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

Issue #0723/1 - Konica Minolta’s new magicolor 5550 offers high specification at an average cost, while Cost of Printing on Xerox’s new solid ink Phaser 8560n goes through the roof. Kyocera firmly retains its customary ‘low-cost’ position.

Defining this category is colour print speed in the mid-twenties (ppm); whether or not the colour print speed is exactly the same. In several cases, mono and colour print speeds are the same but we see the Konica Minolta magicolor 5550 with a 5ppm advantage on its mono print speed (at 30ppm, over 25ppm colour) and the Oki C5900n with a 6ppm advantage (at 32ppm, over 26ppm colour).

Epson’s AcuLaser C4200DN could have been fitted into the fast mono category of last week’s issue because of its 35ppm mono printing but, with a 25ppm colour print speed, this is a more appropriate group. Because Xerox’s Phaser 8560 solid ink printer was not deemed appropriate to be included in the fast colour printing group investigated in Issue #0717 "Xerox joins the fast A4 mono workgroup laser printer brigade" (because correspondence quality printing requires speeds below the maximum of 30ppm Xerox quotes), we have included it here on the basis that correspondence quality can be achieved at print speeds of around 24ppm.

This particular category has not seen a great deal in the way of new products over the last six months or so. Xerox’s Phaser 8560 was introduced in February, sitting rather uncomfortably at the high-cost end of this group despite its aggressive hardware price, while Konica Minolta has introduced a new laser printer, the magicolor 5550, which fits very averagely into the middle of the group.

Purchase price of the magicolor falls in the middle of the group, nominal colour CPP falls in the middle of the group and long-term CPP falls in the middle of the group. The one metric that stands out as being somewhat different is the nominal mono CPP.

We’ve seen a tendency for Konica Minolta to raise its prices and Cost of Printing over recent months and the fact that the nominal colour CPP is the lowest in the group apart from the Kyocera, is something of a surprise. But, for the nominal mono CPP to stand out as almost the highest is not so much of a surprise. Where the magicolor 5550 does score is in its high duty cycle and its higher-than-average mono print speed.

This really means that the only printer to stand out from the crowd in this group (in a good way) is Kyocera’s FS-C5030N. Leaving the hardware price of Epson’s now ageing AcuLaser C4200DN standing high and dry, Kyocera has had a significant impact on this group by cutting the price of its FS-C5030N by 16%. Previously, the FS-C5030N was the most expensive of these machines to buy.

Referring to the accompanying chart, we see that the FS-C5030N is (predictably) the least expensive printer to run, whatever the page volume. The Cost of Printing of the core group of printers, other than the FS-C5030N (and omitting the Phaser 8560 for a moment), fall within a very tight band on the accompanying chart. Sitting apart, the FS-C5030N, on average, falls 29% lower than the core printers – or, to reverse the calculation, the other printers cost, on average, 42% more to run over three years than the FS-C5030N.

That is a significant extra on the Cost of Printing for any customer! Epson’s C4200DN is the only machine to have a reasonable justification for being up at that level – because it has auto-duplexing built in as a standard feature and a duty cycle that is second highest in the group. But, even then, it must be due for a price reduction – after all, its hardware price is now 15% higher even than the magicolor 5550 and FS-C5030N, which are not the least expensive in the group by a long way.

A little surprisingly for Epson, the nominal mono CPP on the C4200DN is on the high side within the group. Epson has a reputation for being very aggressive on mono toner. Its colour toner is actually priced very much around the average or even the lower end of average.

Total Cost of Printing - by Monthly Page Volume

Mid-range single-pass colour laser printers

Note that the CPP shown here is calculated over three years on the basis of a variable page count; 70% pages in mono and 30% pages in colour; is based on the use of maximum capacity supplies; takes into account any standard, or starter, supplies shipped with the device; and also includes the cost of purchase. All prices used are manufacturer’s recommended prices without tax.

Mixed mono/colour CPP in the table below is based on a print volume of 2,500 pages per month.

