Laser vs. inkjet printers: which is better?
- — 28 July, 2010 14:20
If you're buying a printer, either for work or for home, one of the choices you're likely to be faced is whether to get an inkjet printer or a laser printer. Inkjet printers use liquid ink sprayed through microscopic nozzles onto the paper, and laser printers use a toner cartridge (filled with fine powder) and a heated fuser.
Each technology has its own strengths and weaknesses. The two types use different approaches and each is appropriate for meeting different printing needs.
Initial costs
Surprisingly enough, you can purchase a basic laser or inkjet printer for almost the same price. If you're looking for a budget multifunction printer -- which will include the ability to photocopy and scan images as well as print -- there's not much difference in price between inkjets like the Canon PIXMA MX350 and lasers like the Dell 1133. One distinct difference between these two models, however, is that only the inkjet model can print colour pages — budget laser printers are only capable of producing black-and-white documents.
The cheapest laser printers will generally cost around $130; you can pick up inkjet printers for as little as $60-$70. However, these budget inkjet printers generally come with 'starter' cartridges, which don't have a full ink tank. This means you'll need to refill them after fewer prints.
Ongoing costs
As you continue to use your new printer over a period of time, you'll need to keep it supplied with appropriate consumables like paper and ink or toner. The ongoing running costs of printers are generally quoted in cents per A4 page. You can calculate this by dividing the number of pages an ink or toner cartridge can produce (this figure is provided by the manufacturer) by the price of the cartridge. This doesn't include the cost of paper though (but this won't change depending on the type of printers).
Generally inkjet printers have a price per page of around 20 cents, although this includes both black and colour cartridges — if you intend to print only black, ongoing print costs are generally 7-8 cents per page. Cheap black-and-white laser printers have a price of around 6c per page on average. If you spend more on a laser printer, the cost per page generally drops quickly.
Larger laser printers have additional ongoing costs when compared to inkjets: they often require an additional fuser cartridge or the replacement of parts with a maintenance kit.
Print speed and text print quality
When it comes to printing black and white text pages, laser printing is unbeatable. Even in low-end cheaper monochrome laser models you can expect print speeds of up to 20 pages per minute. Inkjets are significantly slower, with budget printers rarely printing more than 6 pages per minute of black text.
For normal print sizes (of around 12pt and larger) text printing quality is similar between both laser and inkjet printing platforms. However, if your printing needs include printing small fonts then lasers are normally superior to inkjets, as the fusing technology better lends itself to the minute curves and dots of small text.
Comments
Smart guy
Mon 16/05/2011 - 13:13
Stupid crappy article, my inkjet printer prints 22 pages per minute and i got it in 06
Yer
Tue 24/05/2011 - 21:19
Who ever wrote this is a genuis. I was looking for something like this in the past 30 min.
aquarian
Fri 03/06/2011 - 04:25
Smarty guy and Computer Proffessor - what makes you so angry? It's just an article about choosing a printer for people like me. However, it did not answer all my questions. I thought the difference was that ink jet is not waterproof and laser is.
So I did not see it in this article. Can anybody confirm that? There were a few things in this article I did not know: that laser is mostly for b/w; how much they have changed since I bought my first laser printer for $5,000 in 1987. Also, the process of how a laser works was interesting, also learned that cheap "on sale!" printers come with "starter" cartridges that run out after a few prints.
Mellow
Sun 26/06/2011 - 19:25
As Aquarian noted, it was an overview of laser and inkjet printers and well served that purpose and, like Yer, its timing was perfect for me.
Such pathetic displays by SG & CP, with their confected names utterly betraying their true worth, typify the ugly intrusions of a class of poster that is becoming ever more off-putting.
Kyle
Fri 08/07/2011 - 20:09
Laser Printers generally have a cost per page less than 1/2 that of Ink Jet - over the long run a decent colour laser is much better value
Tina
Thu 11/08/2011 - 05:35
I print just black and white and now have a laser printer. Before I had an inkjet, and the color would dry up/leak? and would have to be replaced regularly even though I wasn't using it. I don't have that issue with the laser making it even more cost effective than the inkjet.
