Inkjet or Laser

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wee

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I know this is a really dumb question ...

For a few years now we've had a really cool professional color laser printer. It is amazingly fast & will make thousands of prints before the toner needs replacing - although it does cost a mint when you do have to buy toner!

The thing is roughly the size of a VW bus, and weighs more than my school-aged child. We also have a scanner we use frequently. I'm thinking of getting a machine that will scan and print, and be much smaller. It has come up a few times where we wanted to print on special paper or something, which you can't do in a laser printer.

I'm thinking of getting an inkjet, even though my blood nearly curdles at the thought of it. I remember sending things to print before bed because it would take all night ... slow, slow.

The reason we have this thing is that I used to do all the printing & design for a small business, no longer necessary. If I do switch to inkjet, can I assume it doesn't matter for submissions? Laser ink doesn't run when it gets damp, but honestly, unless an agent is using my manu for a coffee coaster or a bagel napkin, does this make any difference? (if they are doing that, I can probably safely assume it has been rejected ...)

Does it matter for the writing I'm doing? When I finish this manuscript & get it ready for subbing & have to print a gazillion copies, am I going to be sorry? Or should I just take it to a copy machine anyway? I'm so spoiled to printing color copies for a few cents per page that I don't know if I can go back to paying through the nose for it!


Urgh, so neurotic ....



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maestrowork

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I do a lot of printouts, and inkjet simply is too slow for me, plus the inks run out too fast. Yes, laser toners are expensive, but generally, they last for thousands of printouts. I just got a cheap $230 HP color laser and am very happy with both the speed and quality (for that price!) Oh, and it prints envelopes with ease - LOVE that.
 
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Calla Lily

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Loved my Canon laser, but it was the company's, so when I got laid off, back it went. We couldn't afford a color laser, so bought a Canon color inkjet printer/flatbed scanner. Lasted several years and then crapped out. Bought a newer model without scanner (didn't need it anymore).

I think it prints 6-10 pages/minute BW and 2-3 color, but I haven't timed it recently. We really like it. Yes, the ink runs if you get it wet, but otherwise, it's great. We even print up Christmas photos of the kids oh HP glossy paper every year. Overall rating: A-.
 

melaniehoo

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We have an HP inkjet that prints, scans, copies, faxes, feeds the kids, but it takes FOREVER to print! And if you print in the Rough format to save ink the image can be spotty. I'm dreading the time when I'm ready to print my MS. Not sure if that helps with your decision.
 

jennifer75

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Um, I have the slow kind that sounds like it's struggling. At work we have super nice copiers and printers....but some are still really slow. As long as it prints in a relatively fast manner, I'm fine.

Oh Melaniehooooooo check yer email. :)
 

wee

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I think I'll stick with laser. I did a Google for "inkjet print costs" and found a British site that did an inkjet comparison -- and found that some inkjet cartridges run out after as little as 30 pages, and that a cheap inkjet might cost you 60 times its original purchase price in ink within 18 months!

Yikes! I wish I knew how to network this darned thing so I could hide it in the closet or something. My 'office' is in a corner of my bedroom, and there's just nowhere to put this crazy huge printer now! When we originally got it we had a separate room just for the computer stuff (oh, those days of cheap real estate...).

Maybe I will call my computer guru-guy and ask him what it would require to set it up in the closet. Might be cheaper than buying a new one, LOL.



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MidnightMuse

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I think between the time I'd hit PRINT on an inkjet and the time it took to get to the last page, I'd have heard back from 3 partials.

I love my inkjet for doing certain things, but printing out manuscript pages has to be done on the laser - I don't wanna die of old age waiting for a third copy of the full on a 120k manuscript formatted novel to finish!
 

ChunkyC

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At my day job we sell all kinds of printers. Lasers are by far the cheapest to operate, unless you're interested in a dot matrix printer for some unfathomable reason. ;)

Taking 5% page coverage in black ink (what you could expect from a manuscript page or a business letter), an inkjet might get 500 pages out of a cartridge if you're lucky. A laser might get ten times that.

