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Cost per page

Is there a chart or scale which shows the best guess as to the cost per page of printing with different printers. Also inkjet vs laser?
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Yes, one of the things many people forget about inkjets is the amount of ink they use in cleaning. This includes not just the manual cleans to unclog missing jets, but also the hidden one that is performed automatically every time you switch it on. You can empty the cartridges without ever printing anything, just by turning the printer on repeatedly.

Of course a colour inkjet costs a LOT more to print than a mono laser, but then a colour laser also costs a lot more, even if you're only printing B&W. Down under, a typical B&W text page from a B&W laser costs 2.5 cents, compared to a "typical" colour laser page of 20 cents. On a colour laser the B&W text page will set you back around 4 cents.

My experience with Epson is better than #5764's I find them about the best if you want good photo quality - maybe I just never encountered a dud.
I agree with wastage problem in ink jet cleaning cycles - very wasteful. We found that on our Epson photo 1200 we can only get about 160 pages out of an ink cartridge - irrespective of who makes it. The true Epson cartridge costs about £15 so about 10p/sheet (plus the cost of the black cartridge - say about £6 so it's actually over 10p/sheet. We can't do without a colour printer at home so we're stuck with it as it's cheaper to use it rather than buy a brand new colour laser printer - however cheap!

Using clone cartridges certainly reduces the cost ratio to about 4:1 and is worth doing even if you get the odd dud cartridge.
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guynumber5764

hd...could well be that you do a lot more colour printing than I do.  Plenty of exercise keeps your jets young and supple.

pat...as long as you do enough colour printing to keep the nozzles from drying out it may be worthwhile to buy a B/W laser as well--they've gotten ridiculously cheap.   OTOH, it sounds like Epson is are a lot cheaper over there:  A jobber black tank is about cdn$15 here in BC.
guynumber5764 - You're quite right about the laser option. We came to that conclusion so I bought a Brother HL-1450. It works at about 11 ppm and so is much better at capturing web pages quickly. If we want it in colour we can then print specific pages on th eEpson phot 1200. The Brother HL-1450 is also much better and faster for formal letters etc. Cheaper and smarter.

Try http://www.inkraider.com/ for inexpensive clone cartridges. They've been OK for me and they are about 30% of the cost of the real McCoy.

If you want a high volume B&W or colour option, checkout the Ricoh range of MFPs
the Image Quality and cost per page is significantly better than most standalone Lasers
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