Printing has become an absolute necessity for people all over the nation and world these days. Whether a person needs to print an essay for a school project or a business plan to present to their peers, having a reliable method of translating work done on a computer to a sheet of paper is a must. One important part of a printer that often gets overlooked in the process, however, is the printer cartridge. Containing the ink necessary to write lines and create diagrams on a blank sheet of paper, printer cartridges are something that no printer can be without. It is important, therefore, that anyone who plans on using his or her printer on a continuous basis have a reliable method to replace their printer cartridges when they inevitably dry out of ink.
One of the most common mistakes that is made is to buy a printer cartridge only after the previous one has become useless. The simple truth is that these cartridges are often very expensive and are not always easily acquirable. Because of these attributes, there are several strategies to employ when purchasing printer cartridges for the future.
The first thing to remember is that printer cartridges come in a great variety and that a person can’t just plug the first one they see at the store into their printer and expect results. You have to buy a printer cartridge that is compatible with your printer, or you will have wasted your time and money. For example, if you own a Canon printer, it would be foolish to buy a Lexmark printer cartridge. If you are not sure about which cartridges fit your printer, jot down the printer brand and model and ask a sales representative to help you out.
Also remember that while printer cartridges are quite expensive, it is best to get backups when they go on sale. If for example, you own a HP printer and see a sale on all HP and Epson printer cartridges during Thanksgiving, you should head down to the store and pick some up. There is no point in waiting until you really need the printer cartridge to buy them and paying double or triple the price. On a similar note, if the sale were for Xerox and Pitney Bowes printer cartridges, don’t buy them just because they are discounted. If the printer cartridges are not compatible with your printer, they are basically worthless. But overall, being a smart consumer and thinking ahead will do nothing but benefit you in terms of saving time and money.
Overall there are many different printer cartridges, from Xerox to Pitney Bowes, and many different printers, from Canon brands to Lexmark, which they can be used with. Knowing which printer cartridge to buy and taking advantage of sales can go a long way in ensuring that your printer will be working with high quality whenever it is needed!
Showing posts with label Lexmark. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Lexmark. Show all posts
Sunday, January 4, 2009
All About the HP Colour LaserJet 3600n
Design
With a price tag of £480, the new HP Colour LaserJet 3600n is small, weighs 27kg and has deep handholds, so one person can carry it easily. At 15.7 by 15.7 by 17.7 inches (HWD), this laser printer can easily fit into a busy home office or individual office in a large company, should you need this level of speed and paper capacity. Its simplistic design makes jam-clearing and maintenance uncomplicated. However, the wall and hinges don’t appear to be too sturdy. It can be setup in the standard manner applicable to its class of printers, and the network installation routine is fully automated.
Paper Handling
The HP Colour LaserJet 3600n offers high-speed performance, with an engine rated at 17 pages per minute (ppm) for both colour and monochrome, fairly good graphics quality, even better text, and photographs that are good enough for client newsletters and the like. HP has also included an Ethernet connection for easy sharing over a network.
However, the main paper tray feels a little unsteady and has nothing to stop it when pulled out, so users should be careful not to drop it. The paper-length and paper-width guides are easy to adjust. The printer has a 100-sheet auxiliary feed in addition to the enclosed 250-sheet tray. You can boost this number to 850 by adding a 500-sheet feeder for £280.
Features
A two-line backlit LCD screen on the 3600n's top panel displays a complete set of menus, which is easy to navigate with buttons for going through menus, selecting items and going back.
This printer comes with 64MB of memory and unfortunately you cannot expand that, nor add a duplexer, which makes expansion options very limited. If you need the extra memory, then consider HP's 3600dn, a £670 model with a duplexer and twice the memory.
Performance
The 3600n prints black text at a reasonable 13ppm and colour graphics a bit faster, at 13.5ppm. In contrast, the Lexmark C522n prints text at 14.2ppm and graphics at 12.3ppm. However, if saving money is your real priority, and you don't print much colour, consider Ricoh Aficio G700, which prints fine text at 12.1ppm but misses the cut on graphics speed and quality.
The 3600n disappoints the user with its print quality. In a few tests carried out by popular technology magazines, the text looked greyish instead of black, showed some roughness in large point sizes, and lost fine strokes. This is also the case with some of the 4-point output, which looked slightly grey, rather than black. Colour graphics did not negotiate shading ramps smoothly and produced blockish transitions. However, the printer makes the cut with colour accuracy and detail. Additionally, it prints greyscale photos very well, with fine detail and smooth shading.
Graphics are easily good enough for internal business use, but not satisfactory for handing out to important clients or customers. The most important issue in a number of tests was misregistration, with the colours slightly out of alignment. It resulted in a noticeable white gap between some blocks of colours, around some lines, and around some colour text on a colour background. Thin lines also tended to disappear. Additionally, colours tend to shift toward darker shades, losing detail in dark areas and making some colours look muddy.
On the whole, the 3600n's text output has high enough quality for most purposes. Unless you have an unusual need for small font sizes, it is unlikely that you will print any text that the 3600n can't handle. Lexmark's similar C522 sells for around £100 less and offers equal speed and better quality, though Lexmark's cost per page is slightly higher than HP's and the difference may add up over time.
