Technology doesn’t stand still – even for laser printers. If you have a printer that’s now bought and paid for it seems an unnecessary exercise to incur capital costs on replacing these machines after all your existing hardware works, you know how to maintain it and new printers are not cheap, but what would you say if we told you that changing an old laser printer for new could return its initial cost in savings to your business with a year? Here are five very good reasons why…
1. Let’s take a look at the cost per page
Enhancements on technology of the component parts of laser printers are continually being evolved and refined – with every development comes an improvement in the performance and print quality of the machine itself.
In addition, manufacturers of print cartridges are investing in ways to make them work smarter with new toner formulations and reductions in toner waste so together with higher capacity cartridges and more efficient mechanisms, the cost per page to print will reduce with new hardware.
How is this significant for you? Savings can be 8p per page or more for full colour A4 prints and as much as 3p per page for standard A4 black and white printing. In an organisation where you are printing 4,000 pages a month – that’s a significant saving.
Advanced features in new printers also mean that printing from draft mode will still produce high quality and perfectly acceptable print for internal documents whilst using less toner.
2. Factoring in the running costs
Operational running costs also need to be considered. Technology advances in the last few years means that power consumption of lasers have improved dramatically. With the addition of standby and sleep features, the impact on energy bills is reduced significantly.
Some current models consume less than 34W in ‘ready’ mode and less than 1% of that whilst sleeping. Compare that with machines from 5 years ago which were consuming 600W and beyond.
Manufacturers have been careful to reduce power consumption without a compromise in print duration with page output being approx. 9 seconds from sleep mode. In addition, the more power being used, the more heat is being produced which had a knock on effect for other office systems such as cooling and ventilation.
3. Solving the equation of: Speed = Time – time=money
Standard printers these days reach a capacity of 30 pages per minute for black and white print, advances in machine technology means that there are shorter time frames for the first page to print, the result? The time to produce large print runs or weighty presentations is reduced. The less time it takes to produce documents, the more productive your workforce can be and in a world where time is money every minute saved waiting for printing is a minute earned elsewhere.
4. Maintenance Costs
With all equipment, the older it is, the more maintenance you have to perform. Component parts wear out and mechanisms will start to jam more regularly. Much the same as running a car, there comes a point where the costs of replacement outweigh the costs of simply getting a new machine. If you factor in the downtime that employees experience waiting for machines to be fixed and the time cost for the IT team to actually fix the machine, investing in new printers could mean less maintenance cost and productivity downtime all round. Once again, time is money.
5. New hardware = higher print capacity per machine = less machines = improved CSR
One of the most important aspects of business today is accountability with corporate social responsibility. Organisations all have an implied (if not formal) responsibility to reduce their impact on the environment.
New, more efficient machines will mean there is not only a reduction in the amount of toner used, consumption of power and with double sided printing coming as standard, less paper used but higher capacity output machines also mean that there is a requirement for less hardware.
Less hardware means less power being used overall for the printers themselves, and a reduction in the use of conditioning and cooling systems within the office environment through less heat being produced by them.
Can you afford not to review your printer hardware?
If it has been sometime since your last review or you have started to notice an increase in costs and maintenance for your existing machines, then perhaps now is the time to give us a call. 7Tech have over 20 years’ experience in technology solutions, we do not have affiliations with any particular supplier and therefore we are able to source the best equipment for your requirements and budget. Start the ball rolling and give our team a call today on 01359 XXXXXX
