New HP printers not economically appealing

[dgsmith]

I'm looking to see what is on offer from HP at the moment in the form of colour laser printers. Is it just me, or are their latest offerings costing more money than the models they are replacing, whilst also having a higher cost per page (prices have gone up more higher than the yields have)?

 

For instance, the older CP3505 is reasonably economical to run and has a fairly decent yield whilst not costing too much on cartridges. The newer models seem to cost more in both the actual printer and per-page? The CP2525n which is the closest in price compared to what the CP3505 was, has 2800 cartridge yields and costs around £75 per OEM cart. AFAIK, the CP3505 has 6k yield pages at around £120 each OEM?

 

We have some 2600n printers, and whilst they aren't perfect (and I know its imperfections and why they were so cheap), they offered the same economy at near 3rd the price of the printer compared to the 2525n.

 

All of our colour lasers are HP, except a few Konica Minoltas gained from the PfS scheme and we like to try and keep some consistancy, but I have to wonder whether HP is shooting itself in the foot here..

[Toby77]

I'm looking to see what is on offer from HP at the moment in the form of colour laser printers. Is it just me, or are their latest offerings costing more money than the models they are replacing, whilst also having a higher cost per page (prices have gone up more higher than the yields have)?

 

For instance, the older CP3505 is reasonably economical to run and has a fairly decent yield whilst not costing too much on cartridges. The newer models seem to cost more in both the actual printer and per-page? The CP2525n which is the closest in price compared to what the CP3505 was, has 2800 cartridge yields and costs around £75 per OEM cart. AFAIK, the CP3505 has 6k yield pages at around £120 each OEM?

 

We have some 2600n printers, and whilst they aren't perfect (and I know its imperfections and why they were so cheap), they offered the same economy at near 3rd the price of the printer compared to the 2525n.

 

All of our colour lasers are HP, except a few Konica Minoltas gained from the PfS scheme and we like to try and keep some consistancy, but I have to wonder whether HP is shooting itself in the foot here..

 

 

It would probably be worth moving upwards to the CP4005n. Yes you'll pay maybe £150 or so more but with 7.5k toner yields with prices for black and colours being around £100 and £150 respectively you can at least claw some of the running costs back.

[Tcsltd]

Dave

 

Have you looked at the Brother ones we have £100 off on at the moment?? if you want me to send you toner prices and yields let me know and I will email them over!

[localzuk]

Remember - the overall cost of printing has increased a lot over the last 12 months. HP toners have increased in price by as much as 25% in some places.

 

But I agree. The new models are nowhere near as cost effective as the old. This is why I scrabbled round to find a CP3505 to buy recently.

[dgsmith]

It would probably be worth moving upwards to the CP4005n. Yes you'll pay maybe £150 or so more but with 7.5k toner yields with prices for black and colours being around £100 and £150 respectively you can at least claw some of the running costs back.

 

The older models cost less than the CP4005n and where more economical too. It's a mix of principle and frustration that I don't want to propose to buy a printer for that much - we're very skint, and will be for some time!

 

Dave

 

Have you looked at the Brother ones we have £100 off on at the moment?? if you want me to send you toner prices and yields let me know and I will email them over!

 

By all means Vicki, let me know what Brother have on offer, although we have never gone for Brother colours before so it would be a new experience. The economy can't be any worse than our current colour printers though (you should know what these are) else it wouldn't be of any benefit to us

 

The new models are nowhere near as cost effective as the old. This is why I scrabbled round to find a CP3505 to buy recently.

 

Mind me asking how recently, and where you managed to find them? I don't care if a model is old (note old model/technology, not used/2nd hand), as they are the ones that seem to now be giving the best value for money. We use compats for a few few of our printers now, so OEM prices don't affect us too much. I know the CP3505 with compat cartridges have a 6k yield for less than 2 compat cartridges for the 2600n which yield just 2k.

 

Maybe it is purely on principle I don't want to propose new printers as it seems that we're being ripped off with the newer models..

[localzuk]

Mind me asking how recently, and where you managed to find them? I don't care if a model is old (note old model/technology, not used/2nd hand), as they are the ones that seem to now be giving the best value for money. We use compats for a few few of our printers now, so OEM prices don't affect us too much. I know the CP3505 with compat cartridges have a 6k yield for less than 2 compat cartridges for the 2600n which yield just 2k.

