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From: henry@utzoo.UUCP
Newsgroups: comp.laser-printers
Subject: Re: what laser printer to buy ?
Message-ID: <8912020335.AA21331@crayola.cs.UMD.EDU>
Date: 15 Nov 89 22:57:25 GMT
References: <8911150344.AA03615@crayola.cs.UMD.EDU>
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>... I think we paid about
>$7,000.  For this price you get at least double the Laserwriter II 
>suggested copies per month. (I forget the exact number).

I hope this wasn't the major criterion for buying the printer.  If so,
you may have spent more than you had to.  The copies/month number for
big laser printers must be taken seriously, but there are people who
run the little Canon engines (LaserJet and Laserwriter families, for
example) at 10 times the rated copies/month with no ill effects.  We
don't go that far, but it would be a very unusual month in which we
*didn't* exceed the copies/month spec.  Those print engines are very
tolerant of abuse, much more so than their more expensive cousins.

(Consider:  what exactly would go wrong at higher print rates?  The
big printers get various forms of maintenance every N weeks, but most
everything on the little Canon printers happens when you change the
cartridge... and if you print more, you change cartridges more often.)

If you want a commercial maintenance contract, mind you, that may be
a constraint.  Maintenance companies get upset when you violate even
meaningless specs.

                                     Henry Spencer at U of Toronto Zoology
                                 uunet!attcan!utzoo!henry henry@zoo.toronto.edu


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