The Cheapskate's Guide to Printing

The Cheapskate's Guide to Printing



Melissa Riofrio was the first editor of PC World's Top 10 Printers. Yardena Arar is a senior editor for PC World. Special thanks to Jim Aspinwall, Gary Funk, Robert Luhn, and Rick Scheerer.

Whether your printer costs $40 or $400, the purchase price is only the first item on your new list of ongoing printing expenses. Over time, buying the ink or toner and acquiring media (paper, envelopes, transparencies) will very likely make a far bigger impact on your wallet. These costs will vary depending on what you print, how much you print, and what kind of media you use. Some expenses are unavoidable: Printing an 8-by-10 photo on premium, glossy paper will never be dirt cheap. Shaving cents off of other kinds of printing, however, involves just a little thought, effort, and advance planning. Read on for tips on how to choose and use your printer wisely--or perhaps not at all in some cases.
Know Before You Buy

Saving money on printing starts (ideally) before you buy the printer. Before you begin researching new models, make sure that you'll be getting the best printer for the types of documents you plan to produce. For more on the criteria you should use, see "The Right Printer for the Job," and read our comparison of pricing versus print quality trade-offs in "The Best and the Cheapest." Once you start looking at specific models, make a point of checking the recommended print volume; if you typically print 100 pages a day, for example, don't buy a printer that's rated for 500 pages a month.

How much is that cartridge in the window? Replacement ink or toner cartridge costs represent a major part of your long-term printing expenses. As we learned when we researched Hewlett-Packard's $40 Deskjet 3520 (see "$40 Printer, $40 Ink"), replacing the cartridges can cost as much as buying the printer (see "Pay It Again, Sam: Ink Costs Can Dwarf Printer Prices"). In general, expect to pay $10 to $40 for an ink cartridge, and $60 or more for a toner cartridge.

But don't judge a cartridge by price alone; its efficiency, or page yield--the number of pages it can print--matters just as much. Of course, that figure will vary depending on how much ink you use on a page, but the industry-standard assumption is 5 percent coverage per page for each color. Some companies make yield information available on the Web along with other printer specifications; others will provide it if you ask, either by e-mail or phone.

You can use yield information to calculate per-page costs, which can be useful in determining what your printing costs for different printers would look like over time. Laser printer toner cartridges may cost a lot more than ink jet cartridges, but their higher yields make per-page costs lower.

Some printer manufacturers offer multipacks of inks, which can knock a few dollars off the price per cartridge. The standard-capacity black ink for Dell's $79 J740 ink jet, for instance, costs $30 alone; a two-pack is $56.

A few colors more: Some ink jet printers produce superior photo quality by using additional colors beyond the usual cyan, magenta, yellow, and black. But all the color cartridges may not come with the printer. For instance, Canon's $200 i960 printer is bundled with all six of its inks (including Photo Cyan and Photo Magenta), and they cost $12 each to replace. But HP's $100 Deskjet 5150 includes only the standard HP 56 black and HP 57 tricolor cartridges ($20 and $35, respectively); the HP 58 photo cartridge is a separate, $25 purchase.

The incredible, shrunken starter cartridge: Many lower-cost laser printers come with starter cartridges that last anywhere from 60 percent to as little as 33 percent as long as a regular cartridge. Granted, if you don't print much, that first cartridge could last you a while; but if you know you'll be printing at least 100 pages per month, either find a printer that comes with a full-size cartridge or factor in the cost of an early replacement. Of course, if you get a great deal on the printer, your overall cost may still be quite affordable.

The cheapest paper for the job: The heavier, brighter (whiter), or more specialized the paper is, the more it will cost. You'll generally pay as little as a half-cent per page for typical, 20-pound office paper, or as much as a dollar for an 8.5-by-11-inch sheet of glossy photo paper.

Save the pricey stuff for final prints; for everything else, use the cheapest paper you can find. It will affect the print quality from your laser printer minimally, if at all, and it will work fine for producing drafts and other internal documents on your ink jet printer. Third-party brands often cost less per page than the printer manufacturer's media, but test ink jet-specific media on your printer to see if you like the results. You may have to buy a full pack to do this, unfortunately.

