My printer experience was a jam on nearly free printers that cost the company little to no money up front. These were printers that were basically ‘throw-away’ and in the end, were just dumped. I spent 45 minutes or so un-jamming the thing. By the time I got it un-jammed, the queue would have gone anyway, only to be re-filled by subsequent print jobs. This would have meant two client proposals wouldn’t have gone out on time. But that’s okay. Because when a printer does break, everyone in the office is annoyed at the thing for a while. People don’t realize the costs of really cheap printers.
Office printing equipment is something people don’t think about. As long as it is printing then everything must be fine. But cheap printing equipment can actually end up costing businesses a lot of money. The initial purchase price of the printer may seem affordable but then there is the cost of the toner and repairs, which in many cases can end up being a full time job. Many businesses have found this out the hard way.
Start with honest volume expectations
The worst mistake that buyers make when choosing a printing device is failing to establish honest volume expectations. Here’s what I mean by that. Most people want to buy the best printing device available for the lowest price. The problem is that most people have a poor understanding of how much they will actually use a printing device for. In order to choose the correct printing device
Calculate your actual average print volume per day over the last 3 months. Yes work out your average annual print volume first then calculate your average print volume per day over the last 3 months. You’ll be surprised at how many businesses don’t calculate their print volume correctly. Don’t be one of them. Work out your average print volume per day of color prints as well as your average print volume per day of black and white prints. If you print a lot of color documents you’ll need a printer that is able to print high fidelity color to ensure the best results.
Small offices under-estimate the amount of printing they actually do. A compact office printer is brought home one evening, switched on the following morning and after a month or so of usage starts to slowly deteriorate. This degradation is very subtle at first and often described as “streaks” coming out of the printer or that it takes a little longer to “warm up” each time it is switched on. If replacing an 18 month old printer is not cost effective then surely purchasing a higher quality printer in the first place must be more cost effective in the long run.
4) Work out the full running costs of the printers you are looking at
Cost of printing can actually be higher than the initial purchase price of the printer. Many people do not realize that while a cheap printer may seem like a good option in the short term, in the long run, it can actually cost more than a more expensive option. In order to compare printers, one must look at the cost per page (or cost per print) of each printer.
The cost of a printer is often misleading as high-end laser printers are more in the beginning but have a much lower cost per page compared to low-cost inkjet printers. For companies who print large volumes of annual printed pages, the cost of a printer can appear very cheap at first and thus affordable but actually could be one of the most expensive items in an office over time. One way to look at the running costs of a printer is the cost per page, which gives you a better idea of the true running costs of a printer.
Things worth calculating before you commit:
- The yield on replacement toner or ink cartridges (high-yield options make a real difference)
- Whether the model has separate colour cartridges or combined units (combined means replacing colour you didn’t even use)
- Drum unit replacement costs, which are easy to forget until they hit you
- Whether the manufacturer offers a managed print service or supply agreement
Yes there is an easy way to figure out the cost of printing, and it will save you money in the long run!
Security – another thing to think about
What does your office printer have in common with your email server?
Modern printers are often networked, which means that they are treated as endpoints by the IT department. (Email servers, for example, contain sensitive information such as client details and financial records, but these are not typically left about on printers in offices). If you have sensitive information in your business then your printer is something that you should include in your overall security plan. Look for a model that has secure print release (print only when authenticated by correct user), encrypted storage of print jobs and up-to-date firmware.
This also means that printers can be compromised in the same way as email servers. As printers become more networked, it is increasingly important that they are treated with the same suspicion as other unmanaged network devices. For businesses that handle sensitive information of any kind, printers need to have secure print release (i.e. jobs only print when the correct user logs into the printer), print jobs need to be stored on the printer in encrypted form, and the printer’s firmware must be kept up to date with regular releases from the manufacturer. Any vendor that treats these as ‘up-sell’ features is clearly not treating them as features at all.
Dependable options actually exist
For businesses that demand the highest quality prints, for businesses that plan to use their printers as workhorses within the office, and which hopefully will remain reliable for the business for long periods of time, Toshiba Printers are an excellent choice. The quality of print is of paramount importance to most businesses, and so too the reliability of all of the various functions that a printer is able to perform. And it’s not just the printers for which Toshiba provides excellent support. All of the products provided by the company are supported, and with Toshiba, you can rest assured that you and your business will be well taken care of.
It will go wrong. It will break. But the extent to which that will cause you problems depends on the service agreement. And that’s something you need to really get into to before you purchase.
Scanning and multifunction: do you actually need it?
Unless your business is highly specialized, there are likely to be a number of functions that you are going to be carrying out on a regular basis using paper. Scanning contracts, copying invoices, faxing the occasional document, sending documents directly from your printer are just a few examples of the many functions that can be performed by a multifunction printer. In five years, scanning and multifunction capabilities have become mainstream. Having a single function printer for each of these functions will create clutter in your work space and increase the complexity of your IT setup by requiring additional drivers and software for each printer.
Scanning (a function provided by single function scanners and by all Multifunction Printers) and copying are two other basic functions of printing that have become so standard for all offices
| Feature | Single-function printer | Multifunction printer (MFP) |
| Print only | Yes | Yes |
| Scan/copy/fax | No | Yes |
| Upfront cost | Lower | Higher |
| Space efficiency | Smaller footprint | One device, multiple functions |
| Best for | Very small teams, specific use cases | Most office environments |
(Also worth noting is the fact that a single function unit may have a lower upfront cost to purchase than a multifunction printer however this however needs to be factored in with the cost of a separate scanner that would be required. So in the end it is still cheaper to go with the multifunction printer in the long run!)
Maintenance: who’s responsible when it breaks?
This is the worst part of buying printers. Most companies treat the maintenance of their printers with no respect. Before you go out and purchase a printer, make sure that you understand the service terms for that printer. What is the warranty like for the printer? Is there on-site repair for the printer if it breaks? Are you on a managed service contract that includes all of the parts and labor for the printer for the life of the printer?
As with all things in business the way that a business treats the maintenance of all printers between models is key. If a business treats the maintenance of all printers in the same way then it’s likely that the service will be dealt with in a professional manner. Someone will have the repair as part of their job, it will be in the budget, and it will be scheduled. That’s the way it should be treated. But if not then there’s a lot of time wasted for people fixing printers instead of doing more productive things. And when something does go wrong then there’s no time to fix it, and people end up searching the web for answers to error codes such as E7 in order to fix a printer in time for a meeting.
Buy printers that are reliable, produce excellent quality prints and then correctly service them to ensure they continue to function properly for years to come. The printer is an invisible item that few people notice until it stops working. That’s what you are paying for – smooth and quiet operation until the end of its life.
