(April 20, 2010)
Buying your laser printers and supplies from local stores such as Staples and Office Depot is probably costing you more than you realize. Most companies don’t pay attention to toner yield, but it is simply the most important aspect when choosing a laser device.
The toner yield is how many pages you can expect to print before buying more toner. Most HP, Lexmark and Brother’s toner run out in half the time of a Kyocera. In some cases you may be paying 4x’s as much per print. Think of store bought laser printers like having an old rusty car that only gets 8mpg. It may be cheap when you buy it but you’ll be paying for it at the pump, not to mention you may have to replace it more often.
Tip: Use a printer’s duty cycle as a guide to see if the laser printer is designed to last. Inexpensive laser printers are designed for 50,000 prints per month or less while higher end models can handle over 100,000. Which one do you think will last longer?
Another aspect to choosing the right laser printer is their duty cycle. Duty cycle is how many prints per month the printer is designed to handle. The numbers are usually much higher than most companies expect to print, but it can be a good guide to see if a printer is designed to last many years. Many inexpensive printers have duty cycles of under 50,000 prints. This means they are not as durable as ones designed to print at 100,000 or more. The money saved by not replacing printers every 2 – 3 years and increasing your uptime can be substantial.
