Comments on: Preview PrinterSpot today!

By: Smokey Ardisson

Smokey Ardisson — Fri, 24 Mar 2006 13:39:36 +0000

Good luck with this latest venture, Jeff!

By: Thomas Kuglin

Thomas Kuglin — Thu, 23 Mar 2006 19:26:34 +0000

Firstly, I should say that I haven’t read any of the reviews on the new site, as I don’t have time to atm – but I’d like to follow on from Carl with my own points:
I definitely think some kind of ink cost calculations should be done, however, I believe the methodology should be different for each type/class of printer, to match the ‘average’ use for a printer of that type. For example, what I mean is that with an all-in-one, you might test it by printing brochures at a reasonable quality, whereas with, say, a pro A3+ printer you might test by printing A3+ prints at absolute best quality. The reason for this is that ink consumption does depend (at least on Epson printers) on the resolution used.
Something else I’d also like to see factored in *if possible* (I understand it could be awkward) is the printer’s cleaning routines: for example, if I turn my R1800 on for the first time in a couple of weeks, to do one A3+ print, I can find the printer’s self-cleaning operation has used more ink than the print! That’s what I’ve gathered from very careful monitoring of the Epson Status Monitor app anyway.
Thomas

By: Carl

Carl — Thu, 23 Mar 2006 16:40:27 +0000

Jeff,
Ink costs are incredibly varied among different printers, so it’s become one of the main factors I use when evaluating a printer purchase. I’d strongly recommend coming up with a method for calculating ink cost per page. I’d do it this way:
* Print a standard text document until the black ink runs out.
* Add the number of pages and divide by the ink cartridge cost. This is your ink cost per page.
* Repeat the process for color photos.
You may be able to take that ink cost per page and add it to a paper cost to come up with a total cost per page.
Tom’s Hardware does something similar in their printer reviews and they do a good job of it. I believe they also calculate a three year cost based on ink+paper+assumed use+initial cost. Again, this is very useful.
I’d actually be interested in seeing a comparison of the cost of ink vs. toner in various ink jet/laser multifunction devices.