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

Issue #0836/1 - Hewlett-Packard’s new 30ppm Colour LaserJet CP3525 enters the market creating a new price benchmark for the print speed. Hewlett-Packard claims, “black printing for the same cost as on an HP monochrome LaserJet” but, its high colour CPP can push its mixed-page Total Cost of Printing up towards the top of a competitive colour printer grouping. Now that the CP3525 is formally launched, we check out its specification, along with its Total Cost of Printing and check out the company’s cost of mono printing claim.

HP CLJ CP3525n

Hewlett-Packard clearly intends this printer to be the sole printer in a general office environment, billing it as providing affordable colour printing. It is some time since we specifically commented on this type of targeting because it has become the norm over the last couple of years but, when manufacturers start making claims such ‘black printing at mono LaserJet costs’, this calls for the rationale behind the targeting to be revisited.

Colour printers claiming to offer colour printing at the same cost as mono printing (Xerox Phaser 8860 solid ink printer - "Has Kyocera met its match as Xerox turns the clocks back 20 years?"), or at the same cost as mono laser printers (Epson B-500DN business inkjet printer - "Epson B-500DN business inkjet printer rocks … the boat!"), are still very few and far between.

For colour laser printers to offer black printing at a cost that is not prejudicial to the user as against the cost of printing those pages on a mono laser printer, is a prerequisite to full acceptance of colour technology as the only printer technology worth considering for the office. Until that time (and probably even beyond that time), there will always be a market for mono laser printers.

So, how does the Colour LaserJet CP3525 perform in this respect?

First of all, there are several potential definitions of “black printing for the same cost as on an HP monochrome LaserJet”.

• Cost of toner only
• Cost of all customer replaceable units (CRUs)
• Long-term Total Cost of Printing

In addition, the source of pricing can have a considerable influence on a comparison, so we have used a median street price for both hardware and supplies, sourced from the German market, in order to ensure that pricing is real and as comparable as possible.

Toner-only cost equality is not a hard thing to achieve and Hewlett-Packard has done just that with this printer. Black toner for many office-oriented colour laser printers is priced at an equivalent cost to toner for mono laser printers – and can easily be considerably lower. For instance, black toner for Oki’s C710 costs about 1.16 cents (including the drum), while toner for the company’s B6250 mono printer costs 1.46 cents (integrated toner unit).

There are even a few instances with colour laser printers where the nominal mono CPP is as low as the typical nominal CPP of many mono laser printers – e.g. Oki’s C710 @ 1.43 cents and Kyocera’s FS-C5025 @ 1.45 cents.

At 1.51 cents per page (nominal mono CPP), Hewlett-Packard’s CP3525 falls very close to this level but slightly outside the nominal CPP of most mono laser printers of this class, where the highest noted is currently 1.49 cents (Lexmark T640).

We selected the closest-performing Hewlett-Packard LaserJet printer for a comparison with the CP3525 – the LaserJet P3005 – using dn configurations of both printers in order to emphasise the suitability for general office applications in an environmentally-aware organisation.

Comparing nominal mono CPP, the CP3525 is actually a little more costly than the LaserJet P3005 – but the difference is fairly minimal – while, as indicated, the toner-only cost is just comparable.

Cost Per Page - Mono Printing

It is when we look at the long-term Total Cost of Printing that we see the higher hardware cost of the colour printer taking its toll and pushing the cost significantly above the cost of the mono printer.

However, no one would expect to buy a colour printer and print only black pages on it. What really determines whether two printers are of equivalent cost is how much money the user will actually have spent by the time the printer’s life is ended.

So the best comparison is the fourth pair of columns in the chart above, which takes the actual expenditure on toner and other CRUs to keep the printers working for 2,500 mono pages per month over three years (90,000 mono pages) but leaving out the hardware purchase because the colour printer is more expensive to buy by definition and will also be used to print colour pages.

Here, we see a slight fall in the figures compared to nominal mono CPP because, in each case, there are CRUs that we would not expect to replace during a running life of three years where total pages printed is 90,000.

However, we still see that black printing on the CP3525 costs slightly more than printing on the P3005 – as much as 6%. At higher print volumes, 5,000 pages per month or 180,000 pages, the difference widens to 7.5% – so can we really agree with Hewlett-Packard’s claim?

One factor we can become excited over though, is the purchase price of the CP3525, which sets a new benchmark for this class of printer. Using dn models throughout, we are met with a purchase price on the CP3525dn that is about 31% below the price of the three high-priced competitors.

Purchase Price - Colour Laser

At this point, we notice that, since we last drew on pricing for this group of colour printers, just two weeks ago, there has been a big drop in the price of Xerox’s Phaser 8560DN (from €933 to €733 – a reduction of 17%), whereas prices for the other three printers have remained at their same levels. This looks very much like a reaction from Xerox to make the Phaser 8560DN fall in line with the new benchmark price level of the CP3525dn. Interestingly, ink stick prices for the Phaser have gone up just a fraction to compensate, but not enough to prevent a small drop in the Total Cost of Printing – 3%.

As a rider on the increase in Xerox supplies prices though, many of the prices of supplies for the other printers in the group have also risen by a similar small amount in the two week period.

