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

Issue #0728/1 - Samsung has elevated itself to a starring role in the printer industry in just a few years and is promoting hard to take itself even higher. But, some of its hardware is supported by supplies costs that are high by anyone’s standards and not every ‘special deal’ makes sense.

Only a few short years ago, Samsung was declaring its intention to be amongst the leaders in the printer industry – effectively from a standing start! Today, the company enjoys that position in certain market segments and represents a serious threat to overall leadership in some of those segments – primarily the low-price, low-end, entry-level markets.

Its promotional activities are taking an aggressive and highly visible turn (in the UK at least), as the accompanying photo indicates: it has a low purchase price and the consumables pricing is attractive to the pocket of the micro-business or home user.

Billed as the smallest and lightest colour laser printer, the Samsung CLP-300 is not actually the cheapest colour laser printer on the market (today) – but probably only because Dell is running an equally aggressive promotion on its 1320c colour laser printer, at £99 (plus VAT and delivery = £116.33).

Most significantly though, it is most definitely NOT the least costly to run over three years. For a business pushing 1,000 pages through it per month, the CLP-300 is the second most expensive by quite a large margin. The only more expensive machine is Xerox’s version of the same engine – Phaser 6110.

UK <£200 A4 colour laser	Typical Purchase	Print Speed		Nominal CPP *	Mixed mono/colour CPP over 3 years *
Canon LaserShot LBP-5000	£165	Mono Colour	8ppm 8ppm	1.88 pence 9.38 pence	4.50 pence
Canon LaserShot LBP-5200	£196	Mono Colour	19ppm 4ppm	1.63 pence 8.25 pence	4.16 pence
Dell 1320cn	£116	Mono Colour	16ppm 12ppm	1.66 pence 9.47 pence	4.15 pence
Hewlett-Packard Colour LaserJet 1600	£182	Mono Colour	8ppm 8ppm	1.80 pence 9.03 pence	4.39 pence
Konica Minolta Magicolor 2500w	£172	Mono Colour	20ppm 5ppm	1.24 pence 7.98 pence	4.03 pence
Samsung (Typical Retail) CLP-300	£135	Mono Colour	16ppm 4ppm	2.57 pence 12.06 pence	5.22 pence
Samsung (Staples deal) CLP-300	£180	Mono Colour	16ppm 4ppm	2.77 pence 13.35 pence	5.49 pence
Xerox Phaser 6110	£149	Mono Colour	16ppm 4ppm	2.77 pence 14.22 pence	6.62 pence

All prices and costs inc. tax and delivery

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 1,000 pages per month; 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 are manufacturer’s recommended prices without tax.

However, the margin by which the CLP-300 is more expensive than its next-nearest rival depends on where it is bought. If bought through a typical online reseller, the hit is not as bad as buying through Staples on its ‘special’ offer! In fact, using our standard balance of pages, based on 70% mono and 30% colour, the CLP-300 costs just 5% more over three years if bought on Staple’s special offer than through a typical online reseller.

Cost of Printing

Sub-£200 (Typical Retail Price) colour laser printers

But, this is bad enough – especially considering that it is supposed to be a special offer and equally especially when considering that this is 36% more expensive than running the most cost-efficient printer in the group – Konica Minolta’s magicolor 2500w. In point of fact, apart from the Samsung-engined machines, the Total Cost of Printing of all the other machines fall within quite a tight competitive band. If we take just the three lowest-cost machines, there is very little to choose between them cost-wise (3%) and the purchase price becomes the justifiable differentiator – pushing the choice towards Dell’s 1320cn (especially as it has the benefit of the network interface as a standard feature!).

A note on the Dell printer here – unusually, Dell’s 1320cn is not the cheapest printer to run, mainly due to the somewhat expensive colour toner. But, even its black toner costs more than the black toner for both the Konica Minolta magicolor 2500w and the Canon LaserShot LBP-5200. This printer does, however, sit firmly at the lower end of the Cost of Printing scale under most circumstances.

