According to industry tracking organizations, in the last three years, the number of convenience laser printers purchased by American businesses has tripled. While many users, IT managers and especially printer manufacturer reps see this explosion of printers in the workplace as positive, Pro Buyers views it pessimistically. 

To be sure, the advantages of laser printers are many, primarily involving convenience. Superstores make it easy and fast to reorder toner for most of the major brands and models. Since no specialized service training skills are required (unlike with copiers), many organizations service the machines using internal resources, thus saving service contract costs.

One of the biggest concerns we have with networked laser printers compared to copier/printers is that printers do not contain mechanical meters. Yes, printed page totals can be discovered via the internet, but this is a cumbersome process, one that must be undertaken separately for each machine in the fleet and one that, ultimately, involves manual transcription since data is not downloadable in common database formats without costly software add-ons. 

Another challenge is the fact that the yields on the print and drum cartridges for these devices are typically not tracked in a systematic fashion. Since meters are not read monthly (as with copiers), and given that yields are largely unknown, customers cannot accurately determine what printers and faxes cost on a per-page basis.

Another important negative related to printers is that there is nothing to distinguish products utilized at home with those used at work. What this means is that the possibility of toner cartridges ending up in employee garages next to the dog food is very real.

Don't misunderstand what we are saying:  we believe laser printers have their places in low-volume convenience environments. We would never recommend taking these printers away from anyone, but we do recommend educating as many people as possible about the high per-page costs of printing.