Mon, 25 Aug 2003

Laser printer for your business

Each time you buy a desktop computer, a notebook, a server, a scanner or a printer for your office, the number one question to ask yourself is "What do you need it for?" You need to be clear as to who is going to use it, what your available budget is, etc.

Similarly, if you want to buy a laser printer for your office, you will need to ask the same questions. Is it going to be used by an individual in your office, or a small workgroup, or the entire department?

Normally, you choose a laser printer if you have a large volume of print jobs. For example, a laser printer is definitely the best choice if you regularly download catalogs from your headquarters and print them out and distribute hundreds of copies during your dealer gatherings. Or, you may need to print copies of your press releases to be distributed during press conferences. Or, who knows, you may be a market research firm and you need to print a thousand copies of your questionnaire.

These are some of the examples where an inkjet printer may not be the right choice. Keep in mind that, in general, the laser toner is far cheaper than the ink of an inkjet printer, which means that printing costs per page for the laser printer is lower than that for an inkjet printer. Besides, a laser printer can print up to 50 pages per minute, a speed that cannot be matched by even the fastest inkjet printer.

You will have to decide, too, whether you will need to print color documents as well. Color laser printers cost a lot more than their monochrome counterparts, and their consumables can drain your operational budget. Most business printers have multiple trays, which means that you can print on different paper sizes without having to swap these trays.

Another consideration is how much space you have in your office. If you run a SOHO (small office home office) or a home- based business, you may not have much space in your workplace. Depending on how much printing you will do, an all-in-one or multifunction device may be the right solution. These machines can print, scan, make copies, fax and even e-mail documents, and contrary to what many people fear, they are pretty reliable.

And then before you narrow down your choice, you should make a guesstimate on how many pages you may need to print out a month. This will determine two things: The printing speed that you will need, and the duty cycle of the printer that you should buy. It is simple maths. The more pages you will need to print each month, the faster your printer should be.

The duty cycle is one of the specs of a printer -- whether laser or inkjet -- that basically tells you how durable the printer is. It is OK to buy a printer with a duty cycle of a couple of thousands pages per month for your boss, for example, if you know that he just wants to have a printer as part of the interior decoration of his office. However, you will need to choose a printer with a 200,000 or 300,000 pages per month duty cycle if you print a lot of reports each month.

Remember that sharing a printer can also lead to management problems. For example, who will buy a new toner cartridge if the toner runs out? An ideal printer is the one that has built-in reporting software that will tell you how much each of you have printed. This software may be installed on the printer's hard disk or a dedicated print server. Some office laser printers even have secured output bins that only authorized people can open to pick up the printouts.

And then there are hordes of other features such as automatic collating and stapling, which may be optional. There are times that these features can be time-saving, too, especially if you print in high volumes.

These are the things to be considered when choosing a laser printer for your business. Once you know your requirements, choosing the product from Canon, Hitachi Printing Solutions (Dataproducts), HP, IBM, Lexmark or other printer makers will be an easy task.

-- Zatni Arbi