Re: [gentoo-user] Picking out a printer. Questions.

[Rich Freeman]

On Sun, Apr 21, 2019 at 6:42 AM Mick <michaelkintzios@×××××.com> wrote:
>
> A laser printer is *much* more economical to run than inkjets.  The toner
> cartridges never dry out - with inkjet you often replace the ink before it has
> run out, because it has dried out.  Initially you pay more for a laser, but
> over the years you will recuperate your investment in lower running costs.

You will pay for it VERY quickly.  A good color laser costs $200.  An
inkjet plus the first set of cartridges, which will last six months
together, will cost you $100-150 (one way or another - either with a
cheap printer with super-expensive cartridges, or an expensive printer
with more reasonable cartridges).

There is a reason just about any company with professional IT uses
laser printers.  They're just way cheaper to operate long-term, and
really long-term works out to be something like a year.  They also
don't print photos (more on that below).

If you have a family then laser printers also are worth it for peace
of mind.  Inkjets are a maintenance nightmare, and they tend to
contribute to spouses becoming a maintenance nightmare.  They seem to
ALWAYS need unclogging or tweaking or whatever, and of course every
time you hit that clean button you can just feel money draining out of
your wallet.  A laser printer just needs to be fed new toner when a
cartridge empties, which is rare and takes two minutes.  Occasionally
they will jam, and usually the paper path is very easy to access and
clear.

> However, the quality of printing pictures is something you ought to check
> before you buy.  As a rule, inkjets with their liquid ink, print better colour
> pictures than a comparable laser.  Professional laser printers for thousands
> of dollars are better than what you're thinking of buying, but even then they
> won't match the colour flow and finish of a good quality inkjet.  So, consider
> your use case and go to a shop to try-before-you-buy, because a laser printer
> may not be your optimal choice.

If you care about photos, laser printers are useless.  So are "cheap"
inkjets, and they aren't cheap either.

If you care about photos I almost always tell people to just have them
printed commercially.  Walmart is just fine for what most people care
about, and their service will exceed the quality of any sub-$150-200
inkjet easily.  A better service will simply be unbeatable by any
reasonable home printer and will still be cheaper than most inkjet
solutions.

Now, if you print a LOT of photos then a higher-end inkjet might be a
worthwhile investment, especially if printing on demand is
commercially valuable for you.  The higher-end printers combined with
quality ink/paper can turn out a very good product and they're
reasonable economical to operate because the ink is cheap and there
probably are upwards of 10+ individual tanks in them, or they may
support bulk ink out of the box.  However, you have to print often
enough to go through a set of cartridges every six months or so,
because they still have a shelf life, and if you're throwing away 10%
used cartridges your cost per page goes WAY up.

And make no mistake, one way or another decent photos cost money to
print.  If you print high-volume with a good printer at home maybe
that $10 print online only costs $7-8 to DIY.  Photos go through a LOT
of ink.  When you see those stats about pages per cartridge they
generally assume 5% coverage, and a photo is 100% coverage, and of
course you have to use photo paper on top of that.  If you aren't
draining those cartridges completely before they dry up then your cost
goes up, and any savings evaporate.  They might be worth it for
convenience, but you're paying for it.

So, I would still generally advocate the laser printer for most
people, augmented by commercial photo printing when needed.  Also,
think about whether you REALLY need color - the complexity of the
printer goes up significantly with color and the cost to operate - a
monochrome laser will be much cheaper to operate.

Right now I'm at the point where I don't even have a working printer.
My postscript color laser needs a new image drum and I just can't see
one paying for itself.  I can print at work if I need to, or if I'm in
a hurry I can pay the outrageous $0.10/page at Staples (just email a
PDF to an address and you get an access code to print the document on
demand).  Since a good quality printer easily costs half that already
the break-even time to DIY would be quite long, though there is
certainly a convenience factor having a printer at home.  I just don't
have that compulsion to print stuff out.  If anything I do the reverse
- scanning any paper I'm given and shredding it.

--
Rich