When Does It Pay To Destroy A
$3,000.00 Printer?
By: Mike Lipshultz
Mike@biznetonline.com
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When Does It Pay To Destroy A
$3,000.00 Printer? |
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When Does It Pay To Destroy A $3,000.00 Printer? Are you kidding. Who came up with this idea? Why would anyone destroy a $3,000.00 printer? Well, the truth is it can make sense to destroy a $3,000.00 printer by running it into the ground.
If you have read the article in this month’s BizNet : $3,000.00 color Laser Printers. What the Sales Person Wont Tell You!, you know that $3,000.00 color Laser Printers are not designed to do any Duplexing (two-sided printing), so if you have the need to do two-sided color printing on a laser you have two choices. Spend over $20,000.00 for a printer designed to handle it, or run a $3,000.00 printer into the ground, intentionally over working it to avoid the cost of a $20,000.00 printer.
Now, let’s look at the facts. A $20,000.00 color Laser Printer will duplex all day long without any harm done to it. It is made to duplex, so it is built different than a $3,000.00 printer that can Duplex. (Note: I said can Duplex, not designed to). So, for your $20,000.00 you get a hard working printer you can Duplex on. You also get faster printing speed, and lots more of those fun bells and whistles. For your $3,000.00 you get a very basic color Laser Printer, or for $20, 000.00 you can buy 6 $3,000.00 printers with money left over.
Now with the Idea in mind that for $20,000.00 you can buy 6 $3,000.00 printers, let’s take another look at abusing the Minolta Page Works Color Laser Printer. First, I did say ABUSE, so if your printer breaks down due to the abuse of Duplexing you can forget about a warranty. With that said, let’s look at the printer. This printer sells for under $3,000.00. It is the only color Laser Printer in this price range that you can even try to duplex on. Now Minolta has been nice to us and BizNet has been testing one of their printers (more on this in coming months). With their knowledge, but not their blessing we have been playing with doing Duplexing on this printer. We have done more than one printing run of 100 Duplexed pages. We printed on one side, returned the paper to the paper tray, and printed page two, both times running 100 copies. The result was extremely nice. Beautifully printed two-sided brochures. Not one missfeed, or paper jam. The printer performed without a flaw. Without a doubt, doing any Duplexing is going to shorten this printer’s life. So, let’s say I have the need to print two- sided from time to time. Let’s say that I do not need all the other extras that come with that $20,000.00 printer, just the Duplexing. Now let’s say that by Duplexing I shorten the life of this printer, not 20%, not 30%, not 50%, but even more! Let’s be on the safe side and say that I am going to burnout 3 printers by Duplexing, in the same lifetime of one printer without Duplexing. So, let’s see, the cost of 3 printers is $9,000.00. This is still half the cost of a $20,000.00 printer. So just maybe it does make sense to run a $3,000.00 printer into the ground? One thing is for sure. Minolta is not going to tell you they like the idea of Duplexing on their printer, but I don’t think they will mind me telling you to buy 3 of them.
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