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

Issue #0707/1 - While inkjet printers and All-in-One machines cost little to buy and are hugely popular, the cost of running them may prove alarming.

In this week’s issue of TCPglobal we analyse the results from recent tests where Cost of Office Printing is concerned and show where excessive cost is experienced and explain why. The least costly machines, in the long-term, are also identified.

Inkjet All-in-One machines are the machine of choice for so many individuals and micro/home offices because of their flexibility in printing everything from black and white memos or letters to high quality colour photographs.

Having considered the Cost of Photo Printing in last week’s TCPglobal, this article tackles the issue of the cost of printing office documents.

One of the shortcomings of the recently ratified ISO standard on colour inkjet printing is that there is no provision made for mono only printing. The ISO test suite includes a letter page that has a majority mono content but none that is solely mono. This means that colour printers will not be tested for the cost of mono printing.

As an industry standard, print engines should be tested for mono-only printing in addition to colour printing so that the two sets of results can be combined to produce a Cost of Printing that reflects true usage as closely as possible.

All tests undertaken by CharisCo Printer Labs measures cartridge yield for both mono and colour printing, using a mono-only letter page at 5% coverage and a colour data presentation page at 20% total page coverage (5% of each colour).

Testing mono and colour printing separately allows the cost computation software to calculate cost based on a user-defined balance of mono to colour pages.

Readers will be familiar with the standard balance of pages (70% mono and 30% colour) used for Cost of Printing illustrations in TCPglobal. In this issue we present cost figures based on both 70/30 and 30/70 but this can be set at any balance required. Whatever the balance chosen, the cost of mono pages is calculated using the data from mono-only testing, while the cost of colour pages is calculated using the colour test data.

One reason that it is important to test in this way, most relevant to inkjet printers, is that some printers expend colour ink even when printing mono-only pages. It is the devices that have fixed, long-life print heads with ink tanks (either on-axis or off-axis) fitted independently of the print head, that fall into this category.

At a basic level, the reason for this ink consumption is the cleaning cycle that every inkjet printer undertakes periodically to keep the print head in pristine working order.

In these tests, the devices falling into this category are the Brother DCP-330C and the Epson Stylus Photo RX620. The other printers in this group can have their black cartridge removed if the user feels strongly enough (or does not have a colour cartridge to hand). However, experience shows that colour ink usage when printing mono using an integrated head/tank configuration is insignificant to cost.

On the other hand, we see that significant amounts of ink can be used by printers that have ink tanks independent to the print head - and this can vary significantly between printers.

Tested Yields (Quoted Yields)	C	M	Y	K	Pc	Pm	CMY	Photo
Brother DCP-330C	(4551) Cleaning (0)	(4551) Cleaning (0)	(4551) Cleaning (0)	527 (500)
Canon PIXMA MP-450				471 (300)
Epson Stylus Photo RX620	(3475) Cleaning (0)	(3475) Cleaning (0)	(3475) Cleaning (0)	501 (450)	(3475) Cleaning (0)	(3475) Cleaning (0)
HP Photosmart C4180				482 (400)
Lexmark P4350				314 (200)

Take the case of the DCP-330C and the RX620. While undertaking mono print testing on these two machines, the DCP-330C used an average of 11.6% of each colour ink while the RX620 used around 14.1% of each colour ink.

This works out as 2.2% of available colour ink per 100 mono pages printed on the DCP-330C and 2.8% of available colour ink per 100 mono pages printed on the RX620.

Bearing in mind that there are five colour inks in the RX620 against three in the DCP-330C, this means that the RX620 is not only using approximately 2% more ink per colour but is using ink from an additional two tanks.

This ink wastage comes at a cost to users of approximately 0.45 pence PER (mono) PAGE on the DCP-330C and a staggering 1.36 pence PER PAGE on the RX620.

Considering that we’re looking at a nominal mono CPP of 2.36 pence per page on the Brother and 1.87 pence per page on the Epson, this wastage is really alarming. It adds 19% to the nominal cost of running the Brother and a massive 73% to the cost of running the Epson - hence the high long-term Cost of Printing on the Epson when the nominal mono CPP is so low.

In practice, of course, users will not notice this ink usage because mono pages are interspersed with colour pages over a period of time.

Where ink usage from cleaning cycles may become noticeable is on daily power-down. If the printer is switched off on a regular basis, or only switched on when it is needed, then the printer automatically runs a cleaning cycle and ink is used. When power is left on, cleaning cycles are less frequent (although if the machine is only used once a week, then the cost of power counterbalances the cost of ink used).

Taking this on a step further, we need to take a look at the cost of colour ink when printing colour office documents on the Epson Stylus Photo RX620.

Six-ink printers that use tri-colour cartridges with integrated print heads allow the user to remove the photo cartridge when not printing photographs - replacing it with a black cartridge for text printing. Brother’s DCP-330C, being a four-ink printer, does not have photo-specific inks anyway.

However, because Epson’s RX620 uses a fixed head configuration with individual ink tanks, the photo inks cannot be removed.

Probably the most alarming characteristic of the RX620 is that the printer uses photo inks for ordinary office colour printing.

