Every day our customer service team fields a variety of questions from customers. They say that no question is a bad question, and I am inclined to agree with that, but I would have to say that some questions are far more interesting than others. With that in mind let’s cover some of the most basic questions we receive.

Should I buy an inkjet or a laser printer?
A great question, and a lot really depends on what type and how much of that type of printing you plan on doing. Inkjet printers are much cheaper than laser printers, and are great for printing color photos. The vast majority of home users end up purchasing an inkjet printer. Mostly because of the cost of the machine and the versatility it provides. With an inkjet you can print documents, photos, fabric transfers, etc. Most people will warn though that what you spend on inkjet cartridges will rapidly add up. They are very small (in comparison to laser toner cartridges) and thus don’t hold much ink.

Laser printers will cost you more up front but they do print a lot faster than inkjet printers. Their cartridges hold a lot of toner powder, so you will get a lot more pages of print. Typically 1,000+ pages with a laser toner cartridge as compared to 300-400 for an inkjet cartridge. Toners do text printing very well, and this is still where their strength is. The last few years have seen the introduction of the color laser printers. Printer manufacturers have realized the importance of the use of color in documents, but they have not put much in to creating a color laser printer that can do photos very well. It seems that their research and development is going in to creating high quality photo inks for inkjet printers.

Our opinion: Take a look at your needs. If you just need a good general use printer for around the home or office then go with an inkjet. You’ll be very pleased. If you are printing close to 1,000 or more a month, and these are mostly in black and white then go for the laser. The initial cost will be offset by the lesser cost of the toner cartridges, they number of pages they provide, and the speed at which you will be able to print. Can’t decide? Do like a lot of our customers have - get one of each!

Can I get a fax and copier with my printer?
You certainly can! The new generation of multifunction machines are amazing. I’ve got an HP OfficeJet 5610 All-in-One sitting to my left. Love it! These machines provide printing, scanning, copying, and faxing in to one machine. You’ll pay more for a multifunction that would would for just a standard inkjet printer, but your office will be less cluttered with equipment.

Our opinion: If you need a versatile machine and are not overly worried about producing photo lab quality pictures then go with a multifunction.

Where can I get printer cables?
A very common question. There are very few printers these days that come with all of the cables you need to complete the set up process. On the flip side, the stores are very good at making sure the customer is reminded of their need for a cable. All new printers now take USB cables. It makes the set up a lot easier. There are still a few out there (we have one of those too - HP LaserJet 2100) that still uses the parallel cable (anyone remember those?). The new push in printer connectivity is wireless (WI-FI) and Bluetooth. Both eliminate the need for any cables at all.

Our opinion: For now stick with the USB. WI-FI and Bluetooth connections are rapidly improving but there is still a lot that goes in to setting up and maintaining their connections.

If you have questions you would like answered. Take a second and post them here. We’ll be sure to post an answer back.

Police in Arapahoe County, Colorado are searching for some “bandits” that supposedly stole hundreds of dollars worth of ink cartridges (are you really a bandit if you just steal ink? It is catchy though). Apparently they just walked into stores, took the cartridges and left. So far they’ve stolen about $800 worth. I wonder how much you can get on the black market for $800 worth of ink cartridges? Seems like they should focus on some more desirable items.

Police looking for ‘ink cartridge bandits’ [9NEWS.com]

A company called Zink wants to release a printer that doesn’t use ink. Together with Polaroid, they have developed tiny printers that can print pictures without the use of ink cartridges. Basically, the printers use a special kind of paper with different layers, all of which react differently to heat. So you heat the layers differently and they each either turn to red, blue or yellow. Since there are no cartridges, the printers could theoretically be as small as they want to make them. The downside to this technology is that the special paper that the printer uses is very expensive - Zink wants to charge $20 for 100 sheets of paper.

A printer without ink from Zink [CNET]

Consumer Reports recently updated their advice on buying an inkjet printer. Of course, it’s not as good as one of our guides, but it’s still helpful. Their guide is definitely for beginners, so if you are looking for specific printer recommendations, you best look somewhere else. Their information is more for people who don’t know what kind of inkjet printer they want and need to know what to look for.
Here are a couple of the tips they have:

- Be skeptical about advertised speeds.
- Consider supply costs as well as a printer’s price.
- Decide whether you need scanning and copying.

All these are good advice, and we have mentioned similar things in the past. By now, everyone should know that advertised printer speeds are totally inaccurate, but it’s still worth reminding people. Considering the cost of ink when you buy a printer is very important, since a lot of times the initial purchase price can be misleading. You need to know how much your printer is going to cost you over your lifetime. Lastly, it’s a good idea to decide if you really need a scanner/copier or whether you just want one.

