Taken from PC World Magazine, September 2010 Edition

Before you buy a printer, it makes sense to look not only at its price tag and reviews, but also at its cost of operation.  For many printers – especially inkjet models – the price of replacement ink or toner can quickly outstrip the machine’s initial cost.  Here’s how to find out what you’re in for before you buy.

A little shopping: Get the current price of each cartridge from the vendor’s own Web site, or from your favourite reseller.

A little research: All printer vendors publish yield data for their ink and toner cartridges – how many pages a cartridge can print before it runs dry.

A little math: For each colour, divide the cartridge’s price by its page yield to get the cost per colour per page.  The resulting costs per colour per page will give you an idea of how much the printer is going to cost you ink ink or toner.

Based on current prices, the cheaper inkjet printers and MFPs should have a cost per page of 20 cents or lower.  For a colour laser, the ideal cost per page should be 12 cents or lower.

For an even better comparison, find out the lifespan of the machine (in total pages printed) from the manufacturer’s website, and divide that by the price, and add that to your cost per page.  You may find that a good inkjet is more cost effective than a cheap laser.