Tech Talk - The Price of Print

Not all that long ago, computer printers were like old style telex machines as seen in the recent movie ‘Tinker, Tailor, Soldier Spy’. These rather noisy ‘line printers’ cost several thousand euros each while the ink cartridges they used cost just a few euro. Today, the opposite is the case, with high quality, affordable printers available from as little as €49 while a full set of ink cartridges cost more than the printer itself! What does this mean for the consumer? Read on.

Paper, paper, everywhere…

With the advent of the first personal computers, there was much talk of the ‘Paperless Office’. A couple of decades on and we have even more paper on our desks than ever before! The urge to print it out and read it later is just too great and, with more and more information available to us, the temptation is to print it out and read it later is often too great! With the advent of ebook readers and tablet computers, perhaps this will change, however paper printouts are more popular than ever.

Home/small office printing

For affordable printing in the home, you can’t beat the Inkjet printer for superb functionality, quality and value. Take the HP Officejet 6500 Plus at €169 incl VAT. It provides print, copy and scan with wireless printing and Duplex (double sided) as standard. Don’t try printing too many photos however. While it can produce lovely prints, the cost per print can be very high. Do try printing in ‘draft mode, as this provides perfectly legible prints at over three times the speed! This printer is very economical, with separate colour ink cartridges, so you only have to replace what you use. Each cartridge will print about 800 pages, perfect for modest usage.

Mid-large sized office printing

The Inkjet range of printers is not very suitable when it comes to high volume printing requirements (several thousand per month). The best option for business are laser printers, which have a far higher duty cycle (maximum number of prints per month) and bigger cartridges (called toners). Take the OKI MC561dn at €649 + VAT. It’s a fantastic multi-function printer with up to 26 pages per minute in colour and print, copy, scan and fax as standard. With each toner printing up to 5,000 pages, it has a much lower cost-per-sheet than the Inkjet printer. 

The future of print

With such demand on the printed word and in an effort to get the cost of printing under control, the industry trend is towards Managed Print Services. In this model, the printers are provided for free and the business just pays for what they print (cost-per-sheet). If a printer breaks down, it is simply replaced and the business does not have to bear any of the capital or maintenance costs. All in all, a bit of a win-win and I’m sure this trend will continue into the future.

Eamon is a director with Command IT, a Galway based IT services company. See www.commandit.ie. If you have any questions for Eamon or topics you would like to see featured, please email techtalk@galwayindependent.com.