On Fri, 27 Feb 2009 11:21:34 +0000, Lobster wrote:

I bought a colour laser printer as a replacement for the inkjet, and
continued using it 95% for monochrome work, would the consumables work
out far more expensive (for B&W output) than if I bought a monochrome
printer?

Colour lasers use 4 toner carts black, cyan, magenta and yellow. If you
tell it to print in moncochrome it only uses the black toner. Cost per
cartridge is much of a muchness though the ones for colour printers tend
to be lower capacity than those for a dedicated monochrome one.

Manufactures numbers: 2,200 pages for the black CP1515n cartridge, 2,500
for the normal LJ1200 toner or 3,500 for the extended life one. All cost
within £15 of each other. The CP1515 being in the middle and £6 cheaper
than extended LJ1200. The colour CP1515 ones are rated at 1,400 pages
each.

But balance the cost of colour and black ink cartridges which might do 100
pages for £50 (50p/page) against 2,000 or so from a set toner carts
costing £175 (8p/page). Or monochrome 2.5p/page...

Are colour models inherently any less reliable?

Well as there are 4 times the moving parts (4 toner carts, transfer
rollers etc and the drives for them) then it wouldn't be surprising to
find them less reliable but in normal domestic use I doubt that is an
issue. The CP1515n is rated up to 30,000 pages/month, that is 12 *boxes*
of paper/month.

--
Cheers
Dave.