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Originally Posted by 3fingersalute
Where did you get your data for you research? Lasers are much cheaper on a per page basis, and while the FPO (first page out), is faster a lot of times on an inkjet, lasers for the most part are far faster than any inkjet (unless you maybe run the inkjet in draft mode, but that's not even a fair comparison).
As far as quality, print a page of text on an inkjet, and then the same page on a laser. Do you really think the inkjet is better in print quality?
And as far as more maintenance, most HP's aren't rated for a service kit until over the 120K mark - most inkjets are pitched out long before reaching that mark.
HP inkjets, unlike all other inkjets, use pigment black ink, which results in the same "laser quality" text as laser does. I agree that lexmark, canon and epson all have terrible text print quality, but HP's inkjets to make text that's just like from a laser, even on draft the text quality is very good, but I need to use at least the 2nd lowest quality for it to look like a laser print, but the drafts are still very sharp and readable (I just got an epson CD printer, and it's draft is a total joke, black comes out as a very faint gray!).
But when I was talking about print quality, I meant for photos, I have print samples of photos printed on $10 000+ HP lasers and they dont even look as good as prints from a $100 inkjet.
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Today, laser FPO speeds are rapidly dropping, no one can beat them for sheer speed and TCO.
I wasnt talking about FPO, even once started, many inkjets can beat lasers, my HP business inkjet prints full color pages at 20 pages per minute, or 3 seconds per page, no laser in its price range could get anywhere near that speed even in black and white. I must though I am dissapointed at the FPO of my business inkjet printer (but thats the one and only minor issue I have), when I print for the first time in the day (or few hours, never checked), it runs a 10-20 second cleaning cycle, so even though it takes 2-3 seconds to print the page, it takes a while before it starts.
[quote]Where are you getting that from? Where have you found $10 ink cartridges? Mine cost $25-$50 each and don't last anywhere near 2000 pages.[quote]
I refill my cartridges myself.
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Unless you're using refills/generics, and doing printer repairs for over 10 years now, I can tell you - they usually cause considerable headaches by leaking, and produce poor quality.
You must be using an epson or canon, I hate those printers, I've always refilled my HP, get the exact same quality as original, and never had a problem.
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Even a cheap laser printer will give you excellent quality printouts.
Even the best inkjet will run on you.
When I refer to quality I mean color photos, not text, yes text looks perfect from a laser, but photos from a laser look like colored sand paper.
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yep that's the Big Big factor IMO when you are talking about distributing anything commercially whether that be a brochure, CD label, ad etc.
that last thing you want is for the ink to run on your pretty CD label, when a user carries it out to their car in the rain.....makes you look unprofessional and cheap.
As I said that was an advantage I recognized of lasers but some inkjet inks claim to be water proof, some papers also make non water proof inks water proof and I have tested and prooved this, my inkjet prints normally wash out to a blank page under water, but with some papers, the ink does not run at all, but I agree if you want water proof prints then laser is the best choice.
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Inkjets, on the other hand - I was doing good to get 250 pages of text out of a $35 cartridge - approximately $0.15 per page.
The cartridges from my business inkjet make 1700 color copies or 3000-4000 black and white copies with a $10-15 cartridge, which is why I chose this one over laser.
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Do you print labels or envelopes in the inkjet printer? If the mail gets slightly damp - your mail may not be delivered
I used to, I now have a thermal label printer for that, and 4 printers in total on my pc (HP photo lab quality all-in-one, HP business inkjet, Brother thermal label roll printer, Epson CD printer).
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I will give the points to inkjet when it comes to photo-quality work, but only if you are comparing consumer models. By the time you get up to the "professional" color lasers - they take the cake every time - no fuzzing, extremely crisp photo-quality prints that don't smudge or run - in a fraction of the time it takes an inkjet to do a full picture in "enhanced photo quality mode".
What is professional to you? I have color photo samples right here of a $10 000 HP color laserjet and the quality isn't better than my inkjet, it's close, but not as good.
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Me personally, if I was selling a software, I'd never dream of putting labels produced by an inkjet on them, it would just look too amatuerish. Also, if the ink doesn't dry up enough, or becomes wet, and the cd is put into a drive, the ink goes everywhere from the drive spinnig it, creating quite a nasty looking mess of a label.
The case label itself is covered by a plastic sleeve, and ink spinning off a cd? You're kidding right? Even fresh out of the printer it wouldn't do that, let alone days or weeks after it's been printed.