There is good news for people who are tired of refilling their Dell ink cartridges to save money on the consumables for the personal printer they bought years ago: laser printers are becoming much less expensive and much more accessible for personal use than they ever have before. Models like the Dell 1720 laser printer have hit the market and are offering fast high quality printing for a fraction of the cost of their larger cousins in the business industries. These smaller home laser printers offer consumers similar quality levels and low long term toner costs that the larger business class laser printers are known for, while selling for prices that range from under $200 to slightly more than $500 depending on the model.
We will take as our example the Dell 1720, which is already almost two years old at this point. This sturdy little machine is a no-frills personal laser printer that is very well suited for small business use. At around 10 inches tall and weighing in around 25 pounds the printer is much more compact than a business laser printer, but still large for personal printers. It is powered by a 366 MHz processor with 16MB memory that can be upgraded, and can also be reached up to 144MB. The printer offers a manual feed tray and a standard 250-sheet paper tray that can be upgraded to a 550-sheet drawer. Unfortunately the interface is very simple, offering only a cancel and a continue button and some blinking LED lights for the control panel. The other drawback is that it is not a wireless printer, although it does offer an adapter for around $60.
However, the true strength of this printer lies in its printing speed and affordability. The 1720 has a very decent printing rate that has been known to beat out even other, more expensive, laser printers in independent tests. It will print out immaculate text documents and even fairly detailed mono graphics, but it fairs slightly less well on colored photos and intricate color graphics. The high page rate is a real advantage for businesses seeking a fast printer to handle high volume printing jobs without shelling out a small fortune for a larger business class laser printer. And the Dell 1720 toner cartridges are also a good deal to be considered.
Each 1720 printer is bundled with a 3000 page Dell toner cartridge that can be resold to Dell after it runs empty to receive a significant discount on future toner purchases, bringing the cost of the next 3000 page cartridge down to about $70. You can also cash in the old cartridge for a high yield 6000 page version for about $90 after the $30 markdown is applied. With the use and return markdown included the per-page printing costs are estimated to be as low as about 1.67 cents, which is extremely good for any printer, making it an excellent long term investment for a budget-conscious business.
So what do all of these technical statistics really boil down to? A general shift in printer roles and accessibility that particularly impacts smaller businesses and home based operations. Inkjet printers may work well for personal use, but any company that prints more than half a dozen pages per day is going to start to feel the cost of replacing the liquid ink cartridges very quickly, whereas purchasing a laser printer is normally equally painful due to the expensive up-front costs of the printer itself. Models like the Dell 1720 offer people a middle ground between the two extremes that helps to blur the role of laser printers and make them a much more realistic option for a wide range of purposes and consumers.
On the flip side it is worth noting in closing that inkjet printers are themselves beginning to respond by creating much higher quality business class printers that boast drastically reduced printing costs compared to personal use inkjet models currently enjoying wide circulation. These printers are more expensive than their common counterparts, but offer a high level of printing, significantly faster printing speeds, and even less noise. If you are only going to be doing a small amount of printing a classic personal inkjet printer is still a sound decision for most people. However, if you intend to frequently print or print out large volume loads it is worth considering upgrading to one of the smaller monochrome laser printers like the Dell 1720 or a business class inkjet printer (many of which are also made by Dell, as well as Brother and Lexmark) to meet your needs. Printing small amounts of colored projects or brochures could be done on an old inkjet, but larger volume projects will probably require a higher class of laser printer to do them justice.