<div dir="ltr"><br><br><div class="gmail_quote">On Sun, Feb 28, 2010 at 12:33 AM, Amos Shapira <span dir="ltr"><<a href="mailto:amos.shapira@gmail.com">amos.shapira@gmail.com</a>></span> wrote:<br><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin: 0pt 0pt 0pt 0.8ex; border-left: 1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204); padding-left: 1ex;">
<div class="im">On 28 February 2010 06:32, Omer Zak <<a href="mailto:w1@zak.co.il">w1@zak.co.il</a>> wrote:<br>
><br>
> On Sat, 2010-02-27 at 20:23 +0200, shimi wrote:<br>
> > * Expect it to live many years - not a throwaway product (again not<br>
> > inkjet?) - and don't mind to pay more for that<br>
> > * Assumed duty cycle is 200-400 pages per month<br>
><br>
> > I guess my price range would be 1500 +/- 500 NIS incl. VAT or so<br>
><br>
> Given this duty cycle, one may want to consider the ratio of cost of supplies (ink, even paper) to the cost of the printer itself.<br>
> While the cost of supplies would probably be less than the cost of the<br>
> printer itself, it would probably be significant percentage of the full<br>
> cost of printing.<br>
<br>
</div>I'm 100% with you there. I don't know the prices in Israel but printer<br>
companies here are known to shove you with cheap-to-free printers only<br>
to slug you off with the ink refills.<br></blockquote><div><br>That's the thing here - when I have been using Inkjet printers, I could buy a printer at the price of the ink alone every 1-2 months... with the laser (I think it's a laser) I currently have - I refilled the black once, and now it ended, with the colors, after around 3 years from the original purchase... like the Inkjet, it seems refilling all the toners would cost more than a printer, so after 3 years I am in the look for a new unit which would perhaps also be an upgrade (the MFP features), and fixing the long problem of "why didn't I check it works in Linux before I bought it" :)<br>
<br></div><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin: 0pt 0pt 0pt 0.8ex; border-left: 1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204); padding-left: 1ex;">
<div class="im"><br>
><br>
> Hence, it may make economic sense to buy an inexpensive printer (around<br>
> 300NIS) as a throwaway item, and replace it each few months - instead of<br>
> a more durable printer (around 1500NIS).<br>
<br>
</div>Here I beg to differ. At least up to not long ago, laser printers (not<br>
to mention colour laser printers) where much more expensive but the<br>
cost of ink-per-page was much better, making it break-even quickly for<br>
those with high duty cycle. As far as I remember, color laser printers<br>
were so cheap last time we upgraded the printer that we were tempted<br>
to buy one but eventually stuck to InkJet and HP (I think the point<br>
was that we didn't expect to print so much to justify the difference).<br>
<br></blockquote><div><br>Yes, see above.<br><br></div><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin: 0pt 0pt 0pt 0.8ex; border-left: 1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204); padding-left: 1ex;">
As for specific recommendations, I have an HP C7280. It's an inkjet<br>
printer so is already ruled out by Shimi, but otherwise it answers<br>
most (all?) the requirements - it's a printer/fax/scanner, separate 6<br>
colour wells (with double-size for black) so you can buy/replace only<br>
the colours which ran out, attaches to both wired and wireless network<br>
(and USB), can send faxes independently of a computer, not giant.<br>
Fully supported by Linux. On the down side it did have a paper jam a<br>
couple of times over the couple of years that we have it, and I don't<br>
think we print 200-400 pages per month so can't tell if it'll hold<br>
that amount of work.<br>
<font color="#888888"><br></font></blockquote><div><br>Look, I am willing to accept an Inkjet. My point wasn't that I'm against that as a principal (like those who buy Intel "because it's Intel, and I don't care I pay 1.5x the price for the same performance"), rather then my own bad experience with them in the past ( > 3 years ago); The only one who didn't suffer from plumbing problem was indeed the HP I had many years ago - but HP's ink, was, at least back then, damn expensive. If that has changed, I will certainly consider it. Another major issue I have with HP is their software drivers (albeit in the Windows world, so I will personally not suffer from it, rather then the users who like operating systems from Redmond :)). I guess it's manageable... <br>
</div></div><br>Actually the separate 6 color cartridges is probably a waste of money. Again, from my experience, most colors end at around the same time (unless it's a company printer and your company logo doesn't use the 3 base colors at the same level ;); And you probably pay more for all this additional packaging, and there's a good chance that it might outweight the savings of having the ability to replace one cartridge 5 pages before the other...<br>
<br>What I do have to wonder here is again the plumbing. I have a similar printer at work (at least by the looks of it - the 7500 series) - and it seems that now the ink cartridges are separate from the print heads (like it was always with Canon, Epson and others, but not HP). So that puts the advantage I previously discussed regarding HP (where you replaced the printing head every time, so it never got plumbing problems) behind a big question mark. How much time do you have the printer? How many times did you replace the ink since then? What happens if you don't print for a few weeks? Does it get dry? Do you have to "clean" the heads every once in a while because you see opacity on your printouts? I'm kinda used by now to print-every-time-at-the-same-quality of the Laser world :-)<br>
<br>Thanks,<br><br>-- Shimi<br></div>