With a price tag of £480, the new HP Colour LaserJet 3600n is small, weighs 27kg and has deep handholds, so one person can carry it easily. At 15.7 by 15.7 by 17.7 inches (HWD), this laser printer can easily fit into a busy home office or individual office in a large company, should you need this level of speed and paper capacity. Its simplistic design makes jam-clearing and maintenance uncomplicated. However, the wall and hinges don’t appear to be too sturdy. It can be setup in the standard manner applicable to its class of printers, and the network installation routine is fully automated.
Paper Handling
The HP Colour LaserJet 3600n offers high-speed performance, with an engine rated at 17 pages per minute (ppm) for both colour and monochrome, fairly good graphics quality, even better text, and photographs that are good enough for client newsletters and the like. HP has also included an Ethernet connection for easy sharing over a network.
However, the main paper tray feels a little unsteady and has nothing to stop it when pulled out, so users should be careful not to drop it. The paper-length and paper-width guides are easy to adjust. The printer has a 100-sheet auxiliary feed in addition to the enclosed 250-sheet tray. You can boost this number to 850 by adding a 500-sheet feeder for £280.
Features
A two-line backlit LCD screen on the 3600n's top panel displays a complete set of menus, which is easy to navigate with buttons for going through menus, selecting items and going back.
This printer comes with 64MB of memory and unfortunately you cannot expand that, nor add a duplexer, which makes expansion options very limited. If you need the extra memory, then consider HP's 3600dn, a £670 model with a duplexer and twice the memory.
Performance
The 3600n prints black text at a reasonable 13ppm and colour graphics a bit faster, at 13.5ppm. In contrast, the Lexmark C522n prints text at 14.2ppm and graphics at 12.3ppm. However, if saving money is your real priority, and you don't print much colour, consider Ricoh Aficio G700, which prints fine text at 12.1ppm but misses the cut on graphics speed and quality.
The 3600n disappoints the user with its print quality. In a few tests carried out by popular technology magazines, the text looked greyish instead of black, showed some roughness in large point sizes, and lost fine strokes. This is also the case with some of the 4-point output, which looked slightly grey, rather than black. Colour graphics did not negotiate shading ramps smoothly and produced blockish transitions. However, the printer makes the cut with colour accuracy and detail. Additionally, it prints greyscale photos very well, with fine detail and smooth shading.
Graphics are easily good enough for internal business use, but not satisfactory for handing out to important clients or customers. The most important issue in a number of tests was misregistration, with the colours slightly out of alignment. It resulted in a noticeable white gap between some blocks of colours, around some lines, and around some colour text on a colour background. Thin lines also tended to disappear. Additionally, colours tend to shift toward darker shades, losing detail in dark areas and making some colours look muddy.
On the whole, the 3600n's text output has high enough quality for most purposes. Unless you have an unusual need for small font sizes, it is unlikely that you will print any text that the 3600n can't handle. Lexmark's similar C522 sells for around £100 less and offers equal speed and better quality, though Lexmark's cost per page is slightly higher than HP's and the difference may add up over time.
Saturday, January 3, 2009
A market study of colour printers
The printer manufacturing market seems to be a booming one. Manufacturers are no doubt eyeing expansion and coming up with newer products to capture the burgeoning market. The manufacturers are interested in the colour -printer sector for purely reasons of expansion. There is stiff competition between the makers as all are concentrating to keep the prices low to capture the market. It must be said here that while in the monochrome department Hewlett-Packard co. are the market leaders, the reigning company in the colour segment still remains undecided.
However the future of the colour printer market is purported to be a bright one according to those investing in these companies. The investors are much optimistic, as these printers, using four times the toner cyan, magenta, yellow, and black of a monochrome printer, will produce pictures of a much higher quality. The market, currently a billion dollar industry, will increase manifold.
Adding on to its product range, printing giant Lexmark introduced its c52x series, which included the c524n last June. Earlier there was a huge gap in its colour line up-there was simply the low- end c510 with a capacity of printing about 8 colour and 30 monochrome pictures in a single minute which wasn’t all that fast. There also existed, side-by-side, the high-end c762 which, though having a higher speed, was much more expensive, thereby difficult to afford for the smaller offices and home users. As there was no other product catering to the demands of the users the competitors of Lexmark had an edge over it.
The introduction of Lexmark’s c524n however changed things.
They introduced this product with a very low price range, thereby making it affordable. Offering a dpi resolution of 1200*1200, this network ready colour laser printer has an outstanding colour output and can print up to twenty pages per minute. The very first page may be printed in as little as 13seconds. The model has a monthly maximum duty cycle of 65000 pages, which is quite impressive. The new c524 also reduces the time taken by print jobs considerably as it has a 437.5MHz processor and 128Mbytes of memory. The memory can be expanded up to 576, which decreases the waiting time taken for print jobs. Moreover, colour care technology and Lexmark coverage estimator help in managing the cost involved in using colour toner. The model, weighing 57 pounds, is 17.3 inches wide, 19 inches high and 20.2 deep. With the model also comes a CD consisting of the user guide and the printer software, a power cable, a paper exit extension tray, set up sheet and toner cartridges for cyan, yellow, magenta and black. The product has a one-year warranty period for on site repair.
