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

Issue #0802/1 - Would you believe it!? The day after the data for last week’s article was gathered, and the analysis undertaken, Kodak reduced the price of the EasyShare 5500 in the UK by 15%, but pushed it up in the US by 33%! This means that in the UK particularly, we now need to pitch the 5500 against the DCP-5460C from Brother, PIXMA MX310 from Canon, Officejet J5780 from Hewlett-Packard and Lexmark’s X6570.

Last week’s product comparison is now more suited to the US and the situation does not change in Germany, so the Cost of Printing comparisons presented are still valid.

The information provided here, compared with last week’s article, emphasises most strongly that it is absolutely imperative for prospective buyers to investigate the range of products available to them BEFORE making the purchase decision. There is just too much at stake to go out and buy on a whim!

Epson’s DX7000F still cannot feature here because of the lack of ADF but most of the obvious competitors are still priced lower than the Kodak, in some cases without particularly prejudicing print speed or features! The main exception is the Canon PIXMA MX310, which is rather slower than the MX700.

Purchase Price - Four-function Inkjet AiO

Note: prices in UK Pounds and Euros (Germany) are quoted including tax but prices in the US are quoted excluding sales tax

As well as reducing the price in the UK, Kodak seems to have ‘increased’ the price in the US, pushing it up well above the level of the other machines in this comparison but only bringing it up to the pricing level of some of the machines in last week’s comparison. There appears to have been no change in Euro pricing.

Perhaps the biggest advantage that Kodak now has, against this new set of competitors is the built-in auto-duplex feature. But, as only one other printer from last week’s line-up had auto-duplexing, and the replacement presented here still has that feature, it makes little difference to the comparison except that, for those who do appreciate that function, it does provide the justification for spending a little more on the machine.

As for why these changes have occurred, perhaps Kodak was finding it hard to sell this four-function device in the UK at £199.99 when most of the obvious competitors are priced at about the £130 level? In contrast, it may have been selling well in the US, giving Kodak the confidence to raise the price there and compensate for the reduced UK price.

Changing the models used as competitors changes the relative positions occupied by some of the manufacturers, underlining just how important it is for a buyer to know which cartridge set is being committed to before the initial hardware purchase takes place.

Canon is most affected by this phenomenon. Whereas the MX700 used last week runs on the economical PGI-5/CLI-8 series, the MX 310 ships with the PG-40/CL-41 series. Fortunately, the MX310 also accepts the PG-50/CL-51 series as well.

These cartridges are high-yield, providing 55% more pages from the PG-50 black cartridge and a massive 75% more pages from the CL-51 colour cartridge.

However even using the high-yield cartridges, as in the figures presented here, the nominal mono CPP on the MX310 has shot up to 4.12 pence from the MX700’s 2.37 pence and the nominal colour CPP has risen to 8.70 pence from 6.43 pence. This is a 74% increase in the cost of black ink and a 35% increase in the cost of colour ink.

Rolling that up into a long-term Cost of Printing, even though the MX700 costs a hefty 54% more to purchase than the MX310, over three years in a business environment (printing 250 pages every month) the Cost of Printing with the MX700 is as much as 22% lower than the MX310! And, in reality, the saving could be higher than this because the MX700 uses individual ink tanks where each colour is changed only when needed whereas the MX310 uses a tricolour cartridge where all three colours must be changed when the first colour runs out.

In addition, the PGI-5/CLI-8 series is very efficient in its ink usage, leaving the foam filler inside the ink tank visibly devoid of excessive inaccessible ink. This is in sharp contrast to many individual tank systems (particularly older generation systems) where a significant amount of inaccessible ink can be seen inside the tank at the time the printer requires it to be changed.

Against the other printers in this group, the effect of the PG-50/CL-51 cartridge set is to push the nominal CPP of the black ink up above even the cost of the Brother black ink.

Although the nominal colour CPP of the Canon CL-51 does not reach the level of the Brother LC-1000 series, the differential between the two is greatly reduced.

UK 4-function Inkjet AiO (prices inc. tax)	Purchase	Print Speed		Nominal CPP	Mixed mono/colour CPP over 3 years
Brother MFC-5460CN	£130	Mono Colour	30 ppm 25 ppm	3.52 pence 11.01 pence	6.96 pence
Canon PIXMA MX310	£129	Mono Colour	22 ppm 17 ppm	4.12 pence 8.70 pence	7.02 pence
Hewlett-Packard Officejet J5780	£130	Mono Colour	30 ppm 24 ppm	2.44 pence 6.40 pence	5.29 pence
Kodak EasyShare 5500	£170	Mono Colour	32 ppm 30 ppm	2.04 pence 4.69 pence	5.46 pence
Lexmark X6570	£130	Mono Colour	28 ppm 24 ppm	2.92 pence 8.32 pence	6.10 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 250 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 selling prices with tax.

Overall, the result is that the long-term Cost of Printing of the MX310 is up at the same level as Brother’s MFC-5460CN (which uses the same LC-1000 ink tanks as the MFC-885CW reviewed last week), instead of being 29% lower.

Nominal CPP for all three of the other printers remain precisely in their positions relative to one another, and the Brother, because the Kodak EasyShare 5500 is common to both sets of data and the Lexmark X6570 uses the same cartridges as the X7550.

Even though the Hewlett-Packard J5780 uses different cartridges from the 7210, they are essentially identical with almost identical quoted yields and are sold at the same price. This is a classic example of a manufacturer creating multiple monopolies on its supplies rather than allowing multiple hardware lines to use the same cartridges.

