Categories
Musings

Inkjet Printer vs Champagne

  1. Ever wondered why there are no monochrome (black ink only) inkjet printers? You cannot print a simple B&W document from a printer if the color cartridge is empty/missing?
  2. Most inkjet printers have a water-based ink (that is more expensive than champagne) and will dry after 3-6 months irrespective of how little you used them.
  3. Did you know that most printers have an auto cleanup program that squirts out a good deal of ink every time you power it on? What’s worse that if you did not power it on for a month, the ink-nozzle might get clogged irreversibly.
  4. Earlier you had a provision to manually refill the ink. But now most companies have sensors-chips in place and have sealed the cartridge to prevent any re-usability/recycling.

Essentially, like a drug dealer, the printer is shipped for free and the dealer makes money from the repeat business. It does not matter whether you use your printer or not. Your printer will sip Champagne every day and make you pay of the full bottle. Cheers!
A basic HP/Cannon printer costs less than 2000/-, but I need 550/- for a black cartridge and another 450/- for a tri-color cartridge which expire every six months. So 1st year total cost of ownership is 2,900/- (assuming I replace the demo cartridge after 6 months). After two years the printer warranty will expire and you will develop paper jam/mechanical issues that need constant intervention of service engineer. Why do we tolerate this highway robbery?
Airline boarding pass, tax forms and maybe a few articles that I wanted to file would define my printing needs. Like most people, I need an occasional printer and a realm of A4 pages turn yellow before they are consumed. There is a print store not more than 500m away and my personal printer is the price of luxury. But how much should I shell?
Today I was contemplating buying a laser printer instead. Pros:

  1. It uses a powder toner rather than water based ink. Hence no risk of drying/clogging
  2. Laser printers are monochrome (at least the personal ones are) which means only one consumable to store and refill.
  3. Designed for heavy use and one 500 bucks cartridge lasts more than 700 pages compared to less than 100 pages (if your ink does not dry first)

Cons:

  1. They are bulky and cost almost two-three times more (although I found a good Ricoh basic laser printer for 3.4k) but it has no fancy stuff that color, photography, scanning, fax or wi-fi that you expect from a inkjet of the same cost.
  2. No color printing to indulge in occasional pleasures.
  3. These heavy machines take 5 minutes to boot and are designed for mass printing
  4. They are not portable and no wi-fi connectivity for mobile printing
  5. There are designed for offices that print 100s of pages each day not for somebody that prints a page a month.
  6. If you get the toner refill wrong, your hands, clothes, window drapes and carpet might pay for your folly.

Essentially I am looking for simple printer that has low cost of ownership. A dot matrix printer with a much finer print quality would be sufficient. Is there no company that understands my need and can meet it? Am I not a big enough market segment?

6 replies on “Inkjet Printer vs Champagne”

No they dont care …. but xerox wala does
Local xerox guys 2 bucks a print these days and even accept email attachments for printing if u have a setting with him as they say…
Any hardware guy knows that the cos sell both inkjet and laser printers at loss with demo cartridges, ie
1. 2 black and one color cartridges generally cost more than a printer…
2. The inkjet is programmed as u pointed out to waste ink at every restart , the ink sensors are programmed to sense empty cartridges very early …
3. You can completely clean clogged nozzles with boiling water … try it sometime or you tube it
I have recovered dead cartridges
4. Inkjets are unreliable and can give weird errors … which go like Cartridge not detected / cartridge not installed properly especially if the humidity levels are high
5. Now get this : the best Canon and HP printer used to share the same canon cartridge 88A before the chip vala cartridge .
The cos have given up and upped the laser printer prices to Rs 7000+ as they know that laser copy cartridges and counter chips are available so their monopoly on cartridges is dead
6. Lasers are dust and pin sensitive so cover them.
I came to the same conclusion that laser is more hassle free when i could not get prints 3 days ago… even though the printer was fine a day before
Best laser printers home use are canons 6030 (demo cartridge ) and 2900 B (full ) and hp 1008 or 1020 or samsung …now a days some lasers have wifi and even network capabilities w and n models

which one sp111 ? online ? any link? how is the built quality and is it bulky ? im also looking for a laser … Problem with small brands is service and spares else they are fine .. will chk at lamington road.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *