Printer Research

[Favu]

OK, so I am sat in college and I have to research A4 mono laser printers and make a report recommending a particular one.

The scenario is that there are two small offices that that only have colour printers and print jobs are taking too long so they are loosing money and annoying clients by making them wait. Anyhow since I have no real info on lasers I figured I might as well ask you guys if you have ever actually had to buy laser printers for something like this or if there are any that you can recommend.

TIA!

[dsio]

You need Robbie. That man can fix a printer just by glaring at it, and knows his stuff well. Serious.

[danrok]

It would need to be a shared printer with LAN port and built-in print server. These are now very affordable to small businesses.

In general, the less you pay for the printer, the more expensive consumables will be.

So, if a lot of printing needs to be done, you'll want to work out the cost of toner per page and see which printer works out cheaper.

[robbie]

Need my help?

[Gizmo]

Originally Posted by danrok

It would need to be a shared printer with LAN port and built-in print server. These are now very affordable to small businesses.

In general, the less you pay for the printer, the more expensive consumables will be.

So, if a lot of printing needs to be done, you'll want to work out the cost of toner per page and see which printer works out cheaper.

Something else I've noticed is that cheap printers have a much shorter expected print life than more expensive ones. The $199 laser printer may have a print life of only 1000 pages, whereas the $1999 laser printer with the same specs may have a print life of 30,000 pages.

If you only print a couple pages/day, then the $199 printer may make more sense, but if you print 200 pages/day, well, you get the idea.

[Favu]

Originally Posted by robbie

Need my help?

Yeah that would be awesome.

I have to give the report including a bunch of models they could have and printing costs and lifetimes and such, then I must recommend one that they should actually buy.

basically as they have two smallish offices, so I was looking at some networked mono lasers around the 500 - 1000 GBP range. Thing is it's damn hard to find any decent reviews or models etc. The websites sort of work off you know what you want, here is some more info on that model, which is annoying.

so, umm yeah, if you could give me some actual advice and models and stuff to consider it would be damn awesome!

ty for replying also everyone else!

[danrok]

Originally Posted by gizmo

Something else I've noticed is that cheap printers have a much shorter expected print life than more expensive ones. The $199 laser printer may have a print life of only 1000 pages, whereas the $1999 laser printer with the same specs may have a print life of 30,000 pages.

If you only print a couple pages/day, then the $199 printer may make more sense, but if you print 200 pages/day, well, you get the idea.

Do you mean the drum life?

My colour laser was quite cheap. The drum is good for 20,000 pages, but does cost about £100 to replace. The cost of that can be easily overlooked, it is effectively a consumable same as the toner.

Natrually the replacement drum is going to be quite expensive for cheap printers. It's another item which they can claw back a profit on.

[Gizmo]

Originally Posted by danrok

Do you mean the drum life?

Yeah, the drum life is what I as thinking of.

Originally Posted by danrok

Natrually the replacement drum is going to be quite expensive for cheap printers. It's another item which they can claw back a profit on.

Yeah, I've seen a couple of the cheap printers where the drum was half the cost of a new printer!

[robbie]

How many people are in the office that this printer is going to replace?

[Favu]

Irritatingly the scenario doesn't specify the number of people in each office, just that it is a "small buisness" with two offices. Hazarding a guess I would say that there are no more than 20 people in each office.

thanks for any help you can give robbie

[danrok]

A small business in Europe is 50 employees or less.

[kellamne]

Originally Posted by danrok

A small business in Europe is 50 employees or less.

Just to add, see:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Small_a...ium_enterprise

Anyway - Not sure what course you are doing but you may also want to look at other factors:

See: BATNEEC - Best available technique not entailing excessive cost
- which is used in quality/environmental management systems.

Alternatives to printing - e.g. receiving faxes to a low spec or receptionists pc etc.

Also printing needs of the company:
Plotting, A3, A4, Colour etc.

Networking printers (as mentioned previously)

Printer settings - defaulting to long edge, duplexing etc.

Cost of outsourcing specialist printing (posters etc) to external companies.

Sorry if this goes beyond the scope of what your doing - but if a company was going for ISO14001, or doing planning/engineering etc - these are things they would consider.

[Favu]

Heh, it does go a little beyond, but that's cool, it can't hurt!

Alternatives to printing : I've considered recommending them to get pre-printed letterheads and such because it should save time and money, while looking good.

Printing needs of the company: they need to print A4 mono

Networking: they have a network at each office, so a networked printer is the way to go.

Printer settings: I reckon I would be able to sell duplexing, but printing to the long edge isn't needed - the printer will just be used for letters and invoices.

Ty for the help.

[Samuknow]

Remember that there are plenty of external network devices that work great and are very easy to setup . This would create a uniform network setup with many makes of printers....

[robbie]

Duplex is a nice "feature" but probably a waste of money for what you guys do. I'm sure you have a copier that can do that.

It use to be getting a printer with a "nic" was an added expense, now adays it's usually included. Hell wireless is usually built into these things now.

[Favu]

Righty, well, I reckon that if I give them one networked mono printer for each office, it should be enough. I don't think duplex is really needed, although it might make it easier to "sell" a printer in the report I must write.

Can you recommend any models?