Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!rutgers!apple!sun-barr!newstop!sun!coherent!dplatt
From: dplatt@coherent.com (Dave Platt)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.mac
Subject: Re: HP Deskwriter Printing Volume
Message-ID: <27683@coherent.com>
Date: 12 Jul 89 00:54:42 GMT
References: <8903@venera.isi.edu>
Reply-To: dplatt@coherent.com (Dave Platt)
Distribution: comp
Organization: Coherent Thought Inc., Palo Alto CA
Lines: 49

In article <8903@venera.isi.edu> jas@ISI.EDU (Jeff Sullivan) writes:
> I just read in today's MacWeek that the DeskJet was designed for an
> average daily page count of 20-25 pages, and a MAXIMUM of 50 pages per
> day!!
> 
> Are they kidding?  That's just 20 letters a day, or one half-hour
> sitcom script!!!
> 
> Does anyone else think this is a bit low??? (!)

Well, those figures seem to be generic to the DeskJet printer family.
The product specification in the service manual considers "Typical
printer usage" to be "25 pages/day (average), 50 pages/day (maximum)".
It also specifies a mean-time-between-failures of 20,000 hours, and a
mechanism life of 60,000 pages.

I guess my wife and I are "typical" DeskJet users;  we rarely go above
30 pages per day, and probably average less than 10 pages/day over the
long haul.

I think of the DeskJet and DeskJet Plus (and, now, the DeskWriter) as
very effective _personal_ printers... good for one or two people or
perhaps a small office with a relatively low output of verbiage.  I
probably wouldn't recommend them for larger offices (>> 2 people) or for
anyone who needs to churn out large amounts of paper... they don't seem
to be designed with that particular market in mind.  

For one thing, their mechanism lifetime isn't long enough (our 10-person
office ran 60,000 pages through our LaserWriter in under 9 months).  For
another, the cost of ink cartridges is still relatively high; a
cartridge costing $15 in quantity is good for on-the-rough-order-of 1000
average pages of draft-quality printing, or perhaps half that much in
letter-quality mode.

If you really have a need to output > 100 pages/day, then you may well
be happier with a LaserJet (plus a third-party driver), or a LaserWriter
or some other PostScript laser-printer.

I like the DeskJet quite a bit, and from all I've heard the DeskWriter
sounds like a real winner ->in the market for which it was designed<-.
It's not a laser-printer, and is not intended for network access or
high-volume printing.  Within those constraints, it appears to fill a
vacant niche in the Mac printer market quite nicely indeed.  It is not,
however, the be-all-and-end-all of Mac printers.
-- 
Dave Platt    FIDONET:  Dave Platt on 1:204/444        VOICE: (415) 493-8805
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