Going up to the top of the scale, Xerox’s Phaser 6110 is even more expensive than the Samsung – to be expected (most of the time but not always) because Xerox has to buy the hardware and supplies from Samsung.

Here we see a printer that is not only about 10% more expensive to buy but is 27% more costly to run over time.

There is always debate over how many pages per month represents a typical figure that can be used in Total Cost of Printing calculations and, at this end of the market, the stakes are high for the user. The percentage of mono to colour pages printed by micro-businesses and home users may also be rather different from the balance of pages printed in a larger company.

In the primary comparisons, we have reduced the number of pages printed to just 1,000 per month (48 pages per working day) – representing a small business with a printing workload of a few letters/memos/invoices/reports/etc. (70% mono and 30% colour).

In the next comparisons, we have taken that a stage further and halved the number of pages printed (17 pages per day) and also given an illustration of what happens if the balance of pages is reversed to 30% mono and 70% colour – representing a home, for example, where prints may include a high proportion of children’s homework and other illustrations.

Cost of Printing

Sub-£200 (Typical Retail Price) colour laser printers

First of all, keeping the page balance at the business oriented 70% mono / 30% colour split, we find that the Canon LaserShot LBP-5200 and Konica Minolta magicolor 2500w separate themselves out at the bottom of the cost scale, with a long-term CPP of about 3.6 pence, while most of the other machines sit in a tight group between 4.9 pence and 5.25 pence per page. Sitting right out on a limb is Xerox’s Phaser 6110 at a CPP that is not only about 30% higher than the core grouping but is almost 95% higher than the least costly printer in the group – in this instance, the magicolor.

Reversing the page balance to 30/70 (but still buying the toner value packs), we then see that the long-term CPPs spread out as the higher-yield supplies for most machines need changing less often. The middle grouping, with colour toner yields of 2,000 or 2,500 pages, is reduced to three models but Canon’s LBP-5200 separates itself from the group, and from the magicolor, because the colour toners are priced much lower (even though the drum works out at twice the cost) – thus making it the least costly machine over three years.

Note that Canon appears to have withdrawn the LBP-5200 but there are still stocks in the channel at the present time. There is no replacement yet at a similar price point - which is a shame (although it is an ugly machine)!

Konica Minolta appears to be in the process of discontinuing the magicolor 2500w also.

Note also that Lexmark is a surprising omission at this level in the market. The company’s C500n is not available in stores at a competitive price point.

Samsung users would also have to accept that buying value packs of toner will result in black toner being left over because of its high yield compared to the colour toners. For very low monthly volume users (and especially those printing mostly colour pages), it makes sense only to buy the value pack once in a while – more cost-effective is to buy colour cartridges on their own at least half of the time.

It has to be said, though, that Samsung products are functional and easy to use and the hardware tends to be of a decent quality – unlike cheap competitor Lexmark.

The drum unit on the Samsung CLP-300 is fantastic value for the small business. Rated at 20,000 pages for black only printing or 12,500 pages for four-colour printing, it will only need changing every 10 black toner cartridges-worth of printing or every 12½ toner cartridges-worth of colour printing.

This actually has the result that, as long as the machine is bought for exceptionally low-volume colour printing (meaning as low as 100 pages per month!), and with a high proportion of colour pages (70% colour / 30% mono), this is a great machine and the cheapest in the group. For anyone printing higher volumes than that, look elsewhere!

Unfortunately, the waste toner unit can be ridiculously inefficient. Although it is rated for 1,250 colour pages or 5,000 mono pages, experience has shown that it can fill up after as little as one black cartridge’s-worth of mono only printing (less than 2,000 pages).

A promotion of this nature emphasises that it is visibility and a keen hardware purchase price, especially if linked with a perceived ‘great deal’ on supplies, and not the overall value of the purchase to be made that will draw in the buyers.

~ End ~

This entry was posted on Friday, September 14th, 2007 at 12:03 am and is filed under Special Offers, Pricing. 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.