Uk Mid-range Single-pass colour	Purchase Duty Cycle	Print Speed		Nominal CPP	Mixed mono/colour CPP over 3 years
Epson AcuLaser C4200DN	£918 90,000	Mono Colour	35ppm 25ppm	1.19 pence 6.24 pence	3.33 pence
Konica Minolta magicolor 5450	£679 60,000	Mono Colour	25ppm 25ppm	1.06 pence 6.07 pence	3.98 pence
Konica Minolta magicolor 5550	£799 120,000	Mono Colour	30ppm 25ppm	1.24 pence 6.03 pence	3.67 pence
Kyocera FS-C5030N	£799 85,000	Mono Colour	24ppm 24ppm	0.89 pence 3.97 pence	2.43 pence
Oki C5900n	£759 60,000	Mono Colour	32ppm 26ppm	1.10 pence 6.77 pence	3.42 pence
Xerox Phaser 8560n	£536 85,000	Mono Colour	30ppm 30ppm	1.42 pence 7.82 pence	4.22 pence

Standing out from the crowd in not such a positive light is Xerox’s Phaser 8560n. Although hardware purchase price is very aggressive (32% lower than the average purchase price of all the other printers), the Cost of Printing reflects this fact. The nominal CPP for both mono and colour printing are very high, so high in fact that this printer tops the group for overall, long-term Cost of Printing.

Purchase Price

Mid-range single-pass colour laser printers

Nominal Cost Per Page

Mid-range single-pass colour laser printers

On average, the Total Cost of Printing of the Phaser 8560n is 20% higher than the average cost for the core grouping here, meaning that it is 71% more expensive to run over a three year period of ownership than the Kyocera FS-C5030N. This is a nightmare trap for those users who are caught in the cheapskate mentality that says all equipment must be bought at the cheapest possible price, no matter what – a scenario most commonly seen where Lexmark printers are concerned.

On the technology side, Xerox’s page-width solid ink printhead (originally developed by Tektronix) is testimony to the fact that a full-width inkjet print head is feasible. Indeed, Xerox did at one time have an A3 model in the solid ink line-up!

From this point of view, Hewlett-Packard’s Edgeline technology is not so much of a technology invention as a manufacturing process breakthrough. A4 or A3 width thermal inkjet printheads are not impossible using the Hewlett-Packard Scalable Printing Technology. It is just that the company has decided to limit head width to 4½ inches for now to leverage economies of scale in manufacturing.

So, what of the various hardware units seen here?

We’ve already commented on the fact that the Epson AcuLaser C4200DN is the only machine in the group to offer auto-duplexing as an out-of-the-box standard feature. Each of the other manufacturers does, of course, offer a duplex option for their machines.

With the characteristics mentioned above, the fact that the C4200DN is nearing two years old is not a problem. It still sits apart from some of the other machines with its high-level features: high mono print speed; built-in auto-duplexing; fair economy, especially with lower monthly print volumes; high standard paper capacity; very high optional paper capacity from up to five sources; and higher-than-average duty cycle.

All of these machines offer PCL and PS3 emulations (Xerox and Epson offer genuine Adobe PostScript but Epson offers its own Esc/Page language for general use – PCL emulation from Epson is optional), another feature that unites these devices as suitable for comparison. With respect to connectivity, all models have Ethernet interface as standard in addition to USB interface and four of the six also come equipped with parallel interface – the printers not fitted with parallel interface are the Oki C5900n and Xerox Phaser 8560n.

But then, aside from the fact that it has one of the highest mono print speeds (32ppm) the Oki has the lowest specification all-round. Not only does it not have a parallel interface but its paper input capacity is restricted to 930 sheets with the optional 530-sheet feed from three sources. Standard capacity is just 400 sheets, comprising 300 sheets from the main tray and 100 from the multi-purpose feed.

Duty cycle is also a relatively low 60,000 pages per month, in comparison to 90,000 from Epson and a very high 120,000 from Konica Minolta’s magicolor 5550. Even its toner cartridges are low-capacity relative to the other printers. With just 6,000 pages black toner and 5,000 pages of CMY toners, this compares poorly against most of the other machines that have toners yields of around 8,000-10,000 pages, all with lower-capacity starter toners shipped with the printer when new.

