November, 1996
Laser Printers:
Four cautions and a comparison.
- Cheap paper.
- The only legitimate use for cheap printer (copy) paper is paper airplanes. Cheap paper -- anything less than penny paper ($5.00 for a ream, 500 sheets) -- is no way to stretch your printing budget. Cheap paper is thin, so most printers goof and pull several sheets at once from the paper tray, causing one paper jam after another. By the third time you dismantle the printer to clear a paper jam, you'll be cursing the pennies you saved buying the paper. But that's the least of it. Cheap paper is not properly finished, so it creates excessive paper dust, and that leads faster than you can believe to a $300 invoice for cleaning and overhaul. In short, buying cheap paper is truly "penny-wise and pound-foolish".
- No-name laser (and copier) cartridges.
- Some of the off-brand toner and drum replacement cartridges are just fine and lead to legitimate savings. But some aren't and lead to the $300 cleaning/overhaul invoice. A priori there's no way to know which are which. If your friend has the same printer or copier you have and has been using Brand-X replacement cartridges successfully, go for it. If not, it's probably smarter to ante up for the replacement parts recommended by the manufacturer. At least that way in the event of trouble your recourse hasn't been diminished by ignoring the manufacturer's advice.
P.S. Here's a safe way to pinch a few pennies when the printer tells you it's time for a new cartridge. Carefully remove the "spent" cartridge and, holding it horizontally, shake it gently from side to side. That will redistribute the remaining print particles, postponing the trip to Staples for another 50-100 printed pages.
- Re-using laser labels.
- It's annoying, isn't it, to miss and push the software button that prints one label (on a sheet of 30) when what you wanted was to hit the button that prints one sheet? Yup! But it will be worse than annoying if you put the sheet back in the hopper to print the remaining 29 labels. When a sheet of labels passes through a laser printer -- even if none are actually printed -- the heat of the printing process changes the chemistry of the adhesive that holds the labels to the glossy carrier. Want a bill for cleaning, overhaul and maybe a new roller or two? Put that used sheet of labels through your laser a second time. If that doesn't stick a few labels to your rollers maybe today's the day to try walking on water.
- Laser printers and surge suppressors.
- Got your PC system plugged in to a surge suppressor to protect it against voltage spikes on the power line? Good for you! Got your laser printer plugged in to the same suppressor? Oops, that's a problem. Laser printers (and copiers, and air conditioners, in fact, anything with a good-sized motor in it) are exactly the kind of spike-producing appliance you need to protect against. Plug your PC processor, monitor, modem, speakers, and answering machine in to the surge suppressor; plug anything else in to the wall outlet directly. Now you can worry about something else.
- Ink-jet vs. laser printers.
- It used to be that you selected an ink-jet for the home or home-office when the laser printer you really wanted was more than you wanted to spend, or when you wanted your printer to be able to print in color "for the kids". Well, ink-jets are not just second choices anymore and they're not just for kids. While still cheaper than laser printers ($200-600 vs $400-2000), ink-jet printers now produce letter-quality output as good or better than laser output. And the ink-jet colors which used to be cartoonish and washed out are now vivid, vibrant and, with special coated paper, fall just shy of photographic quality.
Ink-jet printers are still not suitable for regular office use. They're slow, about a page per minute for letters (longer for color), while laser printers plug along at 4 to 12 ppm. They're not as rugged as an office-quality ($800+) laser, and they don't offer "office" features like second paper trays and network capability. But if your needs are personal or home-office, if you'd like to print menus, flyers, resumes, greeting cards and invitations in bright, high resolution color, consider an ink-jet for your next printer.
P.S. The October, 1996 issue of Consumer Reports carries an excellent review of PC printers, primarily ink-jet models with a few (6) low-end laser models also reviewed. Subscribers to CompuServe or AOL can get this report online.
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