The Awesome World of the Desktop Color Laser Printer

By: Sarah Patrick

For the past three decades we, the computing public, have been saddled with the curse of the inkjet printer. From the late 70’s on, companies such as Epson, Hewlett-Packard and Canon introduced the computing public to the capability to print documents right at the desktop. Gone were the days of going to a specialty shop to get a document printed. Now we could print those documents directly from the computer to the printer sitting mere inches away. But, what the public didn’t know and these companies did, was that the cost of operating those printers, normally referred to as Total Cost of Ownership (TCO), was greater than one could imagine. Today, it is a fact that razor companies basically give away the razor because they know where the real money will be made…the blades. Well, that same philosophy used to hold true for the desktop color laser printer market when these units first appeared. There was a time when the desktop color laser printer was found solely in the business environment. Now, that is all about to change for the better. And, the reason things are changing is solely due to the introduction of the desktop color laser printer along with it’s lower TCO and longer life span.

A word of warning prior to making your purchase: The desktop color laser printer that you would find at the bottom of the price range WILL have a higher TCO than the one that you would encounter say at the mid to high $1,000 range. But, over the expected life span of that $1,000 desktop color laser printer you will save enough money to purchase your next one.

Desktop Color Laser Printer operating costs are extremely low and the quality of the print coming from these things is just tremendous. The printed documents that the new generation of desktop color laser printers produces will blow away anything you have seen before.

The desktop color laser printer is a total blessing to the computing public at large. Gone are the days of spending hundreds of dollars to replace ink cartridges that might dry up or leak and would most assuredly only produce a very limited number of quality prints before streaking and fading. Now a person can expect to get thousands, if not tens of thousands of high quality color pages for what would essentially be the same price if TCO was not factored in. There are many TCO tools on the Internet, do a search and you will find one. These tools are some of the most valuable research one can do when making a decision to purchase a desktop color laser printer for use in the home.

When making your next decision to invest in desktop color printer, make the smart choice, go with a desktop color laser printer and save yourself money and headaches. When compared to current inkjet printers the desktop color laser printer technology will win hands down. And, the total cost of ownership for a desktop color laser printer is on average 50-60% cheaper than that old inkjet.