It is the laser newcomer to the group that has both the highest capacity toners available and the lowest capacity starter toners! Konica Minolta’s magicolor 5550 ships with just 3,000 pages-worth of toner; standard cartridges are 6,000 pages and the high-yield toners, as stated, are an impressive 12,000-page capacity.

Alongside this high toner capacity, this newcomer is one of the highest specified machines in the group, certainly competing hard with Epson’s C4200DN. Mono print speed is not quite as high, reaching only 30ppm instead of 35ppm, but it has a very high-power processor (733MHz PowerPC) and double the RAM of the C4200DN – 256MB as opposed to 128MB.

Paper input capacity is actually fairly mediocre at 1,600 sheets maximum from four sources. Epson’s C4200DN boasts a 2,350-sheet maximum capacity, from five sources, and Kyocera’s FS-C5030N boasts 2,100 sheets, also from five sources. However, the magicolor 5550 scores significantly with the availability of an optional finishing unit that has two output bins and a stapling unit – very useful for the busy office printing lots of multi-page documents. There is also the facility for booklet printing (particularly useful when combined with an auto-duplex unit).

As with many of today’s printers, colour access control is available on the magicolor – but only when the unit is fitted with a hard disk or compact flash card. Also available when storage capabilities are available are password protected secure printing and direct USB printing of TIFF, PDF and JPEG files.

Xerox, know for its productivity tools, offers its usual wide range of features, including: booklet printing; N-up printing; Run Black printing for those occasions when a colour ink has run out; Print With (see Issue #0716 "Xerox again targets productivity on office printing – Print With" article 2 for further information); Job accounting; CentreWare IS Embedded Web Server for printer management; PrintingScout for Job monitoring; and online troubleshooting with PhaserSmart.

Being a solid ink print engine, the Phaser 8560 is an eco-friendly solution. Ink sticks are contained only in small card boxes with a thin moulded plastic container inside.

Even apart from the solid ink configuration in the Phaser 8560n, that sprays ink onto an image transfer drum from a full page inkjet nozzle array, it is interesting to note that the laser printers in this group demonstrate quite different supplies configurations.

While Epson utilises a single drum unit, with an imaging belt to transfer the image to the paper, Konica Minolta’s magicolor 5450 follows a design akin to the Canon and Hewlett-Packard printers where four single-piece print units incorporate toner and drum, placing toner directly onto the paper with no intermediate imaging belt.

Konica Minolta’s higher level machine (magicolor 5550), on the other hand, makes use of four drum units that are separate to the toner cartridges but also place the image directly on the paper without intermediate imaging belt. Going one step further, Oki’s C5900n has individual drums separate to the toners (like the magicolor 5550) but with an image transfer belt as well.

Kyocera’s long-life ECOSYS technology has four drums, separate to the biodegradable toner cassette, that are capable of lasting for a massive 200,000 pages – longer than the expected life of the printer. They can, however, be changed by high-volume users (in the form of maintenance kit), thus extending the life of the printer for another 200,000 pages. An intermediate image transfer unit is responsible for placing the toner onto the paper.

More manufacturers are shipping printers with supplies pre-installed. Within this group, Epson and Konica Minolta (magicolor 5550) have taken this route.

So returning to Cost of Printing, with such little difference between the long-term costs of the core four of these machines, the choice of manufacturer and hardware would come down to specification. While some users will want the fastest print speed, others will want auto-duplexing, while others will want flexibility of paper input or productivity features such as booklet or banner printing.

Users looking for low entry price may have significant difficulty in justifying the high running costs of the Xerox Phaser 8560n.

For those with Cost of Printing near the top of their agenda, however, Kyocera’s FS-C5030N not only offers a long-term cost of printing that will save users around 30% over three years but also a good basic specification to meet most needs of the general office. The extreme economy is due to the fact that toner is literally the only consumable to need replenishing over the expected life of the printer (see earlier comment on 200,000-page drums and article 2 below).

Duty cycle is 85,000 pages per month and we’ve commented on the higher-than-average paper input capacity. Where the C5030N perhaps falls short of the competitors is in the field of office productivity in that there is no apparent facility for banner printing, booklet printing or colour access control.

~End~

This entry was posted on Friday, July 13th, 2007 at 12:03 am and is filed under Hardware, Pricing, Comparisons. 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.