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

Issue #0518/1 - Forget the colour laser printers that claim to be colour capable, Epson has released the first mono laser printer that allows the user to choose to buy colour toners if desired or to use only mono toners.

2005 appears to be developing into the year of the ‘firsts’!

Just a few weeks ago we were presented with the world’s first colour MFP at a price that makes it accessible to the general office. Then we saw the world’s first ultra low-end colour MFP and the first low-cost single-pass MFP, both of which are priced to be accessible to even the smallest of companies with a colour need.

Now we see the world’s first laser printer that can genuinely claim to be ‘colour-capable’.

It comes from Epson, is unique at this point in time, and is an exceedingly innovative laser printer that can be purchased in two main variants – mono or colour. Whichever model is purchased in the first instance, it can be fitted either with mono toner cartridges only, for mono printing, or with colour toner cartridges for full colour printing.

Mono printing is at 30ppm while colour prints arrive at the rate of 7.5ppm. This, combined with a 120,000-page monthly duty cycle in mono and 48,000-page duty cycle in colour, means that the Epson AcuLaser 2600N/C2600N is a machine suited to high volume mono printing where colour is required occasionally for customer facing literature but is not the norm.

Billed as ‘future-proof’, this technology has never been implemented before, even though it could have been. In reality, the only difference between this machine and conventional colour laser printers is that the printer driver will address all four toner stations as black instead of one of each colour.

Certainly this is a very novel and innovative implementation of laser printer technology and shows considerable lateral thinking as some companies try to persuade potential customers that they are only paying for a mono machine that is also capable of printing colour (see TCPglobal Issues #0414 - "What is this ‘Colour Capable’ rubbish? And how much is it costing?" and #0418 - "Lexmark’s new low-end colour C510 … … game-changing?" for further comment.

Following recent trends in the industry, Epson has ensured that these printers are fully network-ready out of the box. Paper capacity is also suited to volume printing in the small office/workgroup environment with a basic capacity of 650 sheets but expandable to 1,150 with the addition of a 500-sheet paper feed.

Really, this machine is a bit of an enigma. Capable of accepting either four mono cartridges or a full set of four colour cartridges, the reasoning for this configuration is not entirely clear.

Is this a single printer that will do the job better than the currently available 4-pass or single-pass colour printers? Or, is it a hybrid that is designed to give the user more choice?

Epson C2600N

True, it is capable of running high-speed and high-volume print jobs in mono.

True, it has a mono toner capacity of 20,000 pages.

True, it is capable of producing colour print jobs, when required, at an acceptable print speed of 7.5 pages per minute.

Unfortunately, to obtain the colour print jobs when printing in full-capacity mono mode, the printer has to be stopped, cartridges swapped and the printer restarted with the colour jobs. In other words, to obtain the colour capability, the user is effectively unplugging one printer and plugging in a new printer.

If the Epson C2600N is run in colour mode as standard however, the mono toner interventions come at 5,000 page intervals – but colour is available immediately, as and when required.

One has to consider that the time taken to remove one set of cartridges and replace them with the alternative set is not insignificant and is sure to be off-putting to users, most of whom will almost certainly resort to leaving colour consumables loaded most of the time for simplicity and convenience. Also, storage space will need to be found for the alternative set of cartridges, at some cost and inconvenience.

Is this really an efficient use of time and space when there are other printers capable of printing at up to 35ppm in mono and 25ppm in colour (Dell 5100cn) – and at a lower cost? The difference is that the Epson C2600N will run for 20,000 mono pages without mono toner interventions whereas the Dell requires a toner intervention every 9,000 pages.

However, is changing a cartridge at 9,000 page intervals instead of 20,000 pages such a hardship for having the capability of printing fast colour pages whenever required?

Epson C2600N

So, we can certainly call the Epson AcuLaser 2600N series the first genuine ‘colour capable’ laser printer but – will it sell?

To help answer this question we need to look at the Total Cost of Printing but, before doing so, we also need to ask the simple question, “Is flexibility of usage what this machine is all about”.

Essentially, there would seem to be two markets for the Epson AcuLaser 2600N / C2600N. Both markets will comprise small companies, departments or workgroups.

Firstly, there is the company that needs a fast mono laser printer that is capable of printing significant volumes with minimal interventions, but thinks that it may have a requirement for some colour printing in the future and does not want to be saddled with additional capital outlay (or desk space consumption) to achieve the colour capability immediately.