Total Cost of Printing - Four-function Inkjet AiO

Because of its high capacity XL cartridges, and the lower purchase price, Hewlett-Packard now undercuts Kodak as the most economical printer for long-term use at a business level of pages per month (250 pages per month), while Kodak’s 5500 still looks very cost-effective on the surface.

Lexmark’s use of high capacity cartridges continues to give us a surprise, positioning the X6570 as more cost-effective than either the Brother MFC-5460CN or the Canon MX310. However, note that for the sake of comparison, the prices used here are as used in last week’s article. Lexmark has notified price rises on consumable products this week – see article "Exchange rates prompt huge price increases on Lexmark supplies – with big implications to Total Cost of Printing".

So, the next big question is, ‘ is there a real disadvantage in buying one of these competitors to the Kodak 5500 and does the Kodak now look to be a significantly better deal with its price reduction?’

To start off, we have already commented on the auto-duplexing feature of the 5500 so, yes, there is significant advantage there and this advantage should not be underestimated in a business environment.

If we leave that aside, however, the only printer to suffer a significant speed reduction at this lower price point is the Canon MX310 where we now find 22ppm in mono and 17ppm in colour instead of 30ppm in mono and 20ppm in colour, as seen on the MX700.

Otherwise, the only differences found are a minor reduction in print speed on the Lexmark X6570, down from 30ppm and 27ppm to 28ppm and 24ppm, but a slight increase in colour print speed from the Hewlett-Packard model – up to 24ppm from 20ppm.

Brother MFC-5460CN

Brother’s MFC-5460CN is where we find the biggest difference in specification but only because we included the very top of the range device from Brother last week, which included such novelties as DECT cordless handset, speaker phone and Telephone Answering Machine, turning the device into a “do-it-all, one-stop business communications hub”.

Still included in the MFC-5460CN, however, are useful fax features like fax/telephone call recognition, fax forwarding, remote fax retrieval and remote access. In addition, the machine is capable of dual access faxing, meaning that a user can scan a fax for transmission while the machine is receiving a fax.

In terms of the more relevant specifications, the only major differences are that the MFC-5460CN does not have the widescreen colour LCD display of the MFC-885CE and the MFC-5460CN is wired networking only instead of wired and wireless.

In other respects, the MFC-5460CN is actually superior to the MFC-885CW. For instance, it has a 35-sheet ADF instead of 10-sheet; the modem is 33.6kbps instead of 14.4kbps; and it has a100-location speed dial capability, up from 80. The only areas that are not serviced to quite the same extent are the advanced photo printing functions – because the printer does not ship with Brother’s PhotoCapture Centre for PC-free photo enhancing/printing or Reallusion FaceFilter Studio for photo enhancement. However, if users really want these facilities, then they would be well advised to go for one of the models with the widescreen LCD display rather than the MFC-5460CN.

So, in no way is the MFC-5460CN an inferior machine for the small business and, for £130 instead of £200, it still represents excellent value for money without all the gizmos of the MFC-885CW.

Canon PIXMA MX310

Canon’s PIXMA MX310 is slower than the MX700, as already noted, but the major disadvantages are the fact that the MX310 is not network-ready at all and this is a two-cartridge system not the individual tank system of the MX700, something that has, again, already been noted.

There are a few other downsides as well though. Firstly, the MX310 does not have memory card slots for direct photo printing, but it is still equipped with the PictBridge interface; it has memory for only 50 pages instead of 100 pages; and it does not appear to have any speed dial locations or the TAM interface.

On this basis, potential buyers would be well-advised to buy the more expensive MX700 and gain access to the faster printing, higher level of features and networkability and, most importantly, the lower Total Cost of Printing.

Hewlett-Packard Officejet J5780

Hewlett-Packard’s Officejet J5780 offers faster colour printing than the Officejet 7210 but it lacks memory card slots; PictBridge interface; network connectivity; the ADF capacity is 35 sheets instead of 50 sheets; and duplex printing is manual only with no optional auto-duplex unit. Fax memory is slightly reduced from 130 pages to 100 pages and the speed dial capability is reduced from 100 locations to 100.

So again, there is a significant reduction in features from Hewlett-Packard at the lower price point – but remember, there is more than a £100 price difference!

Lexmark X6570

Lexmark’s X6570 is still a wireless enabled printer and lacks only the colour LCD display and is slightly slower than the X7550, at 27ppm in mono and 24ppm in colour instead of 30ppm and 27ppm. However, it does feature 99 speed dial locations; auto-redial; and support for caller ID. It also ships with the Lexmark Productivity Studio for photo manipulation and enhancement, together with scanning to OCR and printing PDF files direct from USB drive. None of this could be confirmed for the X7550.

In terms of its feature-set, then, the X6570 is a highly attractive machine. With a Total Cost of Printing not so far adrift of the Hewlett-Packard J5780, but with some very useful elements to its feature-set, it is only the Lexmark build quality and reliability that could be its downfall.

All-in-all then, the Kodak EasyShare 5500 looks to be a cost-effective solution with some nice features at the price. However, an equal or better feature-set is available from Lexmark at a lower purchase price and the Brother MFC-5460CN offers a high specification at a lower purchase price but much higher apparent running costs.

Hewlett-Packard’s Officejet J5780 is attractively positioned on purchase price and Cost of Printing but has a disappointing specification, while Canon’s MX310 lacks several features and employs a cartridge system that does not offer good long-term economy.

~End~

This entry was posted on Friday, January 18th, 2008 at 12:03 am and is filed under Strategy, 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.