Know your printer supplies to buy better printers

February 11, 2012

While computers get all the attention in most offices, many would not even know that they exist without their loyal outputting companion printers. We print our Word documents, our Excel spreadsheets, our PowerPoint presentations, our accounting statements, our design plans, our advertising graphs, and much more. In short, we print. While many were convinced that printer and printer supplies purchases would decrease with the internet, the opposite happened. Users increased their utilization of printers and their reliance on the printer supplies to print information found during their browsing sessions.

So, chances are, that if you don’t already have a printer you will soon, and that if you have one, you might need another, or perhaps a few other ones, very shortly. How should you choose the best printer for you?

3 tips.

Tip #1: Focus on functionality and budget:
Assess your needs and budget. Find the most printing capabilities, or at least the most pertinent one, that you need within the budget that you have. Specifications to assess should include:
- Speed, or how many pages per minute the printer will produce,
- Resolution of the printing, expressed in dots per inch,
- Whether you will need color printing or will do with monochrome,
- Multiple trays, and whether you will need to have different forms or colors available without having to change tray content each time,
- Dual side printing,
- Multifunction capabilities, whether you will need fax and copier functions or will use the new device for printing only,
- And, of course, whether you will want your new printer to be accessible via a local area network or WIFI networks.

Tip #2: Focus on printer supplies impact on cost per page:
While, many informed buyers will use a similar check list before buying a new printer, few consider the following part in their budget considerations.

A printer’s cost cannot be assessed solely on the basis of the purchase price of the device, but, rather, by combining such purchase cost with the cost of the printer supplies -toner cartridges, inkjet cartridges, drum unit, developer unit, and other laser consumables- to produce an actual cost per page.

The cost per page is the single most important financial measure of the actual price of your new device over the life of the device. And, as you can see, it largely depends on the price of your printer supplies. So, after identifying your preferred printers, visit a well-known printer supplies online web site, and check the prices of the supplies for your printer. Then, account for the estimated yield, calculate the cost of the printer supplies, and compare the printers on the common cost per page measure over the number of pages that you expect to print per year.

Tip #3: Consider quality alternatives:
There are many such web sites, so why a well-known one? Choosing an established vendor of printer supplies online will ensure the validity of the pricing and also provide you with quality alternatives. Indeed, while you can now find compatible printer supplies, toner cartridges, or inkjet cartridges, made by third-party companies to fit in your printers, online, you should only trust those offered by quality vendors or risk seriously affecting the quality of your printouts or even damaging your printer.

So, here it is, needs and budgets, count with printer supplies, consider compatible ink and toner. Good buying.


New HP Printers, No PCs needed

June 8, 2010

HP announced this week that it will start adding microchips and software to its printers to enable them to connect directly to the internet, this without the need for PCs. Printers will come with an assigned email address and be ready to download information from the web and print it. The first of these new printers range in price from $99 to $299 and come with touch screens. HP plans to introduce similar features in its commercial printers line late this year.


Price increases – Samsung, Lexmark, Printronix

June 7, 2010

Prices for Samsung, Lexmark, and Printronix supplies are scheduled to increase on 7/1/2010. The increases will be of 4-6% for Lexmark Supplies, 3-10% for Samsung Supplies, and 3.5% for Printronix supplies and cover respectively inkjet cartridges, laser toner cartridges, and printer ribbons. Take advantage of pre-increase pricing by making sure that your orders are processed and shipped by June 30th.


InfoPrint Solutions

May 21, 2010

InfoPrint, the former printer division of IBM, will become a wholly owned subsidiary of the Ricoh Family Group on July 1, 2010. The InfoPrint Solutions Company was created in June 2007 through a joint venture between Ricoh and IBM’s Printing Systems Division. The new company’s worldwide headquarters are located in Boulder, Colorado, the former headquarters of the IBM Printing Systems Division.


IBM and Xerox Supplies Prices to Increase

March 21, 2010

There will be a price increase on a large number of Xerox imaging supplies on April 1, 2010. At this time, over 200 Xerox items are expected to be affected, with prices going up by an average of 5.39%.

There will also be a price increase on IBM InfoPrint imaging supplies, effective the same day. In this case, 79 items are scheduled to increase by an average of 2.22%.


Free Sony LTO Cleaning Tape Promotion

January 19, 2010

Get a free Sony LTO Cleaning Cartridge for every 20 Sony LTO 3 or Sony LTO 4 data cartridges purchased at SuppliesUSA.

But hurry, this Sony promotion ends 01/31/2010.


New Projector Lamps

January 19, 2010

You will now find Acer projector Lamps and JVC projector lamps online at discount prices at SuppliesUSA. We were happy to add these two quality manufacturers to our line.


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