Your Old Printer is Costing You Money

Your old office printer should be retired to greener pastures to make way for a new printer that will save you money.

At Office National, we discriminate based on age – the age of your office printer, that is! Now wait a minute – what’s wrong with an old printer, you might be asking. If it’s still working there’s no point replacing, right? Wrong! Your old printer could actually be costing you more money than if you replaced it, and we’re here to help you save money and work more efficiently.

Office printers work hard during their lifetimes, but many workplaces expect them to function perfectly well beyond their age of retirement. You may think you’re getting good value for money by keeping them in this forced labour, instead they’re wasting money as their maintenance and ink costs soar. Meanwhile, print technology has moved on and you haven’t. Advances are constantly being made in both printer hardware and ink/toner quality and costs.

Old printers

When our tired printers are still functioning, albeit not at their best, it’s hard to justify ditching them for a newer model, especially if you’ve gone to the expense of buying one outright. We become accustomed to them and even their idiosyncrasies, and lose sight of how much time, effort and money we’ve started putting into them as they’ve aged. The wear and tear of time takes its toll on your printer, with maintenance and ink/toner costs increasing. As its technology is superseded, it also becomes less energy efficient by comparison.

Lifecycle of a printer

It is generally accepted that modern technology has a lifespan of about 18-24 months as quantified by Moore’s Law, which states that computing power doubles every two years. While we anticipate and rejoice at the release of the latest smartphones and hunger for the promise of augmented reality, we seem to unfairly demand that our office electronics will live forever while maintaining peak performance. When a new printer is released it is at the top of its game with all the latest and greatest technology and advances in inks or toners. However this technology is continually developing and being refined every year. Within one year your shiny new printer has already been eclipsed by something more cutting-edge, and by 2 years it is due for retirement.

Regular upgrades save money

If cost control is important to your business you will be looking at the overall expense of a printer rather than just the upfront cost. The real expense of a printer is its running costs: not just the ink or toner it uses, but also energy consumption, maintenance, replacement parts, and even its effect on your air conditioning costs from the heat it generates. Printer technology is constantly evolving, with enhancements being made to the print engines and mechanisms, and even the ink or toner they use is being regularly refined. These upgrades drive down costs and increase quality. We’ve also seen a huge reduction in warm-up times, improvements in sleep mode, and new features like wireless and app connectivity that let you print from anywhere in the world. By regularly upgrading your printer, either through purchase or rental, you will cut costs and keep up with the latest innovations for your workplace.

Responsible retirement

With e-waste growing 3 times faster than other types of waste in Australia the responsible environmentalist in all of us might baulk at the thought of regularly replacing electronics like printers. The good news is that outdated tech doesn’t have to retire to landfill. While they may have met the end of their useful life as a printer, these electronics can be broken down to recover valuable materials to be manufactured into new products. Companies like TechCollect and 1800ewaste in Australia are free services that allow you to dispose of your e-waste for responsible recycling. By using these services you can be assured that over 90% of your printer will be recycled for future use. This is guaranteed by the Australian Federal Government’s 2011 Product Stewardship Act, making manufacturers take responsibility for the recycling of electronic products and leading to better environmental practices in manufacturing as well as disposal.

So if your printer is beyond 2 years old it’s time to give it the golden handshake and a farewell party. You won’t have to bear with its creaky old body and slow performance as you make way for an efficient young model ready to offer you higher quality output at a better price.