Multifunction Printers: Inkjet CIS vs Laser

[lazy_prodigy]

Hi everybody,

I am wanting to get a new printer. I will use it mostly for school lecture notes, so lots of B&W text and a color diagram about once a week. I have read about CISSs and know they work quite well if you actually do get them to work. But I am also debating about laser printers. They have high yields per toner.

What do you guys recommend (in general)? TIA.

 

[IGExpandingPanda]

Hi everybody,

I am wanting to get a new printer. I will use it mostly for school lecture notes, so lots of B&W text and a color diagram about once a week. I have read about CISSs and know they work quite well if you actually do get them to work. But I am also debating about laser printers. They have high yields per toner.

What do you guys recommend (in general)? TIA.

I crunched the numbers a while back. Don't think of this as a trully accurate example.

Let's presume the Brother TN460 cartridge or HL-1240 engine
about 6000 page yield per cartridge
220 grams of toner = about 2 refills or about 12,000 pages. $60 is reasonable for 4 such bottles. or 48,000p
.13c/page

Add to that the cost of the drum (dr400) which is about a 20000 page yield. Amazon has it for $50 but let's presume $50 and $150.
.25c/page - .75c/page
Total 0.38 to .88/page Costs will be lower or higher depending on where you get your consumables.


Presuming Canon ip4500, which has a yield of there and about of 20pages/ml
inksupply.com has it for $10 per 4oz or 118.29ml, about 2365.8 pages.
.42c/page
The printhead is rated at about 10,000 pages, and costs about $50. That's mixed color and black printing, about 1/2 of it text, but 20+ cartridge changes are not unusual on a given head.
.5c/page

0.92c/page.

There would be an additional .7c/page if you were to buy OEM PGI-5BK tanks @ 16 each with page yield of 525 & about 4 refills per unit. There will be additional costs for color ink, and color waste if you don't actually use it.

In this example, laser wins in terms of raw cost.

 

[lazy_prodigy]

So do you recommend buying lasers that use the Brother TN460 cartridge or HL-1240 engine and the Canon ip4500 inket?

 

[IGExpandingPanda]

So do you recommend buying lasers that use the Brother TN460 cartridge or HL-1240 engine and the Canon ip4500 inket?

I have no idea what your needs are beyond volume. I was just pulling two examples out of my hat. I'm a little out of date on laser printers, but I know the Brother B&W units are reasonable in price, and easy enough to refill. Without a doubt cheaper to operate and without a doubt higher quality text than an inkjet.

I'll have more details on a cheap CIS on an Epson 1280 tomorrow, but given your relativly low

The canon ip4500, you can't really buy anymore. They switched to the ip4600 which takes newer smaller cartridges, and there is no chip resetter for it. You can buy the multifunction version, the mp610 for $80 on Amazon.com
http://www.amazon.com/Canon-Pixma-I...1?ie=UTF8&s=electronics&qid=1228988596&sr=8-1 Chip resetters are about $30ish. You can get away without using one, but have to disable the printer's onboard meter. It's recommended you have one. CD printing is optional if you order the tray from some guy on ebay. They run about $20 shipped or so.

I only have direct experience with the ip5200 and mp830, but text has not changed in about 10 years for Canon, and it's always been pretty good.

There is also the mp530 for $100 also on Amazon. It has a sheet feeder, but a smaller printhead and is missing the medium sized nozzles canon added to the ip4500. It'll take a performance hit for that. This printer is based on the ip4200.

 

[websnail]

I can well imagine why IGEP has given just a couple of examples because trying to do a proper comparison between everything is a nightmare of biblical proportions (actually worse!). That said the examples given have a couple of drawbacks.

1. Canon Pixma printers have a number of inherent design limitations or "quirks" that make them rather tricky to install CIS kits in successfully without some pain.

2. Most page coverage information is inherently lies, damn lies and well stats created by the marketing department so you have to take it with a pinch of salt. What you do need to remember that in most cases the stats used to be 5% coverage so 6000 pages usually translates to around 5000 page of full page text or 500 full page pictures.

3. The brother laser is a mono output which is generally cheaper whereas the iP4500 is a colour printer so there's really no comparison. The colour is always going to lose out, especially when you start getting into colour lasers, they cost a fortune!



For my own recommendation if you really are only doing a small amount of colour my suggestion would be to go with a mono laser for the bulk of your printing needs because it really can keep your costs down and then decide just how important your colour printing is.

If you're only going to print a small amount of colour every week then you want to think long and hard about the likelihood of clogging and to that end you want to forget about Epson durabrite printers like the DX7400 or similar.. Dyebase is definitely going to be the way forward...

Thinking about it some more I'd forget about a CIS for a Canon and look for an MP610, a chip resetter (redsetter or similar) and get to grips with the joys of refilling. The investment in time spent learning how will be rewarded in reduced costs and refilling has none of the issues associated with CIS installation/maintenance on the Canons.

Definitely avoid the whole iP4600/ MP620 line though because as IGEP pointed out the cartridges are small, no resetters and they aren't actually a step up (more like the other way round).


So to recap...

I'd say go with a mono laser for the bulk of your stuff and if you really want colour with multifunction I'd grab an MP610 and learn to refill rather than get a CIS or if you are getting a CIS then get one with excellent support (you'll need it).