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When it comes to buying ink for your printer, you might just think that the ink manufacturers took their pricing model straight from the perfume manufacturers... *Oh this eau de cyan is simply to die for, such a wonderful blue and at just $16 an ounce!*

When you consider that the average ink cartridge (also referred to as "ink tank") has a capacity of just .85 ounces, it makes the purchase of ink look pretty darned extravagant! Just for kicks, let's apply the ink pricing model to some other typical consumable liquids... How about a $96 cup of coffee, a $192 can of soda, or a $2048 gallon of milk? And don't even ask what it would cost for enough water to take a shower!!

So besides the excercise in math (which we geeks just revel in), is there another point to this column? You bet! If you find yourself picking up printer ink as often as groceries and are spending more than $50 a year on ink (and who isn't?), you should consider a laser printer. Why? Because the cost of laser printers has dropped down into the same price range as inexpensve inkjet printers, and although laser printer toner cartridges tend to cost 2-3 times more than ink, they will typically print 5 times more pages before running out, which means your cost per page and overall cost of use is significantly lower.

But what about your photos and other color projects you ask? We're not saying you should toss your color printer, just that you should put a laser printer into place as your default printer, and save the color printer for when you need to print in color. If you look at the typical shared printer usage in a family environment, there's page upon page of beautifully colorful printouts such as driving directions, maps, web pages, homework papers and such that would all be perfectly good in black & white, but that are printed in color because that's the printer you have.

And there are other benefits to consider...

• Laser printers will usually print multiple page documents faster than inkjet printers
• Many lasers have a "draft" or "toner saver" setting that extends toner cartridge life further by printing everything a little bit lighter on the page
• The longer laser printer cartridge life not only means more pages per cartridge, it also means fewer cartridges per year and therefore fewer trips to the store (Andy's family of 7 goes through a laser cartridge about once every 14 months, compared to monthly runs for ink when the inkjet was the only printer at home)
• Laser printer output is fused to the page via heat instead of being sprayed on like ink. As a result, laser output is more durable in terms of handling, and doesn't run when it gets wet.

What's the best way to determine the overall cost of printing with different types of printers? when it comes to comparing printers, you can't just go by cartridge price alone, the best way to evaluate is to take the cartridge price and divide it by the published page-count per cartridge. That way, you end up with cost-per-page as a standard of measurement that can be applied no matter what type, brand, or model of printer you're considering.