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Member Since 1987 |
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Letters to the Editor Continued
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Do you have a breakdown of estimated costs per sheet, or per thousand sheets, or something like that with which to compare operating costs of the printers you review and sell? If not, do you know where I might find such a comparative analysis?
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Thanks for any help!
Peter |
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Thanks for the question. Cost per page is a question we get a lot. Cost per page is very hard to gage in the real world because cost-per-page is based on page coverage, colors used, resolution, and paper thickness (OPC Drum life affected by paper thickness). Bottom line is that there is no absolute cost-per-page in the real world. One page may cost you $0.14 based on your analysis of page coverage and the next page may cost $0.40 becasue of higher coverage and saturation. The only way to compare printers is to use the manufacturers rated life of consumables that is based on 5% coverage. This at least will give you a way to see what the toner will cost at a fixed page coverage so that you may compare different printers. For example, a printer may have these supplies and rated yields:
| Black Toner |
$45.00 |
approx. 8,500 prints with 5% coverage |
$.005 per page |
| Cyan Toner |
$145.00 |
approx. 6,000 prints with 5% coverage |
$.024 per page |
| Magenta Toner |
$145.00 |
approx. 6,000 prints with 5% coverage |
$.024 per page |
| Yellow Toner |
$145.00 |
approx. 6,000 prints with 5% coverage |
$.024 per page |
| OPC Drum |
$349.00 |
approx. 30,000 pages continuous use |
$.0116 per page |
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We can then say that a color, letter size page, with 20% coverage ( 5% each of four colors), on this printer would be about 9 cents. This example did not take into account standard maintenance items like the "Fuser" which would get replaced about every 60,000 pages. Add an additional 3 cents per page. This method allows you to compare printers to each other. Another competing color laser printer may be slightly higher or lower but ultimately your real cost per page is very application dependent. Increasing the degree of dificulty are variables like high and low capacity toners for the same printer, service, printing in B&W, and media used.
The bottom line is that you can't really predict very accurately what the cost per page will be on a specific printer on any given page. The most accurate measurement is an analysis once a job has already been printed. Our typical color laser printer customers average about 14 cents per page. This does not include cost of paper paper.
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