We have a new home-office up and running, and have discovered that the Lexmark X75 just cannot produce enough copies cheap enough.

We estimate we need to print @ 5000 pages annually; the Lexmark can only print @ 250 before needing a new ink cartridge. Went to Office Depot and looked at a couple of larger printers for @ $600.00, but we would like to get a better sense of what alternatives there may be before making the purchase.

Thanks in advance,


Billy

 

Unless you need color, a copier using toner will be substantially cheaper to operate than one using ink cartridges. Ours came from office depot or max three or four years ago and has been plenty dependable. I seem to remember that it was about $600.

 

It happens that we were also at Office Depot looking at copiers in the $600.00 range. Also, we came to the conclusion that "toner" was cheaper than cartridges.

The problem came when we tried to compare two different brands, because we could not get a way to measure the "per copy" cost between printers.

You had to look at how much toner costs for this one, and how many copies do you get for that amount, and compare to another copier's toner cost and how many copies IT can produce. We thought we had a handle on this, and then they (the Office Depot Sales Manager) introduced the issue of Drum Replacement.





THEN, after all that got discussed, apparantly there is some kind of "overall" rating. (my eyes got droopy at this point, as the caffiene was wearing off...) This rating scale involves something like "15,000" (copies per year).

As I understood it, it was a means of measuring the "heavy-dutyness" of the copier. But this also felt fairly ambiguous, so I didn't try too hard to pay attention.

JMC, do you mind giving me your make & model for your copier, as well as your opinion of it ? How long have you had it, how reliable is it, how much does it cost to print (per copy seems simplest to understand). How often does the toner & drum need changing.

Most importantly, if you had to do it all over again, would you buy the same copier, or is there a copier you SHOULD have purcahsed.

(This one keeps me awake at night....)

Anyways, thanks for your response, and thanks in advance for whatever help or advice you may be willing to share.


Billy

 

I'm not in the office today and I won't be back there until Monday, so I'll check then. Off the top of my head I know it's a Canon and I think the model is PC1050. I've never figured out a per copy cost. We buy toner in remanufactured cartridges and have never had any problems with the machine or the toner cartridges. This machine has kind of an odd feature - it keeps track of how many times you've pushed the start button to make copies, but not of how many copies have actually been made. I seem to remember talking to someone about it recently and we estimated that we had made something like 25,000 copies with it. We have never replaced the drum and the salesman who sold it to us said it was a disposable machine - the cost to fix it would exceed the cost to replace it. Old copy machines needed lots of work and even came with service contracts, but at least in this price range, they're now disposable. I'll post back again after I check the machine on Monday.

 

OK, it's a Canon PC1060. We have hit the copy button 7395 times. If the average job was 5 copies, that means we've made more than 35,000 copies on the machine. We have had it since December, 2001, so a little under 10,000 copies a year. We haven't been keeping track long enough, but it seems like we're putting less than two toner cartridges a year in it (the one in it now was installed 4-8-05) at about $90 per cartridge. No problems whatsoever.

 

Thanks JMC for the help. I read your post right after you posted it, but didn't reply because I wanted to go research your copier. It appears it is not being manufactured anymore.

We're looking at a model by Brother. The differentiating factor in the "all in one" copiers is if the "All" includes a FAX. (Some do not have them, and having one is critical for us.)

Also, the $600.00 range copiers seem to be "cheaper" in the sense that they are at the very low-end of the scale (and so quality and durability are low).

We've taken much of what you have said to heart, particularly the issue of the "disposable" nature of copiers at this price range. After a lot of mathematical contortions regarding drum & toner cost, we've decided that over a period of @ 4 to 5 years, any differences in costs will be negligible. (The most extreme variation worked out to be about $100.00 over a 4 year period.)

So we have decided to make our decision based on criteria other than the cost for toner & drum replacement. Any other help or advice you may have would be much appreciated, & thanks again.

Billy

 

You've put much more work into this decision than I ever did, so you've probably exhausted my usefulness. The only thing I have left to offer is the idea that some people do not like all in one machines because it means you replace everything if one thing breaks.