Shoutbox

Hellow Plussers,

I've been buying a Dell 1320CN laserprinter, which is a color laserprinter able to work on a network.

I payed 160€ which is about 220.656 USD.
In the box:

- the printer itself
- Black toner (2000pages)
- Cyan toner (1000pages)
- Magenta toner (1000pages)
- Yellow toner (1000pages)

=> Which means in a very childish way of thinking that you get 5000 pages out of it. They are not marked as startertoners, they are fully filled. These numbers are written in the manual as the toners you get in the box, and the printer tells me 100% on each cartridge.

Now if I go to the website of dell itself, and i search supplies, i can order exactly the same toners with the same capacity and that would cost me 264.99€ or 365.448 USD.

Thus: replacing the toner is 40% more expensive than just buying a new printer with the same toner already included, getting a newer device without dust and cycles.

You must also consider that after 20.000 pages you have to replace the PHD which costs another 100€ or 137,9USD. So it really makes the difference.

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Why is that? Do they get more profit out of the printers than the toners?

I don't think they plan to get their profit out of the supplies because everyone can see that a new device is much cheaper, you must be a fool to buy these replacement toners.



This is the answer I have in mind but I could be totally wrong:

If you look at the size of the printer and it's capabilities, you can see that the device is not a high-end business model. Company's (who use much toner) don't buy these cheap laserprinters because they are simply not expensive enough (no fax, no copy, no auto duplex, etc...)

So if you think about it, these cheap devices are only bought by particular consumers which actually don't print that much. After 5000 pages, after a couple of years, it's rare that people in this society will buy replacement toner. Do they really WANT us to buy a new printer?

On the more expensive business models it is offcourse cheaper to buy replacement toner. On most inkprinters, it's still cheaper to buy replacement ink and replace the printer only after a couple of refills.

But the difference, particulary on this model and the cheaper Samsung color laserprinters, is huge!

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But what a waste! I feel actually bad about this. What if i print this toner in the first 6 months, then I have a perfectly working device that I will throw away to replace it by exactly the same model. What kind of a world is this?

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I must notice that there is cheaper non-dell toner (which they claim would be the same quality):

Black: 2250 pages
Cyan: 2250 pages
Yellow: 2250 pages
Magenta: 2250 pages

which is 9000 pages in the childish way of thinking for 160€ or 220USD which would actually be cheaper than to buy a new printer.



what are your thoughts about this?