Hewlett-Packard’s aggressive pricing on black toner ensures that its nominal mono CPP is very nearly the lowest in the group, beaten only by Oki with its C710n.

Comparing the cost of colour printing, however, despite the fact that it has the lowest hardware purchase price by a significant margin, the CP3525dn has a high nominal colour CPP that pushes Total Cost of Printing up above the level of all the other printers in this competitive grouping, apart from the typically high-cost Lexmark C780dn.

Total Cost of Printing - Colour Laser

With this group of printers, however, the long-term situation is not as straightforward as it may seem.

If we return for a moment to the question of mono printing on the CP3525, by running the Total Cost of Printing model as if all pages printed on it were mono pages, and again as if all pages printer were colour pages (see chart below), it becomes quite clear that the CP3525 is the least expensive printer for printing black pages but is the most expensive, even over and above Lexmark’s C780dn, for printing colour pages.

Total Cost of Printing - Colour Laser Printers

This situation emphasises the need for a TCP model to allow users to vary the balance of black to colour pages, according to their own anticipated usage profile, in order to achieve any kind of realistic estimate of the expected print costs. As we see, these dynamics can alter the relative positions of printers in a line-up dramatically.

In fact, if we run the model for varying numbers of pages over the life of the printer, we find an equally confused situation develops. The clear winner in the chart below only emerges at higher print volumes.

Total Cost of Printing - Colour Laser

In fact, the Hewlett-Packard CP3525dn is, at one point (1,000 pages per month), the most expensive printer in the group but, push up the number of pages printed by only 500 per month, and it suddenly becomes the least expensive.

Similarly, Oki’s C710dn is most expensive at very low monthly volumes but least expensive just one step up at 1,000 pages per month. It then finds itself back in the middle of the group at 1,500 pages per month before settling comfortably into the leading position at 2,000 pages per month and above.

Meanwhile, all the other printers in the group are also in a constant position-shifting situation, with no printer (even Lexmark’s C780dn) taking the high-cost position consistently.

This whole situation indicates just how hard fought-over this category is likely to be over the next couple of years, simply because it represents the core price/performance point for a vast range of office customers.

Further emphasis of this fact is found in the specification for the CP3525. This is a highly specified machine but the differentiating factors are not in the specification but in the purchase price. The CP3525 is everything one would expect from a serious workgroup printer but setting a new price performance benchmark.

At 30ppm in both mono and colour, it is a fast device designed for the busy general office environment. Hewlett-Packard has finally started to dispense with a standalone base model for workgroup printers, even going to the lengths of appointing the CP3525n with a Gigabit network card – a good move!

This base model is capable of manual duplex printing, has a 250-sheet main paper feed, supported by a 100-sheet multipurpose feed. It is shipped with 256MB RAM, which is upgradeable to 1GB and it handles all the familiar page description languages expected of a printer in this class – PCL5c, PCL6, PostScript 3 emulation and direct PDF printing v1.4.

From the management perspective, the CP3525 provides colour access control and is shipped with HP Easy Printer Care Software for printer management in small businesses and HP Web JetAdmin for enterprise printer management. An embedded web server provides access to all set-up and monitoring aspects of the printer through a standard web browser.

HP CLJ CP3525x

Above the base model is a dn model offering auto-duplexing and 512MB RAM. The top model, CP3525x, is also equipped with a second paper feed, offering 500-sheet capacity, bringing the maximum capacity for the device to a satisfactory 850 sheets from 3 sources. Within this 500-sheet paper tray is a postcard media tray.

However, there are a couple of areas that customers may wish to consider as downsides to the Colour LaserJet CP3525.

Firstly, with a maximum monthly duty cycle rated at 75,000 pages, the CP3525 is not designed with the durability of any of its current competition – a factor that is reflected in the purchase price.

Secondly, Hewlett-Packard is continuing with its recent policy of not delivering laser printers with full toner cartridges – a practice the company was fiercely scornful of in other manufacturers for many years (sometimes Hewlett-Packard is a follower, not a leader!). CP3525 printers ship with 3,000-page cartridges, while the standard aftermarket cartridges are 5,000 pages from the black cartridge and 7,000 pages from each of the colour cartridges (all tested to ISO standards). The only high yield cartridge is black, at 10,500 pages.

All of the laser competitors boast maximum cartridge yields between 10,000 and 12,000 pages, with starter yields between 4,000 and 6,000. Only Xerox’s solid ink Phaser 8560 has lower yields per pack of ink sticks, at 6,000 black and 3,000 colour, but, the different technology renders this largely irrelevant. What the lower yields per pack mean to Phaser 8560 customers is lower ticket-shock per purchase while not significantly increasing the overhead per pack because there is no technology at all in the supplies themselves.

Overall, though, the Colour LaserJet CP3525 is a well-specified, low-cost colour printer that will not cost customers a fortune compared to other printers of a similar specification and will be popular. It is possible to reduce costs further, mainly by selecting the Oki C710n, but, for those with high print volumes of complex documents and significant proportions of black printing in their profile, the Gigabit-equipped CP3525 is undoubtedly a solid choice.

~End~

This entry was posted on Monday, November 10th, 2008 at 3:22 pm and is filed under Hardware, New Products, Comparisons, News, Total Cost of Printing. 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.