5 questions to ask BEFORE buying a new printer

5 questions to ask BEFORE buying a new printer was a google alert I received the other day. I took a peek to see what someone else had to say about printers or MFP's. Headlining the article was

Essential home-office equipment for the accounting and finance professional

The article was targeted for Accountants and Finance Professionals

Here's the 5 points that he spoke about, I'll follow with rebuttal:

Here are some key questions to ask yourself:

1)  Is most of your printing producing monochrome (black & white) output? If so, an inexpensive mono laser printer might be the best choice. These are available in the $100 range, and have great looking output as well as fast print speed. Black and white printers.

These $100 printers will cost a small fortune to keep them running, it's estimated

that a $100 laser printer can have a monochrome per page cost as high as 5 cents a page depending upon the make and model of the unit. Plus the fact, that if the system does break the cost to fix will be more than the printer, and off to the municipal landfill goes another printer.

2)  Does your typical output include color graphics? A color inkjet printer is affordable, and fine for proofing. For this use, an inexpensive inkjet in the under $75 range is perfect. Color inkjet printers

Ah, inkjet printers, the person writing the article is a CPA. The printer maybe inexpensive, and depending on page coverage of ink, these inexpensive printers can cost as much as seventy cents per page. Plus, most of these printers incorporate a tri-color ink cartridge. What that means is that there are three colors of ink in one cartridge, so if the blue expires, you have to trash the entire ink cartridge and get another. If you are printing only 100 color pages a month. Your cost $75 printer could cost you $70 a month in supplies or more!

It's late and I'm not going to get into the other points. The main point I'd like to make is that yes these printers are inexpensive to buy. However printer manufactures lose money to sell these printers so they can make millions of dollars on the ink and toner cartridges.

Do your self a favor when buying a printer, whether it's color or monochrome. Spend the extra money for a more expensive and larger printer as long as you have the space. Spending a $1,000 now will save you a ton of cash. Think of it this way, you spend $75 per month on ink cartridges for 5 years, after 5 years you will have spent $4,500 and probably another $300 on four more printers (because they won't last).

When you invest in a commercial laser printer, you will have a lower per page cost. In most cases a $1,000 color laser printer will have a per page cost of about .18 cents per page. The cost to make a 100 pages is $18.00, your 5 year cost for toner cartridges would be $1,080, plus the investment of the printer. Your total cost is $2,080 compared to $4,800. That's a savings of almost $3,000 over 5 years. Plus you will get 5 years out of your $1,000 investment.

I just thought that since this article was written by an accountant for accountants that they should have focused not merely on the cost of the printer, but the cost per page.

-=Good Selling=-