New cost-of-ink-per-page analysis of ink cartridges is a new way for customers to estimate their printing costs.
QualityLogic, a company providing quality assurance and control services, reported it had completed Cost-of-Ink-Per-Page (CoIPP) Analysis for the Eastman Kodak Company.
CoIPP Analysis uses cartridge cost and page-yield to calculate and compare the cost of ink required to print one page on Kodak EASYSHARE 5100, 5300 and 5500 All-in-One Printers to 11 competing printers.
Page-yield is determined by Certified Page-Yield Test Program, QualityLogic’s special software based on ISO standards determines. Cartridge prices in UK, France, and Germany were provided by IDC, a provider of independent market intelligence.
QualityLogic published a paper that you can view for details, but here is a briefly overview of what results of the analysis show.
Naturally, all three Kodak’s printers demonstrate lowest cost of ink per page in monochrome, color and photo printing. For instance in UK, one page printed on any of Kodak Easyshare printers in mono, color and photo mode costs 0.016, 0.047 and 0.064 GBP, or $0.033, $0.096 and 0.131 respectively.
It turns out the most expensive printer inks among the compared are for Hewlett-Packard’s Photosmart C5280 followed by Photosmart C4280. A page printed Photosmart C5280 in monochrome mode would cost 0.065 GBP; in color mode – 0.148 GBP; in photo mode – 0.311 GBP. Converted into US dollars, that’d make $0.137, $0.302 and $0.636, respectively.
Of course, actual prices in USA will vary, but the example gives us a general idea of cost difference scale.
Not so long ago a study initiated by HP found that HP ink cartridges contain inks twice as much as remanufactured and refilled ones. Some time before that, an ink study sponsored by Epson found that Epson genuine inks provide stronger color-fading resistance and, thus, longer life of printed images.
Just like these studies, the QualityLogic’s analysis is not completely independent and unbiased. However, such CoIPP analysis provides consumers with information that is fair, accurate and consistent. It gives them a new way to look at this portion of the overall cost of owning and operating a printer.