Cost-Conclusions

Digital Photography Now Printer Reviews

3-part series: Photo ink-jets laid bare

Updated 20th February - 2002
By Ian Burley

Part 1: The truth about photo ink-jet running costs

Photo ink-jet running cost conclusions - the verdict

Test results - printer by printer:

The table below summarises the running costs test results for each of the printers we looked at. It shows that the Epson Stylus 895 Photo is the cheapest to run overall. It has the cheapest paper, but comes in second to the Canon S800’s frugal and capacious single ink tanks in terms of overall ink cost.

Composite A4 photo test page at 10x7.5 inch coverage (75 square inches)

HP
psc-950
Epson
895
Canon
S800
Lexmark
Z43
Pages printed*
41
29
54
25
Time per page (sec)
265
255
137
723
Ink cost per page
72.4p
59.4p
45.2p
200.7p
Ink cost per sq inch
1p
0.8p
0.6p
2.7p
Paper cost per page
64.5p
55p
73.3p
86.6p
Cost/sq inch overall**
1.83p
1.53p
1.58p
3.83p
Total cost per page
136.9
114.4p
118.5p
287.3p

*Pages printed before first colour ran out
**Includes unprinted border area

Until the Lexmark Z43 arrived, the HP psc-950 proved to be the most expensive to run. However, the HP’s Plus Glossy Photo paper is cheaper than the Canon S800’s Photo Paper Pro. But the Lexmark is not only more expensive all round, it’s also by far the slowest. Its only redeeming quality in terms of cost is the initial purchase price of the printer, which is less than half that of the Epson 895, the next cheapest printer in this line up.

Single colour ink tanks are less wasteful

What our tests clearly showed is that the different colours do not run out at the same time. With single cartridges that contain more than one colour, inevitably you will be throwing unused ink away when one of the colours is exhausted.

As the Canon S800 has individual tanks for each colour, ink is never wasted. The Canon S800 exhausted its photo magenta tank first at 54 pages, but the photo cyan tank lasted 13% longer and the yellow tank 30% longer. We estimate the standard magenta and cyan tanks of the S800 will last at least 5 times longer than the first tank to be exhausted.

Not only is the S800 ink-frugal, the tanks lasted longer than the others anyway. Now, if only the paper could be cheaper.

But this isn’t the end of the story. Although you pay more to print a photo on an HP Photoret III-class printer like the psc-950, maybe that extra cost delivers a gain elsewhere? And don’t forget the initial purchase price of each printer - for example, the Epson 895 may only be 4p per A4 print cheaper to run than the Canon S800, but the printer itself is around £100 cheaper than an S800.

In part 2 of our Photo ink-jet printers laid bare feature we examine print quality (click here).

Your feedback? Key here to share your opinion.

Test results - printer by printer:

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