If you work in an office, chances are you don’t change the copier or printer cartridge because it’s too messy or you just don’t know how to do it. That’s according to a new Zogby survey, commissioned by Xerox, of more than 2,000 office workers across the U.S. aimed to better understand some of the reasons behind office printing habits.

Of those surveyed, more than 1,000 respondents said they have experienced a mess when changing a printer/copier toner cartridge.

The mess, plus a lack of knowledge on how to change a printer cartridge, is why more than 10 percent of respondents typically put off printing until someone else changes the toner cartridges.

And though environmental stewardship is on the rise, not everyone knows exactly what happens to the empty printer cartridges once they are removed. Nearly one in five respondents said the old office printer/copier cartridges simply get thrown in the trash.

Enter Xerox’s Phaser 8560 and 8860 Solid Ink printers and MFPs – devices that are easy to use, produce incredible color prints, and are great for the environment. At the heart of these devices are non-toxic, crayon-like sticks of mess-free, solid ink. Users simply unwrap the recycled packaging and place the stick into slots on the top of the device (This can be done even while the machine is on). The packaging goes into the office recycle bin, and the ink sticks are melted and sprayed onto a drum, which is rolled and pressed onto the paper for crisp, vibrant prints.

Gone are the days of having to roll up the sleeve and change bulky, messy toner or inkjet cartridges.

Hewlett-Packard is selling fewer laser printers, and seems to be quite happy with the situation.

HP says it’s happy with the installed printer base for the short-term because it means selling fewer low-margin servers.

HP’s Imaging and Printing group had revenue of $7.5 billion during the quarter, down 1 percent compared to last year. An 8 percent drop in number of consumer printers sold and a 9 percent drop in sales of commercial sales were offset by a 9 percent rise in sales of supplies.

At the same time, unit sales of multifunction printers rose 25 percent during the quarter, while unit sales of wireless printers rose 54 percent, according to HP.

Despite the overall drop in servers, HP is increasing its market share, which is making it easier to sell supplies.

For instance, increasing sales of wireless printers to home users may result in fewer printers being sold, but not in the amount of pages being printed.

The healthy installed base is more important to HP than selling more printers.

More than half of HP’s overall profits come from its installed base, a situation which helps insulate the company from dropping printer sales.

Providing superb quality prints at high speeds across a range of media, this printer will appeal to a broad range of businesses, especially those looking for affordable high performance printing. The AL-C9200N offers its users quality printing with the precision and efficiency of a durable and dependable business printer.

Epson’s AL-C9200N is an evolution of the brand’s existing A3 office solutions; providing enhanced features tailored to maximising the production needs of graphic art. Its capability of printing beyond A3, up to A3F, is a feature that helps the printer stand out from contemporaries in its market place. In terms of capacity, the unit can hold from 350 up to 1,850 sheets over four different models.

Due for launch in September 2008, the AL-C9200N is available in four varieties. Starting with the base model, the series scales up to a stand alone version that offers an increased paper capacity of 1,850 sheets, duplex printing and a slender cabinet. The AL-C9200N Series also offers faster ripping and first page out with the latest Epson technologies, including MIT Memory management technology, empowering businesses to handle jobs of any size.

The AL-C9200N also boasts comprehensive connectivity and printer languages. These features include connectivity through standard Ethernet 10/100 Base Tx, Hi-Speed USB, Parallel and optional Type B interfaces, as well as extensive language support with PCL6, PCL5C, PDF1.6, ESC/Page and genuine Adobe PostScript 3 as standard. The units have a 256MB memory capacity as standard which can be upgraded to 768MB, making it ideally suited to the production of large and intricate imagery and reducing the time of printing through the reduction of print queues.

The first thing you notice when you open the box is that the Epson Workforce 600 is a nice looking machine. The sleek looking printer will fit in with the decor of most offices or it might even improve the decor of your office space. The Epson Workforce 600 is a feature rich printer at a very affordable price ($199). It can Print / Copy / Scan / Photo / Fax plus it has WiFi . Consumers will find that the user interface on the Epson Workforce 600 is very user friendly thanks to the 2.5? color LCD screen that tilts for easy viewing.

The printer is a pure speed demon without compromising any quality. Epson is trying to entice small business consumers that are looking into laser printers for the office and they will succeed based on speed, price and laser quality . Epson claims the Workforce 600 is twice as fast as their competition and I believe it. The print outs are not as fast as laser but pretty damn close. It can print out 27 ppm of text or 19 ppm of color.

It has built-in memory card slots for PC-free printing. You can even crop directly from the printer itself. Epson uses DuraBrite ink that is smudge, fade, water and highlighter resistant. The 4 printers cartridges are all individual and you have the option of using a standard ($12.35 for color, $17 for black) or high capacity ($17 for color, $20 for black ) for any of the colors and a extra high capacity cartridge for the black ($28.50). The paper is loaded from the back and no issues with any printer jams. Another plus for this printer, it uses up to 3x less power than a laser printer.

Sending and receiving faxes is super easy thanks to the 2.5? LCD screen. It can store 60 fax numbers on speed dial and it can receive up to 180 pages in memory.

You can copy in black and white or color and everything is straightforward due to the great user interface and the bright display. Just load the automatic document feeder, enter your settings, hit start and before you even turn around the copies are done.

Now with built in Wifi, it makes setting up the printer to work on your network wirelessly child’s play. Just follow the setup instructions on screen from the included setup disk and your wireless printer network will be up in running in minutes. You can also connect via Ethernet cable or USB.

The Epson Workforce 600 is a perfect addition to any small or mid-sized office. During this economic downturn where every dollar counts, you will be hard pressed to find a better printer for $200 that does everything this sleek looking printer can do.