Issue #0840/2 – Kyocera again struggles to make Total Cost of Printing on its colour laser printers as ground-breaking as its mono printers but, the FS-C5100 is still drastically less expensive to run than Lexmark’s new C544dn. Printers that Kyocera loses out to are: Canon LBP-5360; Hewlett-Packard Colour LaserJet CP3505dn; and Samsung CLP-610ND.
(For a brief hardware review on Lexmark’s new laser printers, see "Lexmark’s vast array of new business laser printers and MFPs offer a solution for every environment from small/micro office to enterprise workgroup"
Kyocera FS-C5100DNHowever, the FS-C5100 is still one of the most competitive colour laser printers whereas Lexmark’s C544dn most definitively is not.
Lexmark C544dnSomewhat bizarrely, Lexmark’s C544dn does not have the lowest hardware purchase price in the group – a fact that supports the recent trend seen in its inkjet range to move away from the ultra low-cost hardware strategy that it has employed for more than a decade.
In fact, pricing on the C544dn falls in the upper half of the group (median street pricing sourced in Germany), with a price that almost precisely falls on the average – and it is largely the inclusion of the higher grade Canon LBP-5360 and Hewlett-Packard CP3505dn that pushes the average this high. If it were not for these two, the C544dn’s price would be well above the average.
Note that there are two higher-level models also available from Kyocera, the FS-C5200 and FS-C5300 that compete more directly with the Canon LBP-5360 and Hewlett-Packard CP3505.
Purchase Price
Samsung CLP-610NDAs usual, we see that there is a distinct trend in favour of the high-priced printers providing a low Total Cost of Printing in the long term. Only Epson’s C2800DN and Lexmark’s C544dn significantly buck the trend with high TCP on high purchase price (above average), while Samsung’s CLP-610ND and Kyocera’s FS-C5100DN buck the trend with low TCP on low purchase price (below average).
For Lexmark, this is because the company has retained its high-price supplies strategy on top of pushing up the price of the hardware. The justification for this is non-existent.
In its supplies configuration, Lexmark has, for the first time, used a completely independent toner box with longer-life developer and drum units in the C54x and X54x printers and MFPs. This is probably in recognition that a number of other manufacturers are following this design and that, to be seen to be environmentally responsible, Lexmark has to follow suit.
Total Cost of Printing
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; 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 Median Street Price sourced in Germany, including tax.
HP CP3505dnThis situation however, heavily underlines the pricing strategy of the industry, where toner is priced by the page and has absolutely nothing to do with the manufacturing cost of the units themselves. For the 6,000-page C544 series toner box from Lexmark to cost €140 when the 6,000-page integrated, single-piece, toner/developer/drum unit for Hewlett-Packard’s Colour LaserJet CP3505 costs less than €110 is absolutely outrageous.
However, if Lexmark were to halve the price of the toner cartridges to bring them approximately in line with prices of similar cartridges from other manufacturers, the company would have to increase the hardware price of the C544dn to just over €3,000 in order to create the same overall revenue from a user printing 2,500 pages per month, with 70% of pages printed being mono. Even if the price of the imaging unit were doubled, the hardware price would still need to be around €2,500.
Essentially, Lexmark is extorting money from its customers. Over the 3-year period, a customer would spend €6,127 for the C544dn in comparison to €4,149 for the Kyocera FS-C5100 and only €3,934 for Canon’s LBP-5360 – that is a lot of money, especially if multiplied over a fleet of devices in a large organisation. This represents a premium of no less than 56% – just for the privilege of running the Lexmark colour laser printer in preference to the Canon (it should be noted that the Canon LBP-5300 is a GDI printer as opposed to a PCL/PS printer - the only one to be included in this group).
Now – €3,000 is much closer to the level of hardware pricing we saw on the very first (black and white) laser printers more than 20 years ago, so we can see how far the industry has come in the competitive pricing that has resulted in the dramatic price erosion seen over the period – especially as inflation would probably put the purchase price of a mono laser printer costing €3,000 in 1988 somewhere in the order of €7-8,000 in 2008.
Coming back to the C544 though, these figures are based on use of regular extra high-capacity cartridges. If we were to run the TCP model using Return Program cartridges, the overall situation would certainly change but, at 5.54 cents per page instead of 6.81 cents, the Total Cost of Printing on the C544dn would still be well above average for the group – only falling below Hewlett-Packard’s CP2025dn and Epson’s C2800DN.
In fact, the price of the Lexmark toner-only Return Program cartridges only just falls to the level of the single-piece cartridges for Hewlett-Packard’s CP3505, as mentioned above! This makes a farce of the Return Program ‘prebate’ and is just an excuse for Lexmark to overcharge customers who choose not to subscribe to the Return Program for some reason. The Return Program is supposed to reward customers for returning the used cartridges, not penalise them for not doing so.
Canon LBP-5300Considering the nominal CPP for each printer, we see Oki targeting a majority mono user base with the lowest nominal mono CPP in the group, offering the opportunity to print convenience or occasional colour as required. Even though the nominal colour CPP is on the high side (third highest, after Lexmark’s C544dn and Hewlett-Packard’s CP2025dn) the overall result is a long-term CPP that falls towards the lower end of the scale. Apart from Oki’s C5650dn, each of the other printers maintains a consistent position relative to its competitors across the three CPP calculations.
To conclude, the ONLY way to buy Lexmark’s devices is to buy Return Program, or ‘prebate’, cartridges but, even then, users should not expect to be able to run the machine as cost-effectively as any other colour laser printer. For the best in cost-efficiency, the Canon LBP-5360 is required – fairly closely followed by Hewlett-Packard’s Colour LaserJet CP3505dn, Samsung’s CLP-610ND and Kyocera’s FS-C5100DN.
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