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Educate
yourself here, before
you buy a printer
If you are
buying ink or
toner
cartridge for
your
printer,
the most common questions that
come to the mind are `how long
the cartridge will last?’ or
`how many pages will I be able
to print before the ink or
toner cartridge runs out?’ or
`how much ink a printer will
use over a prolonged period?’
In order to judge how much ink
you are going to use for
printing, you need to know the
yield of the
ink
cartridge.
You, as the
first time buyer, may be
unaware of the meaning of the
phrase ‘cartridge yield’.
`Cartridge yield’ refers to
the number of pages you can
print with each ink or toner
cartridge.
Manufacturers
list the yield of the
cartridge on their sites to
help the user judge before
purchasing a cartridge. Yield
is generally expressed as a
certain number of pages based
on a certain amount of text
coverage per page. For
example, “1000 pages at 5%
coverage”. The coverage
figures are generally 3% to 5%
for normal text documents. You
must note that printing a text
page is different from
printing an image. A 5% yield
may work for a text page but
not for a graphic-laden page.
When you print a photograph,
the ink will cover all or
almost all of the
paper.
Whereas, a text page is mostly
white space with very little
area covered with ink.
Given the
above, I have provided the
page yields for some
of the print cartridges on the
market today:
Brother
LC-41
black 500 pages @5% coverage
LC-41
colour 400 pages @5% coverage
(1 cartridge for each colour)
LC-51
black (same as above)
LC-51
colour (same as above) (1
cartridge for each colour)
Some
Brother printers come with 1
cartridge for each colour,
very economical.
Canon
BCI-24
black 150 pages @5% coverage
BCI-24
colour 270 pages @5% coverage
PGI-5
black 650 pages @5% coverage
CLI-8
black & colour 280 pages
@5% coverage (1 cartridge for
each colour)
Some Canon printers come
with 1 cartridge for each
colour, Very economical
PG-40
black 195 pages @5% coverage
PG-41
colour 100 pages @5% coverage
PG-50
black 300 pages @5% coverage
PG- 51
colour 330 pages @5% coverage
Epson
T0601
black 450 pages @5% coverage
T0602,603,604
colour 450 pages @5% coverage
(1 cartridge for each colour)
T0321
black 1500 pages @5% coverage
T0422,423,424
colour 440 pages @5%
coverage (1 cartridge for each
colour)
Most
Epson printers on the market
today come with 1 cartridge
for each colour, which makes
printing very economical.
HP
HP27
black 220 pages @5% coverage
HP28
colour 190 pages @5% coverage
HP56
black 450 pages @5% coverage
HP57
colour 391 pages @5% coverage
HP92
black 210 pages @5% coverage
HP93
colour 175 pages @5% coverage
HP94
black 450 @5% coverage
HP95
colour 260 @5% coverage
Lexmark
#16
black 410 pages @5% coverage
#26 colour
275 pages @5% coverage
#17
black 205 pages @5% coverage
#27 colour
140 pages @5% coverage
#32
black 200 pages @5% coverage
#33 colour
190 pages @5% coverage
#34
black 475 pages @5% coverage
#35 colour
475 pages @5% coverage
#82
black 600 pages @5% coverage
#83 colour
450 pages @5% coverage
Page Yield is an approximation
of the number of standard
pages that can be printed with
one cartridge, usually
measured at 5% page coverage.
5% coverage is a standard 8.5
x 11 inch page with a light
letterhead, address and three
paragraphs of text double
spaced. If you print mixed
text and graphics or WebPages
your page coverage is closer
to 15% and therefore the
number of pages printed with
each cartridge will be less.
If you are printing photos
your page coverage is close to
100% and the number of printed
photos will be much less than
the amount the number of pages
you would be able to print if
you were just printing
standard text documents.
While
purchasing a printer,
cartridge yield is one of the
key factors that you must take
into consideration:
- Check
the yield of different
printers – the printer with
a higher yield may be priced
higher but in the long run
it may be cost-effective
because of a lower per-page
cost.
- Check the
cartridge life – the
average shelf life is
approximately 18 to 24
months if the cartridge is
stored in a cool, dry
place. The cartridge
usually has an
Install-by-Date &
End-of-Warranty date or
similar date ranges. This
is to prevent users from
hanging on to printer
cartridges for long as
these have a tendency to
thicken and cake after a
particular time span.
- Check
the price of the cartridges
However,
cartridge yield is just one of
the important factors in
printer choice. Reliability,
Productivity, Quality and
User-friendliness of the
printer
are also important criteria.
For
a printer
recommendation based
on your needs
email:
Ink In A Wink
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