> -----Original Message----- > From: Edward Dekkers [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]] > Sent: Thursday, February 20, 2003 1:22 AM > To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] > Subject: [OT] Toner pricing - was Minolta QMS 2300 DL Printer support? > > > > > Has anyone out there been able to get the Minolta QMS 2300 DL > > > to work properly (in any mode, network, USB, or parallel) with > > > Linux? > > OFF-TOPIC question: > > I used to sell QMS laser printers when they were just that. QMS. > > The toners used to cost between $120-200 odd Australian Dollars. > > Since Minolta took them over, I've since found my customers > are now paying > up to $800 per toner. Many of them have binned the printer, > which at the > time they would have paid up to $8000 for. > > Has the price increased as well where you guys are? Was this > an (incredibly > stupid) global price position by Minolta? > > And also, why do you think they would do this? I mean, nobody > I know will > ever buy Minolta-QMS again. > > Regards, > > --- > Edward Dekkers (Director) > Triple D Computer Services P/L
That's the reason I didn't go with a 2200 DL; Toner prices were over 70% higher. On the 2300DL, it looks like I can get Toner on the web in the high capacity cartridges for $79US (black) and $109US for the each of the three colored cartridges. The black has printed ~60 pages (30 standards, 15 mixed pages, 15 photos) and is down about 2%. The color cartridges are still at 100%. However, these are the "Standard" cartridges (which came with the printer), and only have about 1/3 the toner as the High Cap cartridges, so that would mean in a typical environment I use, I should get something like 10K sheets per cartridge. That's still a hell of a lot cheaper than, for example, my old DeskJet (~$0.03US/page on average) at between $0.0079 (for all black) and ~$0.015 (for the mixed pages, at a guess). That's half the cost/page. Actual output is outstanding, too. BTW, what's the exchange rate for $AUS to $US? Something like 2-1, IIRC? So the costs seem fairly reasonable HERE, but then, HP dominates here (out of the four printers I've ever bought (five if you include a Cannon BubbleJet my wife bought right before I met her), I've had a Smith-Corona (Daisy Wheel Impact), HP LaserJet IIP, (my wife's Cannon BubbleJet BJ200ex), an HP DeskJet 712C, and now this QMS Magicolor 2300 DL. The 2300DL is by far the biggest of these (twice as tall, but same footprint as the LaserJet), but it's the middle of the road among those five in terms of sound and energy (quieter than the BJ200ex and the Smith-Corona, more energy efficient than the LaserJet and the Smith-Corona). Most expensive printer (per page) I've ever owned was the DeskJet, and the least was the LaserJet (it would print FOREVER on a single toner cartridge, it seemed; I only went through five in 13 years of owning it, printing up >100K sheets). The QMS seems to be about 3x more expensive to operate than the LaserJet, but 1/3-1/2 as expensive as the DeskJet. I am, however, running it at 1200x600 dpi, versus the old 300x300 dpi of the LaserJet, which does raise the cost/page (which I guess means an individual dot on the page is cheaper on the QMS (3/8) than on the LaserJet, but that seems silly (after a point) as a useful metric). So, we ended up buying it; it's MUCH cheaper than going the HP route, though I wouldn't have the problem of trying to come up with a way to interface it to my Linux machines in my mixed Windows/Linux enviroment at home (2 Dual boot machines, RH and WinXP Pro, 2 Win98SE machines, one WinXP Home laptop, 3 RH servers, one Win95 machine (ancient), and one soon to be Linux laptop (an ancient Compaq), 2 IPCop (Linux Firewalls) boxes, and (if I ever fix the power supply) 1 SGI IRIS 4DGL IRIX box). I'm not worried about printing from the IPCops (not setup to do it anyway) or the Win95 box, nor the IRIX box (it may never power up again, since it's PS failed again), but I DO need to print from the Dual Boot boxes, and from the 3 servers. I've still got the DeskJet and an old BubbleJet to fill in gaps, though, until I can come up with SOME way of doing it. I contacted QMS last night to tell them "If you put the complete specs of your print controll language on the web, you WILL have folks working on a driver for it for Linux, if you're concerned about cost." So who knows.... Hopefully, by this time next year, there will be good drivers for it. Of course, this could start an entirely new conversation: What is the TCO for the various brands of printers? What about quality of output? Friendliness to Linux or other Unixes? That might be helpful for a bunch of folks on the list, who are looking to upgrade their printers, now that many of them are getting to be 3-4 year old Ink Jets. -- redhat-list mailing list unsubscribe mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]?subject=unsubscribe https://listman.redhat.com/mailman/listinfo/redhat-list
