Advertisment

Printer: Pick the Right One

author-image
PCQ Bureau
New Update

Buying a printer for an organization is tough, requiring work to be done regarding the needs of your organization. We’ve identified the areas that you need to be careful about before making that purchase.

Advertisment

Inkjet or laser?



Inkjets printers are most suited for personal work or at best for organizations with not more than 10 people. However, you may want to buy an inkjet in addition to a laser for your color printing needs. The advantage of inkjets is that they don’t cost too much, starting from around Rs 5,000 and going up to Rs 15,000. But, their running cost, piles up quickly due to the high price of their ink cartridges.

There are any number of special-use printers. At the very high end are inkjet printers, used by design and production houses. These are wide-format printers that come in a range of prices and features. These mostly support a variety of media, and can produce dazzling prints. Then there is the new genre of digital printers–those that print from digital cameras.

A second option for small to medium-sized workgroups is a desktop laser printer, which cost about Rs 15,000 to Rs 25,000. Their advantage is that they don’t occupy much space, and their running cost is not that high.

Advertisment

Larger organizations with high printing volumes will need to go in for workgroup lasers, which along with faster speed offer a range of functionality, including duplex printing, collating and binding. These cost from Rs 50,000 to a few lakh depending on the specs you choose. Color laser printers are comparatively expensive. But if you need to take many color prints, as by advertising agencies, then you can choose from a quite a range.

Speed



It’s easy to say that you should buy the fastest printer you can find, but, speed comes for a price. So, you consider your needs before choosing the speed you want. For example, for a workgroup of about 10-25 people, a 20-ppm printer should be fine. Another very important thing to consider is the first page time out, which is the time a printer takes to print the first page of a document. In a workgroup, most of the printouts will be fresh ones, so this time plays a very important role.

Network ready



Network printers can plug directly into a network port, which means you don’t need a PC to share the printer on your network. Some printers have networking built-in while others require a card that costs extra.

Advertisment

Expandability



If you print heavy files (heavy graphics) regularly, then it’s a good idea to add extra RAM (this does not increase the basic speed of the machine, but improves its ability to handle heavy files). Many printers take in the SD RAM that goes into your PC, but some require costlier proprietary RAM.

Accessories



Accessories range from an extra paper tray to a duplexer (for printing on both sides of paper), to a binder/ stapling unit. If different departments will use the same printer, and that too with different kinds of stationery, then you will need a multibin.



Printer price and price/page

Another important aspect is the price per page. For this ask for the price of the toner/ink cartridges, and find out how many pages you can print per cartridge/toner. This will give you a good idea of the long run costs of that printer. Also, make sure you know the prices of consumables, like oil bottle and fuser unit, before you make your final decision.

Drivers you need



The final thing you need to check is the driver support.If your organization has Windows NT, Windows 98 and Mac machines, then make sure that the printer supports all the

OSs.

Advertisment