 

Maybe it is purely on principle I don't want to propose new printers as it seems that we're being ripped off with the newer models..

 

Only place I found them was on Amazon. [ame=http://www.amazon.co.uk/Color-LaserJet-Cp3505dn-Printer-Duplex/dp/B0012XJUEQ/ref=sr_1_4?ie=UTF8&s=electronics&qid=1266331249&sr=8-4]Color LaserJet Cp3505dn Printer 21ppm 384mb 350sh: Amazon.co.uk: Electronics & Photo[/ame]

[sonofsanta]

I looked at this at the end of last year, and the Brother lasers worked out far more cost-effective than anything HP could offer, particularly with the high yield toners. We have Brothers around here anyway and they all work beautifully - they will chug away happily for years and rarely need any intervention from us.

 

Certainly better than other brands I've had the misfortune to use in the past... I've known some printers need a fuser unit replacing because the paper tray was overloaded by a teacher

 

If you want a colour Brother, we've had a lot of success with the Brother HL-4050CDN using the high-yield 135 cartridges (4.5p per page for colour toners, 1p for black). The 4040-CN is the same printer without duplex, and about £100 cheaper. Definitely recommended.

Edited February 16, 2010 by sonofsanta
Info on Brother printers

[Tcsltd]

I looked at this at the end of last year, and the Brother lasers worked out far more cost-effective than anything HP could offer, particularly with the high yield toners. We have Brothers around here anyway and they all work beautifully - they will chug away happily for years and rarely need any intervention from us.

 

Certainly better than other brands I've had the misfortune to use in the past... I've known some printers need a fuser unit replacing because the paper tray was overloaded by a teacher

 

If you want a colour Brother, we've had a lot of success with the Brother HL-4050CDN using the high-yield 135 cartridges (4.5p per page for colour toners, 1p for black). The 4040-CN is the same printer without duplex, and about £100 cheaper. Definitely recommended.

 

and untill the end of March we can do the HL4040cn for £145.50 and the HL4050CDN for £249.00 ex vat (thats £100 off the usual price!!)

 

Dave these are the the approx costs per page ..there is also meant to be compats coming out in the next few months!! I will email you details!

[Tcsltd]

Dave

 

Just heard from out Brother rep that we might be getting a couple of colour laser for customer to try for a week to see if they like them..not sure what models they will be but I will let you know when I find out..at least you could try before you buy!!

[DMcCoy]

We use the 5550, more than £700 for a set of toners, but they are rated at 14k pages. A general use printer gets 10-12k from them, the art one does 5-6k pages due to increased coverage.

[dgsmith]

I looked at this at the end of last year, and the Brother lasers worked out far more cost-effective than anything HP could offer, particularly with the high yield toners. We have Brothers around here anyway and they all work beautifully - they will chug away happily for years and rarely need any intervention from us.

 

..high-yield 135 cartridges (4.5p per page for colour toners, 1p for black).

 

Yes I agree with your HP comment - they aren't being very competitive in what they're offering at the moment! Certainly going to drive us to look elsewhere.. I'm liking that economy though!

 

and untill the end of March we can do the HL4040cn for £145.50 and the HL4050CDN for £249.00 ex vat (thats £100 off the usual price!!)

 

Just heard from out Brother rep that we might be getting a couple of colour laser for customer to try for a week to see if they like them..not sure what models they will be but I will let you know when I find out..at least you could try before you buy!!

 

That price seems like a steal! Near enough what we paid for the 2600n printers except the Brother one I imagine has to be better, right?

 

I am liking how the high cap black does double the pages the HP Q6000A does and for the same price, and the high cap colours seems a bit cheaper too in comparison (obviously there is a separate drum too, but hopefully shouldn't affect economy too much). Would certainly be interested, although Vicki, Brother have picked a bad time of the year - as spending freezes very soon and not sure how much money we have/will have before then!

 

We use the 5550, more than £700 for a set of toners, but they are rated at 14k pages. A general use printer gets 10-12k from them, the art one does 5-6k pages due to increased coverage.