Toner cartridge for my laser (rated for 3000 pages) costs around $80.
Black ink cartridges for some inkjets are just as much. Others are maybe half that amount. So, the math:

3000 pages at $80 = 2.6¢ per page
500 pages at $40 = 8¢ per page

The most economical lasers will cost you about 2¢ per page, and the most expensive inkjets about 16¢ per page at roughly 5% coverage. When you start talking colour, inkjet costs skyrocket. Colour lasers do cost a fair bit more to operate, but the basic 'ratio' of around 4 to 8 times more for inkjet holds when printing similar pages.
 
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benbradley

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In addition to the speed issue, see if you can compare the cost-per-printed page, and check out how many pages you print (here's one way to measure: how often do you go through a 500-sheet ream of paper? I'm gonna put a date on the next pack of paper I open). I recall from years ago that a laser printer has a much lower cost per printed page, which if you print a lot (print novel manuscripts? Extra copies for friends/beta readers???), will definitely save you in the long run. $150 or whatever it is for a toner cartridge may seem like a lot, but if it will print ten times the number of pages as a $50 injket cartridge, you're going to save enougn money in the long run to pay for the extra cost of the laser printer. I don't know what these numbers actually are, I've only used injet printers on a regular basis (I may rethink this if when I write significant portions of a novel/memoir/whatever), and the printer companies don't seem to make this info readily available, but it seems like a good idea to go through the calculations, or at least Google(TM) for some recent Inkjet/laser printer reviews and comparisons. Also, I think the toner for black-and-white laser printers is a lot less than for color laser printers. Also, they probably have the same business model as with the inkjet printers, sell the printer as a loss leader, then stick it to you on injet/toner cartridges.

I do know that laser printers have sure come down in price the last decades since the Apple LaserWriter. I remember going to the print shop/copy store to get my MacWrite-format resume printed on one for a dollar a page.
 

benbradley

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What? Nobody uses dot-matrix anymore????
If you look often enough you may still see one in a thrift store. Ribbons might even be available from office supply stores or specialty Internet sites. Or you might really luck out and find a daisywheel! Up to 20 characters per second, and it's LETTER QUALITY!!!
 

RickN

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I've used a Officejet G95 All-in-one inkjet for years. Very reliable, fast. I don't print my novel manuscripts on it though -- I used a Mailbox Etc/UPS Store nearby for that -- $16 for a 400-page manuscript.
 

ChunkyC

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If you look often enough you may still see one in a thrift store. Ribbons might even be available from office supply stores or specialty Internet sites. Or you might really luck out and find a daisywheel! Up to 20 characters per second, and it's LETTER QUALITY!!!
Actually, many businesses still use dot matrix printers for printing multi-part forms and the like. We have half a dozen Okidata ML320 printers, they cost as much as a laser. They are workhorses, I just replaced one that had been in service printing about a hundred pages a day for fifteen years.

I've used a Officejet G95 All-in-one inkjet for years. Very reliable, fast. I don't print my novel manuscripts on it though -- I used a Mailbox Etc/UPS Store nearby for that -- $16 for a 400-page manuscript.
4¢ a page at the OOPS store? Not bad at all. That's nearly as cheap as owning your own laser.
 

Linda Adams

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I know this is a really dumb question ...

For a few years now we've had a really cool professional color laser printer. It is amazingly fast & will make thousands of prints before the toner needs replacing - although it does cost a mint when you do have to buy toner!

If you think buying laser toner is expensive, ink jet is worse. There isn't all the much ink, and if you use it regularly, you'll be replacing the cartridge often. I was going through a black cartridge once a month--at between $30 and $40 a pop. The cartridge for my laser is about $80. I had the laser printer for about 3-4 years, running on the cartridge that came with it.

