Last May (13 months ago now), i bought myself a laser printer. I bought it mainly to make my life easier and save money, and so far, it’s done both of those things…
Yesterday, i got my first replacement toner cartridge for my laser printer. They cost about €35 each (3 colours, then black). So if i had to replace all 4 cartridges together, it would cost about €140. Thankfully, 13 months after i printed my first sheet, all 3 colours are at 43% capacity. The black toner is at 10% which means it’s on the way out, hence the reason i ordered this replacement.
Over the past year, i’ve probably printed more stuff than in my previous 23 years combined, mainly due to college assignments / notes / dissertations. My printer software tells me i’ve printed 954 pages so far… (average of about 18 per week).
But printing was a smooth, happy experience for me all thanks to my laser printer. It still is a ‘happy’ experience.
I don’t have to plug it in every time i want to use it (it’s wireless) or replace ink cartridges only to find i have to clean them to print anything. By the time the heads are clean and test pages have been printed out, that’s a good chunk of ink gone already… inkjet printers are torture.
photo credit: Aaron Landry
At the time i bought it, i did the maths and came to the conclusion that a wireless colour laser printer was in fact no more expensive to run than an inkjet printer to run. So far, that’s been the case. In fact the colour toner has lasted longer than i expected. I pointed out before there are also ‘hacks’ which allow you to refill cartridges yourself on the cheap, but right now i’m not brave enough to start experimenting… maybe next year when i’ll be due my next cartridge 