“Buying a device to meet our printing needs might not be as easy as we think. You have to be well informed on what you really need rather than getting a printer/MFP that is within your budget”
To start with, let us examine some of these basic questions:
- Have you reviewed your printing requirements recently?
- Are you aware of your basic printing cost?
- What printer functions (Print/Scan/Fax/Copy) are you after?
Taking a general perspective, if our manager/director sends us to an IT store to buy a printer or Multi Function Printer (MFP), giving us a budgeted amount to work with, we are surely pressured to choose the machine that is within our budget. But will the printer satisfy your printing requirements? Maybe not.
Assuming your monthly average prints made is 5,000 pages, which of the machine below would you choose?
Our first instinct is to choose the cheaper model (plus higher duty cycle and speed per minute) as both options are catering to the printing volume per month based on our example. Yet looking at the tabled information, we are spending more consumables if we choose the cheaper model.
So which is which? Since we are investing for long term use of any MFP device, one should also consider the price and the yield of the consumables to be used before deciding to buy. It will be more economical in the long run if we compute for the consumable costs we have to spend on.
Another factor is the duty cycle (this is the maximum number of printed pages a device could deliver in a month). Never buy a printer because it is cheaper having a maximum duty cycle of 3000 pages a month but you routinely print 5000 pages in a month. The printer is not really designed to stand up to such high printing requirement and parts will wear out far sooner that their expected life. We might spend more on service calls/repairs later.
Also, we might as well scrutinize the “PPM”. A pages per minute (PPM) rating on a printer gives you the speed at it can print a page of texts in black ink/toner. It does not tell you how quickly the printer can print a page of text and graphics. If the rating on the box says “8 PPM,” it means the printer can print eight pages of text per minute.
We therefore recommend that you consult your respective sales consultant so they can discuss with you the options where you can save on your consumables and determine the right MFP’s in the industry you are in.
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