Cable not included: Some printer manufacturers save on costs by omitting the USB or parallel cable that you may need to connect the device to your computer. If you can't use the same cable you had for your last printer, shop around: You don't need the expensive models with gold connectors and heavy shielding unless you have a lot of interference in your work area from other devices.

Why Do Ink Cartridges Cost So Much?

Why Do Ink Cartridges Cost So Much?

Consumers revolt over the cost of ink jet cartridges, even as printer prices plummet.Tom Spring, PCWorld.com

At $22 per quarter-ounce, a Hewlett-Packard color ink-jet cartridge is more expensive, by weight, than imported Russian caviar.

Observing such high prices, Connecticut research consultant Zel Dolinsky wants to know the reasons for them. "How come, with printer prices falling, ink prices are still so outrageous?" Dolinsky asks. "I'm appalled."

Ink jet and toner cartridges are fanning angry sparks in the ink cartridge replacement market--a $21 billion field, according to Lyra Research.

Consumers are annoyed at the price of authorized replacement ink cartridges, and tempted by third-party substitutes that don't always work flawlessly.

The major vendors, including Canon, Epson, Hewlett-Packard, and Lexmark, are at odds with independent manufacturers of alternative inks. In fact, some big vendors are suing third-party makers of cartridge clones for alleged patent violations. Meanwhile, second-tier ink cartridge makers say they simply offer consumers a choice--at prices that are sometimes 75 percent below what major vendors charge.

That leaves consumers in printout purgatory. They must either pony up for name-brand ink, or risk substandard printouts by buying replacement ink jet cartridges from a generic distributor. As PC World has found, however, plenty of worthy third-party replacement ink jets are also available.

The big-name vendors say that the third-party ink is inferior to brand-name versions. And certainly, the brands dominate; together, Canon, Epson, HP, and Lexmark account for 84 percent of the ink replacement market, Lyra Research reports.

Recently, the controversy has caught the attention of overseas regulators. Trustbusters in the United Kingdom and at the European Union are examining the way Canon, Epson, HP, and Lexmark price ink and do business. In the United States, at least one state is attempting to protect consumers' right to purchase third-party alternative goods.

The Real Cost

The printer supplies industry has adopted the practice of cell phone and razor blade sellers: Charge low prices for initial equipment, then make money from ongoing fees for additional needed components. Vendors sell consumer printers at cost, or even sometimes at a 20 percent loss, say financial analysts at Bear Sterns who track Epson and HP. But on the flip side, both firms earn a 60 percent gross margin on ink jet and toner cartridges, says Bill Hand, financial analyst with Bear and Stearns.

Those numbers are not exactly true, the vendors say. HP does make money on its printer hardware, according to Pradeep Jotwani, senior vice president of imaging supplies. In a prepared statement, Epson says that it "makes a reasonable profit on both" printer hardware and ink.

Still, consumers grouse about the "give away the razor and sell the blades" business model. Hence, the birth of a market for recyclers to refill used cartridges, or sell cartridge clones at half the price of the brand-name items.

Protecting Profits

Not surprisingly, printer vendors characterize this aftermarket as a financial threat, Hand says. "It's fair to say at least 80 percent of overall profits [from within Epson's and HP's printing divisions] come from supplies," he says.

Lexmark has tried to suppress the makers of aftermarket cartridges by integrating a microchip, dubbed a "killer chip," inside its own laser jet toner cartridges. If a Lexmark printer doesn't spot the Lexmark chip inside a cartridge, the unit won't work. The only way to reuse the cartridge is by sending it back to Lexmark, which will refill the empty tank and reset the microchip for another use.

If you try to refill the Lexmark toner cartridge yourself with third-party toner, or if you use a compatible cartridge that lacks the microchip, the printer won't accept it. The microchip and Lexmark printers have the intelligence to "expire" toner cartridges and use only Lexmark goods. Critics worry that it's only a matter of time before Lexmark introduces the chip to its ink jet product family.

