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

Login
Subscribe to TCPGlobal

Epson C1100 – looking good on the catwalk

Issue #0440/2 - New ultra low-end colour laser printer has an attractive but costly coat.

Imagination and design flair would seem to be showing themselves in printer design in rather greater measure than has been known in the past as Epson launches its new colour laser printer based on the Fuji Xerox engine currently used only by Dell.

Far more attractive than Dell’s ultra low-end 3000cn and 3100cn colour laser printers, Epson’s new AcuLaser C1100 offers that same 25ppm mono print speed, with 5ppm colour, in a machine that is priced a little higher than the regular price of the Dell 3000cn.

Dell 3000cn
However, not only is Dell running a special offer on the 3000cn in the run-up to Christmas, but also includes the network interface within that price. Epson has taken the more traditional route of offering a local connect machine (Parallel/USB 2.0) as the basic model and offering the network ready model (10/100 Base TX) at additional cost.
A feature that does set the Epson apart is the provision of SNMP compliance for flexible network management. Also available are optional 500-sheet second paper tray and duplex module, as on the Dell machine.
UK Purchase Nominal
CPP 		Mixed mono/colour
CPP over 3 years
Epson AcuLaser C1100 £299 Mono
Colour 		1.43 pence
8.22 pence 		3.62 pence
Dell 3000cn
(Special Offer) 		£226 Mono
Colour 		0.90 pence
8.96 pence 		3.49 pence
Dell 3100cn
(Special Offer) 		£269 Mono
Colour 		0.90 pence
6.48 pence 		2.69 pence
Epson AcuLaser C900 £300 Mono
Colour 		1.03 pence
8.27 pence 		3.30 pence
Hewlett-Packard
Business Inkjet 1200d 		£131 Mono
Colour 		1.41 pence
5.50 pence 		2.72 pence
Hewlett-Packard
Colour LaserJet 2550L 		£304 Mono
Colour 		1.71 pence
8.50 pence 		3.84 pence
Konica Minolta
Magicolor 2300W 		£280 Mono
Colour 		1.65 pence
8.31 pence 		3.58 pence
Konica Minolta
Magicolor 2400W 		£280 Mono
Colour 		1.44 pence
7.95 pence 		3.61 pence
Xerox Phaser 6100BD £329 Mono
Colour 		1.36 pence
7.98 pence 		3.33 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, printing 70% mono pages and 30% colour pages, takes into account any standard, or starter, toner cartridges shipped with the printer and includes the purchase price.

Epson C1100
Epson ships both its machines with minimal capacity 1,500-page starter cartridges but 4,000-page cartridges are also available for aftersales. Assuming use of the high capacity cartridges, nominal CPP is 1.43 pence in mono and 8.22 pence in colour. These figures are 59% and 27% higher respectively than those offered by Dell on the same cartridges (quoted as 4,000-page yield by both manufacturers). With the higher purchase price as well, the overall long-term Cost Per Page for the C1100 works out 35% more expensive than the Dell 3100cn at its special offer price – and then there is the additional cost of the network connectivity to add on.

Interestingly, Dell has changed its quoted figure for drum life expectancy from 30,000 to 42,000 for colour printing and 10,500 pages for mono printing – the same as quoted by Epson (although the original quote of 30,000 pages can still be found, uncorrected, deeply buried inside the Dell web site). This makes a 14% difference to the long term CPP of the Dell 3100cn, originally making the printers look more attractive than they should have been. The figures quoted in this issue of TCPglobal are based on the corrected life expectancy figures.

AcuLaser C1100

Pricing on the AcuLaser C1100, although offering 5/25ppm print speeds instead of 4/16ppm, is set at the same level as the C900, which would appear to be remaining in the line-up for the short term. It does however, work out a little more expensive to run for the long-term than the C900 at 3.62 pence per page against 3.30 pence.

Most significant in the pricing of the product is that Epson has not implemented its ‘low-cost’ mono printing policy in this instance. At 1.43 pence per page for mono printing, this new model is very much in line with typical workgroup mono laser printers whereas mono CPP for the C900 was set at a very aggressive level of 1.03 pence.

Following Epson’s huge success with its C900, one would have expected the company to continue with the policy of offering low-cost mono printing with this new printer that should be able to eclipse the C900 in every way – performance, configuration, flexibility and aesthetics.

~End~

This entry was posted on Friday, December 10th, 2004 at 12:02 am and is filed under Hardware, New Products, Comparisons, News. 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.