Issue #0513/2 - Canon has entered the standalone colour laser printer market with an ultra low-end offering that undercuts even Dell on its purchase price. Also launched are two mono laser printers – between them more than doubling the size of Canon’s laser printer range.
With the introduction of three new Laser Shot models (LBP-2900 / LBP-3000 / LBP-5200), Canon has more than doubled the size of its laser printer offering on the market and entered the standalone colour laser printer segment with an exceptionally aggressive offering.
Not significantly known for its laser printers, but well known as the engine supplier to Hewlett-Packard, Canon’s models are all low-end personal and small workgroup devices. None of the models are network-ready and none have duplex capability. Canon is completely ignoring the volume workgroup segments of the market.
Added to the mono printer range are the Laser Shot LBP-2900 and LBP-3000, offering 12ppm and 14ppm print speeds respectively. The fastest mono laser printer available from Canon is an existing model, the 18ppm LBP-3200.
Of particular interest though is the introduction of the Laser Shot LBP-5200 colour device, dramatically entering the market as the lowest cost colour laser printer currently available by pricing it 15% below its closest competitor.
| UK | Purchase | Print Speed |
Nominal CPP |
Mixed mono/colour CPP over 3 years |
|
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
|
Canon Laser Shot LBP-5200 |
£203 |
Mono Colour |
19 ppm 4 ppm |
2.51 pence 11.92 pence |
5.22 pence |
| Dell 3000cn | £239 |
Mono Colour |
25 ppm 5 ppm |
0.90 pence 7.31 pence |
3.03 pence |
| Dell 3100cn | £260 |
Mono Colour |
25 ppm 5 ppm |
0.90 pence 5.28 pence |
2.36 pence |
| Epson C1100 | £299 |
Mono Colour |
25 ppm 5 ppm |
1.43 pence 8.22 pence |
3.62 pence |
|
Hewlett-Packard Colour LaserJet 2550L |
£304 |
Mono Colour |
19 ppm 4 ppm |
1.58 pence 7.94 pence |
3.60 pence |
|
Konica Minolta magicolor 2400w |
£280 |
Mono Colour |
20 ppm 5 ppm |
1.44 pence 7.95 pence |
3.61 pence |
| Lexmark Optra C510 | £289 |
Mono Colour |
8 ppm 30 ppm |
1.50 pence 7.64 pence |
3.46 pence |
| Xerox Phaser 6100BD | £329 |
Mono Colour |
21 ppm 5 ppm |
1.66 pence 9.19 pence |
4.03 pence |
Note that for this level of machine, the mixed mono/colour CPP over three years shown in the accompanying table is calculated on the basis of 2,500 pages per month using maximum capacity toners and takes into account any standard, or starter, toner cartridges shipped with the printer and includes the purchase price.
However, although ‘lowest cost’ is a powerful attraction, potential buyers should not forget that an extra £36 buys a printer (from Dell) that is not only faster but also has an integrated network interface, offers PCL 6 and PCL 5e print languages and offers a standard paper input capacity of 400 sheets against 125 sheets. If users wish to network the LBP-5200, they must purchase a third-party external print server – something that anyone can do for any printer.
In point of fact, Dell is the only company in this segment to include networking as a standard feature of its laser printers.
Printing at 4ppm in mono and 19ppm in colour, the LBP-5200 engine is shared with Hewlett-Packard’s Colour LaserJet 2550L, meaning that it also has an ‘instant on’ fuser unit and a rather low standard paper capacity of 125 sheets from a multi-purpose tray. For higher input capacity, a 250-sheet tray is available as an option.
On a positive note, the LBP-5200 is fitted with a USB 2.0 High Speed interface.
Unfortunately, there is no positive note on the subject of Cost Per Page. The LBP-5200 consumables are so expensive that the nominal colour CPP breaks well over the 10 pence mark while the mono CPP is over 2.5 pence. None of the other printers come anywhere near these levels.
Although Canon’s LBP-5200 shares the same engine with Hewlett-Packard’s Colour LaserJet 2550, the Canon has consumables that are up to 95% more expensive that the LaserJet – Imaging drum = 95%; colour toners = 32%; black toner = 40%.
This puts the long term CPP at 5.22 pence, which is 30% higher even than the Xerox Phaser 6100BD, which is itself 71% higher than the Dell 3100cn.
In all, that means the LBP-5200 will cost a user 121% more to run over a three year period, at 2,500 pages per month, than the Dell 3100cn!
Essentially this is another demonstration of the well-documented printer marketing strategy taken to an extreme. Low cost hardware is not necessarily the answer, unless the user knows that the number of prints likely to be made will not necessitate the purchase of any consumable items over the effective life of the device. Just the consumables supplied with the printer would be used.
Canon Laser ShotLBP-5200
For this to be the case with the new Canon Laser Shot LBP-5200, a user would be able to print only 83 pages per month at 5% coverage of each colour (printing 70% black pages and 30% colour pages) – total 2,988 pages over three years. This works out at an average of 3.95 pages per day.
There just could be some users who would desire laser quality while printing such low volumes!
Hewlett-PackardColour LaserJet 2550L
In this instance, the user would have paid 6.79 pence per page against 8.7 pence if the Dell 3100cn had been bought. However, the Dell could go to 111 pages per month (total 3,966 pages; average 5.25 per day; 34% higher than the Canon) over three years before any new consumables would be required, meaning that the overall CPP would be lower than the Canon’s 6.51 pence (at 83 pages per day).
Clearly, the moral of the story yet again is ‘do not trust the cheapest printer to be the lowest cost printer’!
~End~
