The Importance of Color Printing Within the Educational Environment

It’s no secret that materials printed in color are more visually appealing than those printed in black and white. The aesthetic impact alone is just one of the benefits of color printing. New technologies are making color printing more affordable for organizations, and when implemented into the educational environment, color dramatically increases the students’ performance as well.
Independent studies have shown that color increases student learning and retention by as much as 78 percent while reducing errors by up to 80 percent. Color also helps students locate information more quickly, increases their comprehension by 73 percent and increases their willingness to read and participate by up to 80 percent, according to several studies.
In 2010, OKI Data Americas conducted a “Color Lab” experiment at the International Society for Technology in Education (ISTE) conference to support the theorem that people retain more information when shown color images. The interactive presentation proved the theory to be true, as 100 percent of the experiment’s results showed that participants scored better when responding to questions that pertained to color images versus black-and-white images

By Mike Garofola Oct 01, 2011
This article originally appeared in the October 2011 issue of Recharger

Color laser jet comparison

HP CP 4025
The HP CP 4025 runs at 35 ppm. and has 512 mb, a monthly duty cycle of 100,000 pages The printer costs $1,149.98 and comes with one set of full toner cartridges with printing capacity for 8,500 pages black and 11,000 pages of color printing.
The black toner with drum costs $157.99 for 8500 pages or 1.86 cents per page. The colors cost $285.99 for 11000 pages or 2.66 cents per page.

Okidata® C610n
Costs $499.98 after savings and prints up to 36 ppm black, 34 ppm color; Up to 600 x 1200-dpi resolution; Monthly duty cycle of up to 75,000 pages; 256MB RAM, expandable to 768MB.
The black toner only cartridge costs $121.99 for 6000 pages or 2.03 cents per page.
The color toner only cartridge costs $183.99 for 6000 pages, or 3.06 cents per page.

Konica Minolta bizhub C31P
The Konica Minolta bizhub C31P costs $1055.00 with Maximum Monthly Duty Cycle of 120,000 Pages Per Month and runs at 37 ppm.
12K pg black toner sells for $85.88 or 0.71 cents per page.
Drum $129.14 for 30K black or 0.43 cents per page drum = 1.14 cents per page total after the first 30K pages.
12K pg color toner sells for $192.42 or 1.6 cents per page.
30K Color drums sell for $182.00 or 0.61 cents per page or a total drum and toner cost of 2.61 cents per page after the first 30K pages

How to handle Low Ink Message on Reman inks

If you notice that the ink gauge displays low or no ink level, DO NOT be alarmed. This is very common because you are using a remanufactured inkjet. The ink gauge on your printer will no longer read the ink levels correctly because it does not recognize your cartridge as “new”. There is no way to reset this gauge, but this message can be bypassed easily when necessary and will not affect your printing performance.

Keep in mind that the ink gauges on printers only serve as an ESTIMATE of how much ink may be remaining in the cartridge.

To continue printing, press and hold the stop/reset button or the resume button for 10 seconds. Please consult your printer’s user manual if you are not sure which button to press.

HP business printers; comparing toner costs

The folowing is a toner cost comparison of HP's three business workgroup monochrome printers. The HP P4510 and P4015 series both use the CC364X Black Print Cartridge.

HP LaserJet P4510 Printer series - Models
Starting at: $ 1,599.00 Monthly duty cycle: Up to 275,000 pages
Black (best): Up to 62 ppm

HP LaserJet P4015n Printer (CB509A)
Print speed, black (normal quality mode) Up to 52 ppm
Monthly duty cycle Up to 225,000 pages

Both of the above use HP LaserJet CC364X Black Print Cartridge (CC364X) Price: $303.99*Average cartridge yields 24000 standard pages, 1.27 cents per page

HP LaserJet Enterprise P3010
Print speed, black (normal quality model Up to 42 ppm
Monthly duty cycle Up to 100,000 pages

The P3010 uses a HP 55X CE255X LaserJet Toner Cartridge, black. Average cartridge yields 12,500 standard pages.
Price: $223.99* 1.79 cents per page

The difference in toner cost of 0.52 cents per page amounts to $52 after a couple cases of paper.

Comparing HP’s Home Office Laser Jet Toner Costs

The following are the lowest price HP Home Office Laser Jet Printers showing the Cost per Page toner costs. As small as the cartridges are these HP printers all come with unspecified capacity "introductory black cartridges".

It will take very little printing to justify purchasing a higher end printer with much lower cost per page cartridges.

HP LaserJet Pro P1102w Printer Price: $149.99*
HP LaserJet CE285A Black Print Cartridge
Price $67.99
Yield 1600 pages
Cost per page 4.25 cents

HP LaserJet Pro P1606dn Printer.Price after savings $159.99
HP CE278A Toner
Price $77.99
Yield 2100 pgs
Cost per page 3.71 cents

HP LaserJet P2035n PrinterHP LaserJet
CE505A Black Print Cartridge
Price $88.99
Yield 2300 pages
Cost per page 3.87 cents

Low end Laser MFP’s vs HP Officejet Pro 8500

Conclusion: The HP Officejet Pro 8500 is the cheapest on a cost per page basis.

Canon imageCLASS MF4370dn Laser All-in-One

Sells for $299.00

It uses a laser cartridge Canon 104 cost $87.99 yield 2000 pages @ 4.4 cents per page

HP®LaserJet Pro M1212nf Multifunction Printer Cost $199.98 It uses HP CE285A Black Laser Toner Cartridge Cost $67.99 yield 1600 pages @ 4.25 cents per page.
Brother® MFC-7340 Laser Flatbed All-In-One

Priced at $199.99 Comes with a Brother TN 330 toner rated at 1500 pages and a DR360 drum.The toner can be replaced with a TN 360 cost $67.99 rated at 2600 pages @ 2.6 cents per page. A $100.00 12,000 page drum will also need replacing after 5 toners.

HPOfficejet Pro8500 All-in-OnePrinter
Price after savings: $199.98

HP 940XL (C4906AN) Black Ink Cartridge, High Yield
Price:$35.99 Yields up to 2,200 pages
Or 1.63 Cents per page

Printforever puts Kodak’s Claim to the test.

‘Printervention: Stop overpaying for printer ink today!’
You may have seen recent ads by Kodak claiming low priced ink.

This article will compare it to HP’s #940 ink cartridges.

Staples price for the hi-capacity Kodak 10XL (8237216) Black Ink Cartridge, High Yield is $16.99 claiming a page yield of 770 pages. This yields 2.27 cents per page.


The HP black #940 sells for $25.99 for 1000 page nominal capacity or 2.6 cents per page. The black #940XL sells for $35.99 for 2200 pages or 1.6 cents per page.

The Kodak hi capacity black cartridge compares well with the HP starter cartridge it comes up well short of the HP hi capacity cartridge.

Staples price for Kodak 10C (8946501) Color Ink Cartridge is $17.99 for a yield of 420 pages. This yields 4.28 cents per page for three colors.

The #940 colors sell for $19.99 for 900 pages which rates at 2.2 cents per page. The color # 940XLs sell for $25.99 for 1400 pages or 1.8 cents per page.

Kodak does not make a hi capacity color cartridge, however, the regular capacity cartridges cost more than the HP ‘starter’ cartridges and much more than the HP hi capacity #940’ cartridges.