TCPglobal - news, views and issues on total cost of printing

Issue 0905/1 - With just about everyone with something to sell getting in on the ‘Crunch Buster’, ‘Credit Crunch Beating’ or ‘Recession Beating’ bandwagon, to try and persuade consumers and businesses that now is the best time to buy, one would hope that buying multi-packs, twin-packs or value packs of printer supplies would offer a decent saving. We investigate just how much money can be saved by buying these multi/twin/value-packs – with some surprising results!

Issue #0902/1 – Now that Dell printers are available from a variety of outlets in the UK other than Dell, buyers can do very well if they can find one of the exceptionally low, discounted, prices. But, they will have to be very careful as there are some extraordinarily high prices also. In addition, Dell users should be VERY wary of buying toner cartridges through the channel rather than direct from Dell.

Issue 0839/3 – Adding a new incentive alongside its Return Program cartridge scheme to encourage customers to return empty Lexmark toner cartridges to Lexmark, the company is now offering a free high-capacity cartridge for every 10 empty cartridges that a user returns for recycling. This incentive applies to cartridges for the new ranges of C54x and X54x series colour laser printers and MFPs.

Issue #0829/1 – While special offers can put mono laser MFP functionality in the hands of small business or home users for less than £50 including tax in the UK (see "Laser multifunction for less than £50 – including tax!"), the Total Cost of Printing using that machine in no way reflects the value of the low cost of accessibility to the technology. In this article we expand the product group to include the next strata of mono laser MFPs as we consider what implications there are in buying a cheap machine against buying the lowest Total Cost of Printing.

Issue #0828/2 – This week, the UK saw a three-function mono laser All-in-One device priced at less than £50 on special offer for the first time. Xerox’s WorkCentre PE3119 was offered at a 63% discount, at £49.29 including tax, for a short period of time before reverting to the, still low, price of £56.75 inclusive.