Specifications

■ PC Card and Compact Flash slots for direct import of digital photos into the printer, so you can
print without a computer
■ Duplex operation for double-sided color printing
■ Archival-quality photo printing using specially-formulated inks and archival-paper
■ Wide-format printers
■ Printers with network and IEEE-1394 interfaces
Most of the choices listed here use inkjet technology, but a few dye-sublimation printers that achieve
true continuous-tone results are available starting around $300. If you are a graphics professional,
very few of the color printers under $1,000 will be suitable for you because most models either lack
built-in PostScript RIP features or are too slow for producing proofs in a high-volume production envi-
ronment. Most inkjet printers that sell for prices above $1,000 are suitable for graphics pros, but the
high cost of consumables (ink and paper) for these models makes color laser, LED, or solid-ink print-
ers (most of which have PostScript built in) a suitable alternative for many users.
Note
In the world of color printing, low-cost is a highly relative term. To a professional graphic artist or designer, a $2,000
color inkjet or $5,000 color laser printer is a low-cost alternative to the enormously expensive printing systems used by
service bureaus. As you learned earlier in this chapter, you can purchase high-quality, low-cost color inkjet printers in
the $150–$300 range.
The Effect of the Cost Per Page on Color Printing
Should you use separate black and full-color printers? Despite the huge improvements in both color
inkjet and color laser printers in the past few years, the answer is still “yes” in most cases. If you are a
SOHO user, for example, using a single color inkjet printer for both full-color and black-text output
could cost you much more per year than if you used a monochrome laser printer for text output.
For example, a recent (November 2000) PC Magazine study of print costs per page found that the aver-
age cost per page of an inkjet printer for color and black ink ranged from as little as 7 cents per page
to as much as 31 cents per page (based on 5% coverage of the page for color prints and 8% of the
page for black text). If a user printed just 25 black-text pages and 25 color prints per week, the ink
cost at 7 cents per page would reach about $190 per year, whereas ink costs at 31 cents per page
would exceed $800 per year! This is enough to pay for a SOHO-market laser printer—twice. Low-cost
printers tend to have higher cost-per-page figures because of the small capacity of their ink tanks.
For the best bang for the buck in a SOHO environment, I recommend that you use a mid-range
($150–$300) inkjet printer for color work and a laser printer for black text. Laser printers typically
have a toner cost of well below 1 cent per page, less expensive paper when compared to inkjet print-
ers, and better (and faster!) black-text quality, even when compared to inkjet printers with higher dpi
ratings.
How expensive to operate are 1,200dpi color laser printers, such as the Xerox/Tektronics Phaser 750?
For example, with 30% of the page covered with text and limited color illustrations, the Phaser 750
costs just 7.8 cents per page. With 11% page coverage (text and spot-color illustrations), the Phaser
750 costs just 6.7 cents per page. These values compare favorably with inkjet printers and don’t take
into account the much faster speed of color laser printing. Although color lasers can cost 10 times as
much as mid-range inkjet printers, their operating costs are much lower than the average.