 

Yes, we've recently acquired one of these from John (ICT-Direct), though mainly for the A3 than economy. I am more than happy that OEM prices for these cartridges cost the same per-page to the compats we buy for the HP2600n, so the compats for the HP 5550 offer great value (I have heard the horror stories on here though as well with these compats, fortunately we got the printer with full 100% toner levels so will be a while yet until we need more stock)!

[FN-GM]

We like to keep a consistency going. We only run the HP 2605, 5650 & 5550 printers. We tend to by the 4650 second hand from a local firm. They are a good work horse and cheapish to run. We dont use original toners. We get them from a local company. If they leak or damage the printer in anyway they will foot the bill. Doing it this will we also don't have to stock loads of different toners.

[maniac]

We like to keep a consistency going. We only run the HP 2605, 5650 & 5550 printers. We tend to by the 4650 second hand from a local firm. They are a good work horse and cheapish to run. We dont use original toners. We get them from a local company. If they leak or damage the printer in anyway they will foot the bill. Doing it this will we also don't have to stock loads of different toners.

 

I've worked hard to standardise the printers in this school, we have CP3505's as our main colour lasers with a very old but functional HP 8500n as a shared colour printer in our main ICT area. Art have an HP3500 printer which is very old, but still works well (when they don't load damp paper in it which gets jammed in the smallest fragments deep inside the printer )

 

B/W's are HP 2015 in the smaller offices, and HP3005 and 4200 series printers in the larger offices and some departments. If we buy new ones I try my best to buy the same models where ever I can get them as they're good printers and we already stock the toner.

 

We have a Xerox printer in our staff room which was a special offer from our printer supplier, this has proved a solid work horse, so I'd possibly be looking to by Xerox as our next batch of printers - can't really keep buying the same ones forever much as I'd like to, and like you the recent offerings from HP don't look too appealing.

 

Anyone notice the product lifecycle from HP is much shorter than it used to be, they always seem to be introducing new models which do the same as the old ones, look almost the same but frustratingly the same toners won't fit! What happened to doing a whole run of different printers which all used the same toner? They all seem model specific these days.

Edited February 17, 2010 by maniac

[localzuk]

Anyone notice the product lifecycle from HP is much shorter than it used to be, they always seem to be introducing new models which do the same as the old ones, look almost the same but frustratingly the same toners won't fit! What happened to doing a whole run of different printers which all used the same toner? They all seem model specific these days.

 

They've gradually moved to a projector business model - every lamp is different. Like now, every cartridge is different. They've always used this sort of business model, but they've become more extreme with it.

 

I can understand the need for different sized cartridges for different size printers, but the model variation is over the top. Like the cp3505. Why did they not design it so the cp3525 was a direct drop in replacement, using the same cartridges?

 

The cynical person in me would say its because they want people to stock more toner.

[36Degrees]

I've been impressed with the Brother HL-4040CN we bought last year as it was cheaper than the HP offerings and had a free 3 year warranty.

 

The same was the case with the Konica Minolta 4650 mono laser we bought last month. As well as being cheaper and with a 3 year warranty compared to the equivalent HP it also seems more solidly built.

[Toby77]

I've been impressed with the Brother HL-4040CN we bought last year as it was cheaper than the HP offerings and had a free 3 year warranty.

 

The same was the case with the Konica Minolta 4650 mono laser we bought last month. As well as being cheaper and with a 3 year warranty compared to the equivalent HP it also seems more solidly built.

 

The Konica 4650 mono and colour we currently have on promo, buy one get one free if anyone is interested?

[glennda]

we are turning to the photocopies as they seem to get alot better value for money then the printers plus added function of scanning to email etc, but we have a few of the cp3525n that seem to be okay, but the toners are expensive!

[36Degrees]

The Konica 4650 mono and colour we currently have on promo, buy one get one free if anyone is interested?

 

Damn, should have waited a month! Don't suppose it's retrospective? (We bought it from you!)

 

No? Oh well...

[Toby77]

Damn, should have waited a month! Don't suppose it's retrospective? (We bought it from you!)

 

No? Oh well...

 

Sadly no, I only heard about it today. I just hope this runs till april!