Secondly, there is the company with high volume mono printing requirements as its norm but that has a regular, but infrequent, colour printing requirement. A possible scenario in this category might be the company with ongoing intensive administration requirements and a need to print colour marketing/publicity materials once a month or once a quarter.

One has to ask though, are these two markets big enough to warrant the existence of this class of printer? I think the key to success is most likely to be in attracting the ‘undecided’ buyer – if Epson can succeed in appealing to small companies and departments that do not wish to commit to full colour printing, but know that it is a serious probability that some colour will be required in due course.

For them, the mono AcuLaser 2600N would be a fair choice. In black only printing mode, the 2600N allows four black print cartridges to be fitted at one time for four times normal toner capacity - 20,000 pages. This minimises user intervention for mono only printing and allows the machine to compete on a level with dedicated mono laser printers in the similar speed bracket.

From the perspective of purchase price, the Epson AcuLaser 2600N is very well positioned. Only the Dell Workgroup Laser W5200N beats it on price.

However, the downside is that four high capacity units, delivering 5,000 pages apiece and priced at £42.57 each (total £170.28), cost significantly more than the 20,000-page mono cartridges from Hewlett-Packard and Kyocera Mita - £137.86 and £66.00 respectively – making the nominal mono CPP (including photoconductor unit) higher than all the competition other than Lexmark and Xerox. Only the 21,000-page unit from Lexmark is more costly, at £242.14, but that is no great surprise.

By the time the other elements have been added into the equation, the long-term mono CPP rises to 1.47 pence, only exceeded by the two Lexmark machines at 1.52 and 1.55 pence – so rather more than the typical cost for a mono printer of this speed. Indeed, the AcuLaser 2600N is 29% more costly to run than Epson’s own 27ppm EPL-N3000 and is more than double the cost of models from Kyocera Mita. Even Hewlett-Packard’s LaserJet 4250n costs 18% less to run over a three-year life than the mono AcuLaser 2600N.

One further factor that should be considered if running this machine as a mono laser printer is that, as the print volume increases, so will the cost differential with most of the other competitive models!

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 5,000 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.

So, as a mono laser printer, the AcuLaser 2600N is an attractively priced machine but with overall Cost of Printing on the high side. How about as a colour machine?

Presumably shipping with only one mono cartridge (rather than four), while the colour version needs to ship with four cartridges (£155-worth of colour cartridges at 3,000-page yield), the mono version at £526 commands a lower hardware price than the colour version at £601.

On the aftermarket the use can then opt to buy high-capacity cartridges with a 5,000-page yield.

Ironically though, despite the fact that £526 is close to being the class-leading price in the mono laser printer environment, it is nowhere near class-leading in the colour environment – and the C2600N, at £601, is priced 14% higher than the mono model.

In fact, of the direct competitors (>25 ppm mono print speed), only three are priced higher than the C2600N and two of those are single-pass machines with much higher colour print speeds. The other five are priced significantly below the level occupied by the Epson – up to 68% lower (Dell 3000cn).

Not quite so bleak though is the long-term CPP for this machine. At an average of 3.01 pence per page, the Epson C2600N beats all but the Dell machines by up to 34% (Lexmark C760).

This is good news for users and for Epson. Nominal mono CPP is lower than all but Dell and colour CPP is again lower than most – the Oki C7350n joins Dell in undercutting the Epson in this instance.

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 5,000 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.

So, to summarise, the Epson AcuLaser (C)2600N is better positioned as a colour printer than as a mono printer in terms of overall cost of operation over a three-year life. But, its low purchase price as a mono laser printer should very well make it attractive to those who think they might want to buy a colour printer but primarily need a mono printer. It should also make it attractive as a straight high volume mono printer.

Epson has certainly succeeded in developing an innovative product and it will be very interesting to see if any other manufacturers follow suit, seeing potential in this true ‘colour-capable’ technology.

It is unclear at this stage whose engine Epson is using for the 2600N series and, although the company claims it to be an Epson printer, it is unlikely that it will have invested in the tooling and expertise required to develop and manufacture its own engine technology after more than 15 years of buying that technology from other engine manufacturers.

Time will answer this question in the form of a similar device from the engine’s original manufacturer, if indeed it is not Epson.

~End~

This entry was posted on Friday, May 27th, 2005 at 12:03 am and is filed under Print Technology, Hardware, New Products, 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.