Xerox's Solid Ink Keeps Cost-Per-Page Low

Not too long ago, it was hard to imagine that color laser printers would be affordable for consumers. Now, not too far in the future it seems as though Xerox's solid ink printing technology will be in the price range that color laser printers are in now. At least one of its two new offerings, the ColorQube 8870 and the ColorQube 8570, is under $700 for a base model--and that might make it a good deal for small businesses since solid-ink printing means that the cost of expensive ink-cartridge consumables is very low. Solid ink means "up to 90 percent less waste, up to 30 percent lower lifecycle energy demand and up to 30 percent smaller carbon footprint than comparable laser printers," Xerox claims. Solid ink is certainly easier to use--no toner cartridges and messy toner, few moving parts, no super-heated and curling paper--and while replacement ink is still expensive ($149 for color, $99 for black), each solid ink stick can print around 4,400 pages. That equals some very low cost per page. Higher end printers such as the ColorQube 8870 (shown) are still mighty expensive, at $2499 for base models; but they put out first pages in as little as five seconds and can crank out uup to 40 pages per minute.