchase one of the standard toner cartridges if your machine comes with a starter cartridge that can't be refilled. You may want to choose a machine that comes with a standard toner cartridge.Iin general, the more expensive the printer, the more likely it is they include a standard, non-starter cartridge with it.

This is the key question for you to ask when you are evaluating printers and easy to answer by visiting the web sites of the office superstores where the vast majority of users buy their toner. How much will it cost for you to get the replacement cartridge when you get the “toner low” message? Are toner refill kits available? How much are the toner refill kits?

If you opt for toner refill kits instead of an expensive brand-name, brand-new toner cartridge, the overall cost of ownership of that printer is going to be markedly lower. We always recommend looking at brands and models that can be refilled using toner refill kits.

Some printers and their cartridges are designed by the manufacturer to prevent you from printing more copies even when there is toner left in the cartridge to force you to have to buy an expensive toner cartridge. The printer communicates with a chip on the toner cartridge. Once the set number of pages "dialed in" to that chip printer is reached, the printer will not print more pages even if there is toner left. Though becoming quite commonplace, we think this is a very bad practice for several reasons:

1. It hurts consumers. Though you paid for every spec of toner in the cartridge, you are prevented from using it all. Generally when the chip says, "Time to buy more toner", there is toner left in the cartridge. You could (should) be able to print more, but the manufacturer wants to force you to buy an expensive toner cartridge.

2. It hurts the environment. What is the largest ingredient in the manufacturer of toner and toner cartridges? Plastic. Where does plastic come from? Petroleum. Have you seen the price of oil lately? When the cartridge killer chip shuts your cartridge down prematurely (before all of the toner is used up), you don’t need another toner cartridge. You simply need to turn off this killer chip so you can use up the toner. By forcing you to buy another toner cartridge, they’re wasting precious natural resources and wasting your precious financial resources. And, where do you think most of these killed cartridges wind up? In our dwindling landfills.

Killer chips are often programmed to prevent you from easily refilling your own toner cartridge with toner. Our recommendation is to avoid machines that make it difficult for you to refill the toner yourself.

There are many machines on the market with these killer chips and more are appearing on the market, much to our dismay. We believe any machine that prevents freedom of choice in choosing the type of supplies you purchase is not a good thing. You'll end up spending more money in the long run when you figure the price of the printer plus the ongoing cost of supplies.

In general, the cheaper the price on the printer, the cheaper the printer. This doesn't mean they don't have a place, it just isn't likely to be a machine you want to have your business or your office depend on. While one printer may be advertised for $99, you might find that the cost of toner is much higher than a printer that initially sells for $199 or even more. Over the time you own that printer, you may spend much more with the $99 printer than you might spend with the $199 printer. The cost of the consumables may be more expensive for the bargain printer. Over the period of time you own the printer, you may be paying much more per page with one printer than another.

While warranties are important, getting the correct machine in the first place is far more important. Also, buying a printer from a really well-known firm known for its predominance in the printer business is far more likely to give you a machine than will most likely never need service under warranty than buying a machine that only has a low "sticker price" will. It also is worth buying from a store that is an authorized dealer for that brand of printer. Typically, you’ll find warranties ranging from 90 days to one year or more. Some stores sell extended service contracts. But, our experience with literally hundreds of thousands of customers in more than twenty years of toner and toner cartridge remanufacturing has shown us the best brands are among the most reliable machines out there and you will probably find the warranty never an issue.