So at least compare cartridge costs and stay away from Lexmark printers--they really eat ink.
 

wee

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If you think buying laser toner is expensive, ink jet is worse. There isn't all the much ink, and if you use it regularly, you'll be replacing the cartridge often. I was going through a black cartridge once a month--at between $30 and $40 a pop. The cartridge for my laser is about $80. I had the laser printer for about 3-4 years, running on the cartridge that came with it.

So at least compare cartridge costs and stay away from Lexmark printers--they really eat ink.

Lexmark is the brand that printed as little as 30 pages of text before running out of ink in the test I saw!

We have a full-on color laser here, a Dell 3100cn. Cartridges vary (high capacity, black is more, etc.) but I spent around $350 when I had to replace all 4 within a short amount of time. But with as little as we do now, we go over a year, easily, without replacing them. With manu's being all black & white, no problem.

I printed an image-intensive picture directory for our church, nearly 11,250 pages printed, and went through approximately 1.5 cartridges of each color (except for blue, which took 2). I thought that was pretty impressive.

Looks like I need to hang onto this behemoth. I could send out two copies of my manuscript to every editor in NYC before I ran out of black toner.

Still might find out what it would take to stick it in the closet. :D



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Mud Dauber

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I have been on the fence about switching from inkjet to laser, and this thread helped answer a lot of questions in my decision-making. Thanks guys.:)
 

AnneMarble

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I have come to hate inkjets. :e2tongue:I've gone through more of the suckers than I care to remember. Thank God for extended service plans and product replacement plans and the like -- they saved me a couple of times. They die too easily. If you don't print on them often enough, they dry up and die. If you print often, your wallet dries up and dies.

I'm on my second laser printer. I'd still be on my first laser printer, but it refused to work on my new computer, so I gave it to my parents. They're still using it, at least a couple of years later. I got a new laser printer, a nice Brother, for under $100. (OK, the lights flicker a little when I turn it on, but who cares? At least it's not an inkjet. :tongue)
 

Jamesaritchie

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laser

A laser is faster and a bit cheaper than a top inkjet, but both are fine for submissions, and if you aren't buying the $39 special at Wal-Mart, it's unlikley anyone can tell the difference. Inkjets are incredibly good now, and they still do color better than lasers.

And they really aren't all that slow these days, either. Unless you want instant gratification. I can print a full novel in half an hour, and I'm never in that much of a hurry.

Match your need and your budget, not your biases.
 

bsolah

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I had an inkjet when I was living with my parents and using the family computer. Correction: we went through a few printers whilst I was stuck with my family computer.

I found that it printed slowly, was prone to drying up if you didn't touch it in a while, run out of ink quickly and the print quality was poor.

When I bought my laptop, I also bought a B&W laser printer on special for $89, a Brother. It's fairly small for a laser printer, runs fine and I haven't had to change the toner since I bought it.

Well worth it.
 

maestrowork

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I used a Mailbox Etc/UPS Store nearby for that -- $16 for a 400-page manuscript.

That's just expensive. What if you have a few mss. (say, God forbid three agents ask for fulls!) to print. That can break the bank very quickly. I really do suggest investing in a laserjet -- you really can have a B/W for around $100 and a color for about $200+. Considering printing 3000 pages (about 7 mss.) -- that would cost you $120 at MailBox, but the toner only costs $80.
 

Azraelsbane

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I've used a Officejet G95 All-in-one inkjet for years. Very reliable, fast. I don't print my novel manuscripts on it though -- I used a Mailbox Etc/UPS Store nearby for that -- $16 for a 400-page manuscript.

Maestro's right. That's super expensive. I order bound copies from Staples (for beta readers), and for 360 pages bound it cost 15.75. My in-town betas pay for it though, because they like reading it bound. :) You might want to shop around next time if you insist on printing it out via business. Also, ordering things from copy shops online significantly reduces the cost.
 
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