The OKI 3200cn – Too Expensive to Run?
A few months ago, I bought an OKIDATA 3200cn color laser printer when Office Depot put it on sale for $399 with a $100 rebate. I posted a few comments about it under a “First Look” blog and got a comment from another 3200 owner who had been using his printer a lot more than I use mine. He was very unhappy with the per page cost of using color with this printer. He’s been running out of toner after only 300 pages, a number far short of the 1500 pages per cartridge OKI claims.
He talked to OKI about it, and they revealed that their 1500 page number was based on a page full of double-spaced text with a small color logo in the upper left corner of the page. Believe me, if I had known this is what they do, I never would have bought this printer.
No one buys a color printer to print primarily double-spaced black text on a page.
I almost never buy anything worth more than $200 without finding some reviews. In this case, no reviews of the printer were available when I found this deal. I also considered buying an HP color laser, but I have always liked the color print quality of the OKI series printers a little more, so I went with the OKI. Now, there are reviews. PC Magazine did one and they noted the high cost per page of this printer.
On a bigger scale, this situation shows one of the problems with buying color printers, i.e., the lack of standards among printer manufacturers when quoting how many pages their consumables will support. There needs to be an industry standard not only to protect the consumer but to enhance competition. I would hope the printer industry would adopt and enforce some because, lacking that, I’m going to suggest that either Congress or the Federal Trade Commission get involved.
I don’t use color a lot. But one of the major reasons I keep a color printer around is to print off batches of mountain lion preservation and safety brochures. If after one run of those, I have to replace $200 worth of color toner, that printer will be gone!
He talked to OKI about it, and they revealed that their 1500 page number was based on a page full of double-spaced text with a small color logo in the upper left corner of the page. Believe me, if I had known this is what they do, I never would have bought this printer.
No one buys a color printer to print primarily double-spaced black text on a page.
I almost never buy anything worth more than $200 without finding some reviews. In this case, no reviews of the printer were available when I found this deal. I also considered buying an HP color laser, but I have always liked the color print quality of the OKI series printers a little more, so I went with the OKI. Now, there are reviews. PC Magazine did one and they noted the high cost per page of this printer.
On a bigger scale, this situation shows one of the problems with buying color printers, i.e., the lack of standards among printer manufacturers when quoting how many pages their consumables will support. There needs to be an industry standard not only to protect the consumer but to enhance competition. I would hope the printer industry would adopt and enforce some because, lacking that, I’m going to suggest that either Congress or the Federal Trade Commission get involved.
I don’t use color a lot. But one of the major reasons I keep a color printer around is to print off batches of mountain lion preservation and safety brochures. If after one run of those, I have to replace $200 worth of color toner, that printer will be gone!
posted by Andy Foster at
5:52 AM
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