Buying advice [ConsumerReports.org]

Just a friendly reminder that you can go to a site like this: http://www.driversplanet.com/printers/makes.aspx

You don’t need the CD because the actual driver file isn’t that big, especially for older printers. Using a site like this is also a littlle easier than going to the manufacturer page, since most of their sites are pretty big and difficult to navigate through. Also, sometimes it’s better to just install the drivers themselves instead of all the crap software that the printer manufacturers want you to install.

Shocking news!!! Well, it’s shocking for us…probably not so much for everyone else. Last month, Staples removed compatible cartridges for Epsons and HPs from their catalog. Supposedly they will remove all the product from their stores in the next few months.

Staples never pushed their brand of cartridges too hard, but their cartridges were pretty common. You could usually find a big supply of them in their stores, although the majority of the ink they carried was for the more popular models. A lot of times their compatible/remanufactured cartridges weren’t much cheaper than the OEMs, so there was always a feeling that maybe they weren’t trying as hard as they could. They were in a strange position, since they were one of the biggest distributors in the country for HP and Epson brand ink, yet at the same time they were also trying to sell Staples ink. The Lyra Research press release that dishes the dirt on this stories mentions that HP “cut a deal” with Staples last year to stop selling a competing product. The press release also mentions that the decision to stop selling Epson compatibles may have been due to recent lawsuits by Epson, including one that shut down a company that supplied Staples.

While we won’t be sad to see a competitor of Staples’ size gone, it is a bit sad from the conservation side of things. Having Staples behind a recycled and remanufactured product was good because it meant that a heavyweight was backing the product. It meant you could go into any one of hundreds of stores and buy a product that was helping the environment. Oh well….

Lyra Webcast Probes Staples’ Retreat from Epson- and HP-Compatible Ink Jet and Toner Cartridges [Press Release]

I saw this question asked somewhere and I think it’s a pretty legitimate one. Yes, photo printers can print text fine. The only exception would be compact photo printers, which can only print 4 x 6 photos. The question is whether or not it’s a good idea to print text with dedicated photo printers.

As mentioned before, these days manufacturers like Canon and Epson market every printer they make as a photo printer. Basically HP is the only company left these days that just makes true inkjet printers. Everything else on the market is either a multifunction printer, a real photo printer or an inkjet labeled as a photo printer. If you go to the store and buy a $100 HP inkjet that’s called a photo printer, then it will be fine printing text. It will print text like the HP Deskjets of yesteryear. Same thing goes for any mid-level Epson printer out there.

The only ones you may have an issue with would be expensive photo printers. It’s not that they can’t print text, it’s just that they aren’t going to print it efficiently. Either it will be slower than a standard inkjet or else it will be more expensive in the long run since you are using more expensive ink cartridges. But this really only applies to photo printers that cost about $300, and most people buying those printers probably won’t use them for text. But if you are just buying a decent photo printer, then you can definitely use it occasionally to print text.

There’s no such thing.

There are black ink cartridges. There are white ink cartridges (yes, they are out there). You can print a black and white photo. But there are no black and white cartridges. So, what’s the big deal you ask? Well, I’m not really too concerned about it and it’s a pretty honest mistake when someone says this, but if they thought about what they were saying then they would probably stop. A black and white cartridge…..that just doesn’t make sense. If you were to open up that cartridge, you wouldn’t see any white ink in it. So, let’s just all agree to call them black ink cartridges only from now on.

Yay.

Benjamin Franklin gave us some theories about electrostatics. You know, his whole kite experiment and everything. 300 years later, we still look to his theories to explain a lot of the unknowns about this area. One man, physicist Lawrence Schein, looked to Franklin’s theories to help explain some things about how laser printing works. Schein has started a company called Aetas Systems in order to develop new and better technology for color laser printers.

The reason Ben’s theories on electrostatics relate to laser printers is because electrostatic adhesion is used in laser printing. Basically, the toner and the paper are charged in order to make the toner stick to the paper. Once it sticks, it is then fused permanently to the paper. The the amount of adhesion (basically ’stickiness’) during this process between the paper and the toner is a lot higher than it should be. This isn’t a big deal for monochrome printing, but it ends up being a problem with color printing because it leads to inefficiency. Color printers have to use four different kinds of belts (one for each color) and this adds to the complexity and cost. Schein is hoping to reduce the adhesion in the process and thus make color laser printers with only one belt.

Cheaper Color Printing by Harnessing Ben Franklin’s Electrostatic Forces [Newswise]