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Week Two Archive

Week 2: Printing Costs and Supplies

For Week 2 of the HP Officejet Pro Challenge, the participants focused on printing costs and supplies. They were asked to share their thoughts on the following topics: Average spend on printing supplies such as ink cartridges and paper; The inkjet cartridges used in the HP Officejet Pro 8500 Wireless All-in-One; and Printing double-sided documents. Scroll down to read about what they had to say! Or click here to learn more about The HP Officejet Pro Challenge!

For Week 2 of the HP Officejet Pro Challenge, the participants focused on printing costs and supplies. They were asked to share their thoughts on the following topics:

Average spend on printing supplies such as ink cartridges and paper;
The inkjet cartridges used in the HP Officejet Pro 8500 Wireless All-in-One; and
Printing double-sided documents.

Scroll down to read about what they had to say! Or click here to learn more about The HP Officejet Pro Challenge!

*Note: All blog entries are authentic submissions from the businesses and have not been altered in any form.

Week 2: August 3, 2009

Week 2: August 3, 2009

Company Name: Content Feast

For the most part I have outsourced my printing needs. While I have printers, it’s always been rough to keep up with the expenses of the ink, and considering the quality isn’t up-to-par either, it hasn’t been worth it. Most of my printing needs come in the form of brochures, presentations, design samples and other things that are graphical in nature. So the print quality needs to be pretty good, otherwise it’s better for me to send off to a professional and get it done right. I’ve probably spent about $50 per month at professional printers on average, not counting specific projects for customers.

I was impressed to read from the box that the HP Officejet Pro uses less energy and ink than a standard laser printer. After all, efficiency is better for both the environment and my pocketbook. However, the real test would be whether it could perform good quality color prints that I could use for my business. I was impressed by how clean the prints came out. Actually, I even tried printing some photos and they turned out so good that I have them up at my desk. What else are you going to do with cool photos of your toddler? (Hint: If you’re anything like me, you’ve got boatloads of digital pics stored somewhere, but not that many printed. I love to print them out and rotate pics through my existing frames)

So far I haven’t had to replace the cartridges, which is great. I love the option to print on both sides of the paper (remember my thing about efficiency?) Less paper means using less trees and less money.

Company Name: Pat's Hair Salon

Hi All,
Very interesting Questions this time, would like to say I haven't got to use the printer enough yet to tell about the cartridges I have been on vacation but can't wait to see how much we do save .

Got to try the double sited printer specialty, I always hate to have to put the paper in twice one side always comes up upside down have seen these out in bigger offices and always loved how they worked love having one at home to do my work on. I know you will use a lot less paper by using both sides. That is a plus the way the economy is today.

Thanks,
Patricia

Company Name: Reinhart Marketing

Well it's week two with my new toy. I'm burning the midnight oil preparing for a tax protest for my home. Not work related, but very print heavy. Every bit of evidence has to have 5 complete copies. My 8500 printer is holding up great though. I found the double-sided print feature and have started using it exclusively for this project. Half as much paper, so half as much to carry to the meeting, and half as much paper cost. Love that! Just click the double-sided setting and print. Easy! The machine does all the work pulling the paper back in to print on the other side. My old machine required me to re-feed the paper if I wanted to print double sided.

My tax protest also requires me to print a bunch of photos to show the damage hurricane Ike did to the old homestead. Normally that would required a trip somewhere to have the photos printed. Photos on my old printer were grainy even on the photo setting. This time I'm doing it all on the 8500. I can print with or without a boarder, and there is a poster feature so I can blow up a photo. It prints on four pages that fit together seamlessly to make one large poster. Previously that would have required a trip to the printer and a big hit to my pocket book. I'm already thinking of ways to use the poster feature in the future. My husbands 50th is coming up and I'm sure some of those embarrassing childhood photos would look great hanging at the party!

I also had to copy multiple pages and it was so easy. I wonderful touch screen allowed me to just touch and copy. Enlarge, reduce, darker, lighter, collate, crop, even a copy preview all with a touch on the easy to read screen. I can even copy in color! Photos I had to copy turned out AMAZING! No loss of quality at all. I even blew a few up to 8 1/2 x 11. I'm LOVIN' this machine!

So far I don't seem to have even made a dent in the ink. My old printer sat up on the counter, sprawled like some old alley cat, and coughed up empty catridges like hair balls! I've got a whole bag of the sticky, hairy things from my old machine. They need to be recycled, if I could only find a place that takes this brand. I noticed Office Depot accepts HP so I just have to drop them off when I go to shop and they will pay me for them! Kinda like my own little stimulus check each quarter. The other great thing I've found is the fast/economical printing feature. Uses even less ink and I can make that a default setting. My old printer had it too, but it reverted back to normal after every print job. I had to remember to reset it each time I printed. Leaving it on normal meant slooow printing. Not with my 8500. Even on normal or photo it prints lighting fast.

