If you’ve ever wondered how stuff works, this article is for you. Like many consumers I purchased a laptop not many years ago, from Dell in fact, and with that computer came a marvelous offer on a low priced personal printer (although I missed out on those clever all in one printers with the memory card plug ins, scanner, and copier). For a while I was perfectly happy with my purchase—however my little Dell inkjet didn’t live very long, and there are some fascinating reasons why it didn’t. And no, I didn’t break it. I wasn’t even usually hard on it, except that I was in college and I did move around a lot.
Inkjets have a lot of moving parts. And really, they’re very interesting little devices. The cartridge is the part we’ll start our study with. Ink cartridges are disposable ink carriers (not toner) which fit particular printers and not others, made that way so each printer manufacturer that sells a printer secures a guaranteed repeat customer as they buy ink to feed that particular, unique printer (although this tactic has created something called an aftermarket, in which numerous third party companies manufacture knock-off cartridges for the printers at a fraction of the cost, or refill old cartridges for reusal. This has created a huge amount of tension with the printer manufacturers over patent laws and quality control, especially considering that many printer makers are selling their printers at a steep loss, only making up their profit on the repeat ink purchases that come to be included). These cartridges are made of plastic and always include a chip to communicate with the printer and computer, and electronic contact points.
When you tell your printer to print it sends a signal to a heating element inside the ink cartridge as it converts the text into a pattern of dots and pulls the paper forward. The ink is heated and vaporized to form a tiny bubble inside the ink jet jets, which is expelled as an almost microscopic ink drop falling to the paper. This is how inkjets print, exploding tiny drops of ink onto the paper over and over as the nozzles move back and forth over the advancing paper, forming the words and images you need. This system, however, involves a lot of moving parts and tiny pieces all in a machine that the company, Dell (and their manufacturer Lexmark), don’t actually make money off of. Thus the quality is lower and the odds of breaking or falling into disuse is much greater. In my case, the system that moved the nozzles back and forth stopped moving, and it was way to cheap to have repaired. Also I had noticed a lot of the time that the ink would dry out, making printing spotty and requiring me to reprinting the document once or twice to get good quality.
This is not the experience my friend in the library had with their Dell printers. These, however, were a variety of LaserJets which took Dell 1720 toner, and Dell 1110 toner at alarming rates. One thing I learned right away talking with him. Basically all ink cartridges are cheap but don’t last long (and don’t store well). Toner does both, but it is expensive in a big, big way (making those third parties look real good). Evidently when Dell is selling inexpensive little inkjets to college students they don’t worry all that much about quality, which is fair. A little inkjet isn’t meant for the huge massive printing that one of these beastly library LaserJet printers is. But it was still annoying that my machine broke so quickly, and little did I know looking online that Dell printers are rather famous for stopping early and being very low quality. Not so with Dell LaserJets. These work very well and can handle the huge printing jobs, even if there are other models of greater and superior quality out there, these will get the job done. If only toner wasn’t so much.
It is possible to get a good Dell Printer, you just need to look for the higher-priced ones or look for small business printers as that market is far more competitive. A little LaserJet will take longer to star up but when it is it will print better and higher quality (without the ink drying out over long storage periods, because its already dry, or moving parts snapping at a breeze). Just one more word of warning, always look up reviews of any printer you consider. Always.