Did you even wonder what printing pages feel like? They are warm from fuser heat and smell like… well, they, probably, smell of just fused toner. Boring, right? Now imagine if a page you got took from printer gives off fragrances of lavender or roses. Ladies and gentlemen, please meet a perfumed printer.

Sagem Communication makes its effort to improve the workplace atmosphere and presents a new concept in office aromatherapy: the Zen Cube. The cube attaches to the machine’s ventilation slots and diffuses a perfume specially developed by aroma therapists:

“The perfume is diffused upon each printing (or receiving of a fax), with the activation of the ventilation system. The warm air (27° C) expelled by the machine slowly and steadily diffuses the perfume in the office via the Zen Cube, thereby creating a new workplace atmosphere.”

 When we speak of printer cost efficiency, first think we consider is user’s printing needs. If lots of monochrome printing is required, one would recommend to have a laser black-and-white printer. For occasional 2 to 5 pages printing at home, an inkjet printer would do just fine. Once we decided on printer type, next thing coming is price and cost-per-pages effectiveness of cartridges used. That is, how much you pay for a cartridge and how many pages it would print for the money.

Hardware issues aside, there are many printing tips on the internet from users, experts and even manufacturers on how to save ink and money: using separate cartridges, printing in draft mode, choosing paper saving layouts, etc. Google returns 69,900,000 pages for “printing tips”, just check them out.

One factor I’ve never heard mentioned is power consummation.

Darren Yates from Australian Techlogg.com tested home appliances and electronic devices to measure how much power they actually consume. The power measured was actual or “real” power used by device, standby power and what Daren called “apparent power”, the power to be delivered to the device so that it worked.

Among microwaves and plasma TVs, there were two devices that drew my attention – laser and inkjet printers. The former happened to be Lexmark E230 laser printer, while the latter was Canon S800 inkjet printer.

When in standby mode, laser printer pulled modest 5.9 watts, but as soon as the printing started, power consummation surged up to 699.2 watts for a second during each page print. The inkjet printer started at 1.9 watts in standby mode and followed by only 19 watts top in printing mode. Obviously, inkjet printers outperform their laser counterparts, if we speak of energy efficiency in printing and Darren Yates’s verdict is:

Inkjet printers use up to 90% less power than laser printers while printing but things are pretty much even in standby mode.

Something to remember when looking for a way to cut costs.

Printing digital photos at home has become a common thing. We capture moments of our life with a camera, print them in vivid color with an inkjet printer and share them with our friends. To say “Look how much fun we had at the party” is all most pictures are for. “Look what precise, bright and shiny colors my printer can print” is what you may say if you’re a bit on geek side.

Most of us are not really concerned about how long the photo will last. But some people are.

The thing is, inkjet prints dominate photography now, and there’s no a standard for testing the permanence of inkjet prints and interpreting the results. Variety of inkjets on the market makes it harder for experts to give advice, so customers face a hard task purchasing an inkjet printer that would definitely produce durable photos.

Current situation with color inkjet prints implicate many factors. Initially, inkjet were designed to print graph-and-chart kind of things, something not intended to last more than one day or so. Photo inkjet paper usually is coated to prevent the ink from soaking into its fibers, so ink remains on the surface, where it’s subjected to light, scratches, etc. Finally, the dye-based inks providing vivid color, don’t add to permanence of prints.

Printer makers approached Henry Wilhelm to develop a system of accelerated testing to estimate how the prints would get along over years. So he run many for lots of printers, assuming that photos framed under glass are more exposure protected compared to those that are not. The results of the tests vary from model to model, of course

“Framed under glass, Wilhelm estimates that prints made on a Hewlett-Packard Photosmart 475, a dye printer that produces snapshot-size photos, will last 82 years. Unframed and exposed to fluorescent light, that drops to 42 years. With other models, the gap can be more drastic.”

Wilhelm himself believes that using years for measure units doesn’t provide clear information for customers. Instead, he offers evaluations in human language:

“At the bottom, he said, would be “terrible,” followed by “pretty good, it will be around in a few years but we’re not really sure if it’s going be there for your grandchildren.” And, finally, “excellent” for products that, presumably, in exchange for durability will be more expensive or troublesome to use.”

Read the full article by Ian Austen

Kyocera, a Japanese printer manufacturer, has filed an official complaint with Advertising Standards Authority in the US blaming recent HP advertisement of being “disingenuous”.

The ad for HP Color LaserJet CP3505 claims that HP laser toner cartridge is the only part of printer needing replacement. Generally, laser printers require a printing drum to be regularly changed, too. However, the ad says nothing about that very drum being included along with its cost into toner cartridge of that printer model, and thus thrown away with deployed cartridge. Nor does the ad warn that HP is not responsible for replacing permanent parts once the warranty is over, though such information is usually given in fine print in foot note, if on paper.

Rob Enderle, a printer analyst and chief of a San Jose-based research firm Enderle Group, said:

“The printer companies, particularly the smaller ones, are trying to stand out and it looks like some are picking fights to get visibility for what makes them different,” Enderle said.

Peter Maude, director of analyst company CharisCo, expressed a dfferent opinion to eWeek:

“I believe HP is guilty of an error of judgment with the misleading wording of its recent advertising. A Colour LaserJet CP3505 user needs to replace only print cartridges under normal low - volume usage. But there is no question of the device not having print drums. They are integrated, as is the cost. The electrostatic paper transport belt is also user-removable, demonstrating that it can be replaced at extra cost as and when necessary.”

HP has not yet commented on the allegation, the company only mentioned the issue is under investigation.