I can't believe HP is giving me what I want! Money saving features that I control. Easy to use and understand features that don't require me to read the directions each time I use them. In fact except for set up I haven't used the directions yet. The Office Jet Pro 8500 does so much more than print and copy. I haven't even played with the scanner and photo features. Guess I need to try something more challenging!

Company Name: OVI

On average, a month I spend almost $200 on ink cartridges and paper. Since using the HP Officejet Pro, I haven't noticed the difference because it hasn't been a long time since I've had it. A double-sided project is easy to do though I don't do it much but since my company is going green and trying to economize, I'm glad to have this feature available. AndI have noticed that I am going through less paper per week. The HP Officejet Pro is Godsend!!

Company Name: BID Blinds

Okey-dokey! The Challenge continues.

One of the first things I was intrigued about was the two side print/copy feature. And I had a brain cramp with this one. The feature is really easy to use, IF you can read properly. I saw the “tab” on the touch screen panel and, because I just gave a cursory look since I was looking for MY name for this item, thought the tab was referring to a different page layout “ratio” (think wide screen DVD vs. full screen). Once again I called our expert who showed me the error of my ways. What a snap! Great quality and clarity!

I’m not sure what the savings will be in actual dollars, but I can see a savings of at least 25-30% in paper usage, excluding recycling that I currently utilize. I can also see using full color MORE because of the sharp images and depth of color in the print mode. My client proposals and option pages should really pop!

As with actual dollar savings from two-sided printing, I don’t yet know what to expect on savings from other supplies like toner/cartridges. I have yet to run any of the cartridges out of ink. Nor have I compared prices for these replacements against my old machine. But the difference in quality of both b/w and color products would justify even a slightly higher cost for these items.

So far, I would give the 8500 a strong A through these first couple of weeks.

Thanks for reading,
Mark

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BTBottger	DYI marketing with in-house printing and specialty inkjet papers	0	Aug 11 2009, 8:13 PM EDT by BTBottger
	Thread started: Aug 11 2009, 8:13 PM EDT Watch Did you see that one of the participants printed their own brochures with the Officejet Pro? Creating marketing materials in-house not only means you can customize your message to be client-specific, you can also save some serious cash. According to a report from InfoTrends, you can save up to 50% in color cost per page by printing color marketing materials in-house with Officejet Pro (for short runs of up to 500 pages.) The report is available at www.hp.com/go/ihm. You’ll get exceptional print quality from specialty HP inkjet papers, including papers for brochures, flyers, t-shirts iron-ons and photos. See all the choices at www.hp.com/go/paper. To make do-it-yourself marketing easier, we have helpful tools and information at the HP Creative Studio for Business at www.hp.com/hho/smb_hp_create. I’m curious – have you tried printing your own marketing materials instead of taking them to an outside copy shop? The Officejet Pro Challenge is still underway. Don’t forget to vote for the most useful blog entry using the green box on the upper right. Regards, Bret Do you find this valuable? Keyword tags: hp ihm marketing officejet officejet pro printing Post reply
BTBottger	Saving money on ink and paper	0	Aug 11 2009, 8:05 PM EDT by BTBottger
	Thread started: Aug 11 2009, 8:05 PM EDT Watch I’m psyched that the 5 businesses taking part in the Officejet Pro Challenge are finding this All-in-One to be so useful. As an HP employee who works with the Officejet line, I wanted to share some detailed product info and links you may find useful for your business. One of the big advantages of the HP Officejet Pro 8500 Wireless All-in-One is its ink system design. Because it uses individual ink cartridges for each color of ink, you only need to replace the cartridge that runs out. For some other printers that combine 3 or 5 colors into one cartridge system, you may have to throw away some good ink (and $) just because one color ran out. Not so with Officejet Pro. Here’s another way Officejet Pro can save your business some bucks and some time. The Officejet 940XL cartridges are high-capacity ink cartridges that print more pages than standard cartridges before needing replacement. In other words, they’re designed to last longer so you don’t have to replace them as often. See www.hp.com/getmore for details. Several of the Officejet Pro Challenge participants mentioned how much they like the built-in, automatic double-sided printing on Officejet Pro 8500 Wireless AiO. It’s an easy way to reduce paper usage and reduce environmental impact – not to mention the potential to save you up to 50% off paper costs. The double-sided output works for faxes and copies too, and the 50-page automatic document feeder also supports double-sided originals for scanning and copying. This can be a time-saver since you can load documents and walk away. Regards, Bret Do you find this valuable? Keyword tags: 940xl autoduplex color duplex ink officejet pro printing smb Post reply

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