Epson integrates chips to authenticate its cartridges, too, but it takes a slightly less extreme approach: You can reuse its ink jet cartridges by refilling them. But a used Epson microchip and cartridge lose some functions, such as the ability to record ink levels.

Down the Inkwell

Caught in the middle, many consumers remain angry about the high cost of ink.

"I know they're in the business of making money, but sometimes you can go too far," Dolinsky says of the recurring ink jet cartridge costs associated with his $150 HP DeskJet.

Predictably, HP and others say their cartridge prices aren't high considering the cost of researching and developing the technology and then manufacturing the equipment. "These aren't just bottles of ink you put inside of your printer," Jotwani says.

He points out that HP's ink jet cartridges are very sophisticated. For example, each has 40 microscopic nozzles that precisely expel billions of ink dots across a page. HP is also fastidiously attentive to ink quality, Jotwani says, to assure uniform viscosity and color.

Calling ink prices high may largely be a matter of perspective, some analysts say. When printers cost $500, no one complained about $30 ink jet cartridges, says John Shane, CAP Ventures analyst. But since 1996, the average cost of a personal ink jet printer has dropped by 60 percent, according to CAP Ventures, from approximately $426 to an average of $169 in 2002. Meanwhile, CAP Ventures also reports, the average price per printed page has risen by 12.5 percent, from 8 cents per page to 9 cents per page, in the same timeframe.

CAP Ventures says that it doesn't count the cost of the printer itself in figuring prices per page; it's based largely on the cost of cartridges. The analysts attribute the higher per-page costs largely to the fact that the average page printed today contains more cartridge-draining graphics and images than even a couple years ago.

Ink Angst Goes Global

High ink jet prices among dominant ink manufacturers have caught the attention of U.K. and European Union regulators.

Following a year-long investigation, a U.K. agency called the Office of Fair Trade (OFT) has recommended that Canon, Epson, HP, and Lexmark more clearly tell consumers their likely long-term printing costs. Printer makers have until October 2003 to better communicate the total cost of printer ownership, after which they face possible OFT monetary fines.

In December 2002, the European Union launched a similar investigation. "We are evaluating barriers to entry into this market, prices, and contracts that lock businesses into long-term relationships with OEM ink makers," says Tilman Lueder, European Union spokesperson.

Both investigations stem from consumer price complaints. Overseas regulators say that the gripes also came from remanufacturers and generic vendors, who claim that Epson and Lexmark are making it very hard to make compatible aftermarket clones.

The Law and Lexmark

Lexmark is challenging the third parties in court. Last December, the printer vendor sued North Carolina-based Static Control Components, which makes and sells clones of Lexmark's microchips to recyclers.
Lexmark is accusing Static Control of contravening the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, which makes it illegal to circumvent any digital technology used by a company to protect its intellectual property.

Many Lexmark buyers agree to return the cartridges to Lexmark in exchange for a rebate. This enables Lexmark to limit competition in the aftermarket, say analysts. A judge in Lexmark's home state of Kentucky has ruled in favor of Lexmark; and for now, Static Control is forced to put its microchips on ice.

Consumer Rights Rally

A twist to the Static Control case came on August 7, when North Carolina Governor Mike Easley signed into law a bill giving North Carolina residents the right to refill any ink jet or toner cartridge. The law doesn't directly address Lexmark's DMCA concerns, but it bolsters buyers' rights.

Under the North Carolina law, consumers and businesses that have contracts with service agents can refill or use third-party cartridges despite printer manufacturers' user agreements requiring consumers to use only the vendors' ink. The bill does not address warranty issues.

European regulators are considering a law to ban printer and cartridge manufacturers from using Lexmark-style "killer" chips that leave expended cartridges unusable. The EU claims that the use of such chips just loads landfills with empty cartridges.

Lexmark declined comment for this report. But the public will likely be hearing a lot more about the cost of printing. Spending in U.S. retail stores on toner and ink jet cartridges is forecast to jump 43 percent by 2007, to $26.3 billion, according to Cap Ventures.