Ink Cartridge Deals
Here is a guest post written by Terry Thin. I’ve used BubbleJets and what all. My current printer is an HP DeskJet. I’m sick to death of messing around with expensive ink cartridges. I just saw a printer at Walmart the same price as it’s ink cartridge! Some time back I saw a discussion somewhere about using color laser printers at home. It was said that even with the high cost of toner you could come out better than with ink carts. One recommendation was an HP 2550.
But I just read that you have to replace the drum every time you run out of toner - a proposition that costs almost as much as a new printer. Some said color laser was really poor quality (low resolution? bad color?) so don’t bother. The idea of a low end professional machine sounded good, but I’d like to hear more.
Guest reader, Daniel Davis responded with this message. I rarely advise people on which printer to buy in this forum because it is so difficult to understand their needs. However I don’t know who told you that the LJ2550 needs a new drum every toner change but that is not correct. The black cartridge has a life of 5000 pages (at 5% coverage), the colour cartrdiges come in two sizes 2000 and 4000 pages. The drum has a life of 20,000 pages (black only) and 5000 pages (colour only), average drum life is at least 7000 pages if you print a lot of colour otherwise much higher than that.
That is at least 2 sets of colour cartridges and probably more. Having said that, this is an old model and there are some newer printers that have a lower cost per page than this one but it will not be an entry level laser. As a general rule the more you pay for the printer the lower the cost per page over the printer’s life. New lasers have excellent colour output, not as good as the very best inkjets but getting close, they tend to produce a slightly glossy result on plain paper. You must only use paper that is designed for lasers or you risk serious damage to the printer.
There are some new inkjets that use high capacity cartridges and that are as fast as most colour lasers, these are in the mid to high end of the business inkjet ranges. Most of these are HP printers. Cost per page is comparable to or less than most laser printers. See the OfficeJet Pro K5400 for an idea. These have very long life heads that have a warranty period that exceeds the warranty on the printer. There is a lot of research to do but I hope this helps in your search.
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