Laser printers the real cost is the toner, but we worked out a canon that was only about 100 and it was cheaper per page than all the ink jet solutions we had found. Not sure this is still the case.

Sure, but you would save money across the board on refills so my argument still stands. You HAVE to consider total cost of ownership with printers or you can loose serious money.

At the place that I used to work they spent $90,000 on purchasing toner for 15 printers because the accountant made us buy the "cheap" printer. And to make matters worse the printers completely died about about a year and a half they were purchased. The classrooms that were using the better printers that we wanted to buy ran those printers for a decade or more with little to no problems.

That's of course an extreme example on printers that were being heavily used, but it still matters on lower usage printers.

Brian Cluff

On 01/25/2016 06:55 PM, Tom Roche wrote:

Brian Cluff [1]

Most of the [laser] printers I was pricing had toner cartridges that cost about $50-$70 each.

But that's for *new* cartridges, no? IIUC, after the initial purchase most folks just refill the cartridges for much cheaper. If you can't afford any downtime, just buy 2 cartridges, so you can have one at the refiller.

Best advice I got on this subject was: before you buy a laser printer, ask the folks @ the nearest refiller (or wherever you plan to have it done) how much it costs to refill the cartridge and how reliable the refills are. Some cartridges refill easily, others are apparently engineered to resist--some manufacturers apparently low-ball printer prices to "make it back" on the consumables.

FWIW, Tom Roche <Tom_Roche@pobox.com>

[1]: http://lists.phxlinux.org/lurker/message/20160125.181622.655295ca.en.html
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