Have to get a monochrome Laser MFP. It seems next to impossible to compare the five gazillion models for function and features, let alone the real elephant in the room: consumables.
Thinking either Canon or HP. HP's are typically more, but the cartridges are less; Canon's seem cheaper, but the cartridges cost more.
Anyone have opinions to share on the cost to operate these. You'd think they'd just publish the Cost/Copy, but I guess not. Thanks.
As it happens, there is an international standard for checking the number of pages a given cartridge will print. I found that information a couple of years ago on the HP website, although the page where it was explained now seems to have been taken down.
There are five standard test pages issued by the ISO (International Standards Organization) and another outfit called IEC (I can't recall what IEC stands for). The page yield for a given cartridge is checked by printing the five pages continuously until the ink or toner runs out.
As far as I know, all printer manufacturers use this test, which is known as ISO/IEC 24711 (or was at the time I looked it up). The results can usually be found on a manufacturer's website by searching "page yield", with the quote marks.
You have to figure the cost per page yourself by dividing the page yield into the cartridge cost. Of course your actual cost per page will vary depending on what you're printing. But this calculation makes it possible to compare the cost of consumables from one manufacturer to another.
I looked on the ISO website for a copy of the official test protocol, but they wanted the equivalent of $120 for it.
I have a Brother MFC-J6510DW
Its not laser, but an A3 colour ink-jet - with scan copy fax
It is not too expensive to run and prints pretty much everything I need to. With careful use of colour I can get the same information on A3 as A1 and the paper is much more convenient in the field
IEC is the International Electrotechnical Commission. They're an international standards organization (like CE, UL, ANSI, ASTM etc.). Printer cartridge life though? Who knew, lol?!
Thanks for the insight.
I have a Brother MFC-J6710-DW, probably very similar to Jim's. In shopping for it (Sep. 2013) I compared the per-page cost of ink for that and a similar multi-function machine, an Epson WF-7510. For the Brother, I got 1.38 cents a page for B&W and 4.33 cents a page for color. For the Epson, I came up with 3.17 cents a page for B&W and 7.95 cents a page for color.
Those costs were based on using the largest-capacity ink cartridges available. I found that the per-page costs for larger cartridges were considerably lower than for smaller-capacity cartridges. That makes sense, since the plastic cartridges would cost about the same to manufacture regardless of the quantity of ink they hold.
For cost purposes, I assumed that all three color cartridges would be used up in printing the number of color pages given by the manufacturers. There was no way to verify that since, as mentioned above, ISO wanted $120 for a copy of the test specifications. But the relative costs should be valid either way.