Testing the RX620 revealed that the photo cyan ink was the first to run out when printing the 20% colour test page. In fact, the primary cyan tank gave almost exactly double the number of pages given by the photo cyan. Black actually ran out at the same time but the next ink to run dry was the primary magenta, with the photo magenta giving us 51% more pages.

Tested Yields (Quoted Yields)	C	M	Y	K	Pc	Pm	CMY	Photo
Brother DCP-330C	674 (400)	759 (400)	885 (400)	597 (500)
Canon PIXMA MP-450				569 (300)			629 (275)
Epson Stylus Photo RX620	1034 (400)	672 (400)	767 (400)	535 (450)	535 (0)	1014 (0)
HP Photosmart C4180				482 (400)			425 (260)
Lexmark P4350				314 (200)			238 (190)

This is the other key factor that contributes to the somewhat high long-term cost of printing seen on the RX620, driven also by the higher than average hardware purchase price.

Note, however, that tested yield is significantly higher than the yield quoted by the manufacturer in every case. This is good news for users because it shows that manufacturers are being cautious and conservative in their specifications so that users should rarely experience fewer pages per cartridge (unless page coverage is very high).

Costing more per page than the RX620 though, we find the Lexmark P4350 heading up the high-cost league yet again, caused entirely by the high pricing but low yield of the cartridges. This is emphasised by the fact that the price of the colour cartridge is exactly the same as the price of the colour cartridge for the Hewlett-Packard Photosmart C4180 but the yield is a huge 44% lower, making the ink 78% more expensive. Even the black ink from Lexmark is 70% more expensive than Hewlett-Packard black and is a phenomenal 112% more expensive than Epson black!

Put all of this together with the not-so-low hardware cost and we have a machine in the Lexmark P4350 that is just not cost-effective in any sense.

In contrast to this and to the cost of photo printing, when users print office style documents on the Hewlett-Packard Photosmart C4180, they get a lot of document for their money.

Comparative Cost Per Page

250 pages per month @ 70% mono pages / 30% colour pages - Chart 1.

There is just one provison here - Brother’s strategy of presenting users with a low-cost inkjet printing and multifunction platform actually means that the DCP-330C costs less per page for users with high colour content and medium to high monthly print volume.

Long-term Cost of Printing by monthly page count

over 3 years - 70% mono pages / 30% colour pages - Chart 2.

Long-term Cost of Printing by monthly page count

over 3 years - 30% mono pages / 70% colour pages - Chart 3.

Note 1. All calculations for mixed mono/colour CPP presented in this issue of TCPglobal are based on an ownership period of three years, and include the cost of purchase.

Note 2. All prices are typical street prices sourced in the UK and include tax.

From Chart 1, sorted by long-term Cost of Printing, we see that the order in which the models fall changes from the chart in last week’s issue "Inkjet All-in-One lab tests – Cost of Photo Printing" only by the movement of the C4180 to the far left of the chart. However, its advantage over Brother’s DCP-330C is marginal and insignificant.

Canon’s PIXMA MP-450 has high-yield cartridges by comparison to the other tri-colour systems but high pricing pushes CPP up above the Hewlett-Packard.

Here we are looking primarily at a hard copy environment where a significant number of pages are printed every month (250) and where the balance of pages is weighted towards a fairly traditional print profile of 70% mono to 30% colour pages.

So, we have again produced figures with varied monthly print volumes and a reversed page balance in favour of colour instead of mono (30/70 mono/colour). Page volumes from 50 pages per month to 250 pages per month have been used.

As before when we’ve done this exercise, the overall change seen by varying these numbers is minimal.

On Charts 2 and 3, we do see a crossover between the Lexmark P4350 and the Epson Stylus Photo RX620 at low print volumes, caused by the high relative purchase price but very low price of black ink for the RX620.

Apparently surprising is the nominal CPP of the colour ink for the RX620. But, it must be remembered that this is the sum of the cost of five individual inks. No other printer in the group has this configuration.

So, we can determine that a six-ink fixed-head configuration is not a cost effective configuration for office printing. The problem is that it makes the machine undesirable as a general purpose printer/AiO.

Chart 3 then shows that the Cost of Printing on the DCP-330C is lower than the C4180 from a volume of just over 100 pages per month when the balance of pages is weighted towards colour rather than mono.

But, these are the only changes noted when print volume and mono to colour page balance are varied. Essentially, by the time a volume of about 100 pages per month is reached, the relative positioning of the machines concerned will not change with higher volumes. Although the difference between the Epson and the Canon, at a balance of 70% mono pages, can be seen to be reducing as a volume of 250 pages per month is reached, this differential does not reduce much more with extra volume.

Combining the results from the testing for the cost of photo printing (Issue #0706 - "Inkjet All-in-One lab tests – Cost of Photo Printing") and office printing, a purely cost-driven purchase decision would lead a user to the Brother DCP-330C because it’s office printing cost is equivalent to the Hewlett-Packard C4180 but the cost of photo printing is significantly lower.

With the considerable rise in costs from these two printers to all three of the competitors, users would need to have significant grounds for preferring one of the competitors.

Next week we will consider the print quality and performance issues of these printers to see if this will provide that justification.

~End~

This entry was posted on Friday, March 2nd, 2007 at 12:03 am and is filed under Hardware, Pricing, Comparisons, Total Cost of Printing. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.