It goes without saying that that outsourcing of IT and consumer electronic products lower manufacturing costs of the product, which helps lower the prices of the produced good. The question is how low must the producers keep their profit margins in order to stay in the race in today’s colour printing market?
The current analysis lab examined the c524n at a product volume of 1,20,000 units under the assumption that the model was produced in china. An analysis was made of the procurement costs of commodity components, manufacturing costs of fabricated components and location labour rates. The production cost was estimated to be around £265 / unit. The cost distribution showed the cost of the printer mechanism and its assembly to be about £51. The electronics and assembly account for £60. Other costs included laser power supply, consumables assembly, fuser assembly, paper assembly, control panel assembly electronics assembly, final arrangements, etc.
At the time of launching the product, the product was supposed to be priced at £390. However, Lexmark priced the product at almost half of the originally intended price at some places. To maximize its revenue, the company in a clever move, outfitted the toner with different toner cartridges. The toner content was increased or decreased according to the budget of the customer. The more expensive models containing more toner catered to the demands of the enterprise segment while the lower priced models with low yield cartridges were ideal for small offices and also home users.
The product, being suitably priced, was a great success, perfectly fitted to meet the needs of the buyers and the manufacturers and compete with its competitors in the lucrative colour printer market. Lexmark claimed the print quality was Photorealistic. On account of its chemically processed, spherical toner delivering a 1200*1200 dpi resolution and also because the new print head four lasers in one unit with a mirror. The machine enabled Lexmark to take on the enterprise market as well as their competitors, especially Hewlett-Packard.
However the future of the colour printer market is purported to be a bright one according to those investing in these companies. The investors are much optimistic, as these printers, using four times the toner cyan, magenta, yellow, and black of a monochrome printer, will produce pictures of a much higher quality. The market, currently a billion dollar industry, will increase manifold.
Adding on to its product range, printing giant Lexmark introduced its c52x series, which included the c524n last June. Earlier there was a huge gap in its colour line up-there was simply the low- end c510 with a capacity of printing about 8 colour and 30 monochrome pictures in a single minute which wasn’t all that fast. There also existed, side-by-side, the high-end c762 which, though having a higher speed, was much more expensive, thereby difficult to afford for the smaller offices and home users. As there was no other product catering to the demands of the users the competitors of Lexmark had an edge over it.
The introduction of Lexmark’s c524n however changed things.
They introduced this product with a very low price range, thereby making it affordable. Offering a dpi resolution of 1200*1200, this network ready colour laser printer has an outstanding colour output and can print up to twenty pages per minute. The very first page may be printed in as little as 13seconds. The model has a monthly maximum duty cycle of 65000 pages, which is quite impressive. The new c524 also reduces the time taken by print jobs considerably as it has a 437.5MHz processor and 128Mbytes of memory. The memory can be expanded up to 576, which decreases the waiting time taken for print jobs. Moreover, colour care technology and Lexmark coverage estimator help in managing the cost involved in using colour toner. The model, weighing 57 pounds, is 17.3 inches wide, 19 inches high and 20.2 deep. With the model also comes a CD consisting of the user guide and the printer software, a power cable, a paper exit extension tray, set up sheet and toner cartridges for cyan, yellow, magenta and black. The product has a one-year warranty period for on site repair.
It goes without saying that that outsourcing of IT and consumer electronic products lower manufacturing costs of the product, which helps lower the prices of the produced good. The question is how low must the producers keep their profit margins in order to stay in the race in today’s colour printing market?
The current analysis lab examined the c524n at a product volume of 1,20,000 units under the assumption that the model was produced in china. An analysis was made of the procurement costs of commodity components, manufacturing costs of fabricated components and location labour rates. The production cost was estimated to be around £265 / unit. The cost distribution showed the cost of the printer mechanism and its assembly to be about £51. The electronics and assembly account for £60. Other costs included laser power supply, consumables assembly, fuser assembly, paper assembly, control panel assembly electronics assembly, final arrangements, etc.
At the time of launching the product, the product was supposed to be priced at £390. However, Lexmark priced the product at almost half of the originally intended price at some places. To maximize its revenue, the company in a clever move, outfitted the toner with different toner cartridges. The toner content was increased or decreased according to the budget of the customer. The more expensive models containing more toner catered to the demands of the enterprise segment while the lower priced models with low yield cartridges were ideal for small offices and also home users.
The product, being suitably priced, was a great success, perfectly fitted to meet the needs of the buyers and the manufacturers and compete with its competitors in the lucrative colour printer market. Lexmark claimed the print quality was Photorealistic. On account of its chemically processed, spherical toner delivering a 1200*1200 dpi resolution and also because the new print head four lasers in one unit with a mirror. The machine enabled Lexmark to take on the enterprise market as well as their competitors, especially Hewlett-Packard.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