Rob
Thu 11/08/2011 - 09:49
Here's something else to consider. If you want to do duplex (2-sided) printing in black and white (grayscale), Canon will NOT allow you to so without using composite black (a combination of 3 color inks to make black). Single-sided will print with just black ink. I spoke to Canon and they refused to fix this problem and gave no reason why they force the user to use extra ink to print grayscale duplex. The extra ink costs make duplex printing more expensive than single-sided printing with the extra paper. Sure sounds like a scam to further boost Canon's big ink profits!
Peter
Sat 13/08/2011 - 20:01
I don't use my ink jet printer printer very often and it seems that the nozzles get caked up and dry; this is followed by numerous attempts at deep cleaning using copious amounts of ink, with the end results of a poor quality copy.
Would purchasing a laser printer solve this problem?
Thanks for any help
Kevin
Fri 02/09/2011 - 03:54
Rob - try using manual duplex. I *think* that in that case real black is used. You just have to flip the paper over when it tells you to.
Robert
Wed 28/09/2011 - 10:48
why not invent a printer that doesn't use ink....I think it is will be here soon...and I hope they are cheap and fast....
Cam
Thu 20/10/2011 - 14:31
Unfortunately I bought this printer before these customer reviews, yes, this is a scam printer. You print duplex to save wasting paper, but if Rob is right, Canon are just scamming us with this neat little trick. I've written a letter of complaint to canon about this and I want a refund!!!! These mongrel companies are so deceitful I'm no longer going to purchase any Canon products, they suck
Angry
Thu 16/02/2012 - 15:27
DO NOT DEAL WITH A COMPANY CALLED 'LASER CHANGE'. THEY OFFER A SERVICE GAURANTEE WITH NO DELIVERY. THEY DO NOT RETURN CALLS, IF YOU HAVE A COMPLAINT THEY HANG UP ON YOU. IF YOU NEED ANY SORT OF HELP THEY SCREW YOU TO THE WALL.
Eric L
Wed 29/02/2012 - 04:57
I run an office, that I pay for, so naturally I give a s*** and my
Laser printers (purchased on eBay for less than $100) paid for itself the first time I bought my laser cartridge (on eBay for less than $50). Via the stats I print on average of 1-5k pages. With one cartridge. Ummmm no brainier ? Even if I purchased all these items at full price as stated in the article I'd be a step ahead. And if you're so concerned about color printing that one time your wife or you gets a wild hair up your a** the go down to your local print shot and spend $20 and get it done right instead of having it look like you printed it at home with your foolish $20 photo quality paper. Wise up geezers and get ahead of the mass polluted curve. A wise buy is a laser. I know because I have several of both.
Andrew R
Tue 13/03/2012 - 00:28
I have found black & white lazer printers cost about 1 cent per page or less to print. My $99 Brother lazer has a cost of .8 cent per page. My colour lazer has a print cost of 8 cents per page.
The best thing about lazer printers is that you can turn them off for months and they will still print. Unlike injets which require a complete cartridge change.
If you do a lot of printing, get a black & white lazer as well as a colour lazer. You will find nearly all of printing only needs balck & white.
Pascal m
Thu 29/03/2012 - 22:32
All wat matters is the business u will be using your printers for
Geoff R
Tue 03/04/2012 - 06:42
Epson printers just spent over $35 for inks and it won't print and any tech. help is useless so you have to ring them up, so I won't be buying and Epson again, even though it was half price just to get rid of them
Agbola Tunji
Sat 14/04/2012 - 02:46
I need a printer that will deliver good coloured waterproof photocopy & photo printing.
Pls help with your response.
CONFUSED
Wed 25/04/2012 - 22:44
HEY IS THERE ANY DIFFERENCE BTWEEEN THE COSTS OF INK CARTRIDGE AND TONER ONES????
Inkjet ripoff
Thu 10/05/2012 - 07:29
I think inkjet printers can be qualified as a scam technology.
1) Most inkjet cartridges are rigged to stop printing even before the ink is gone. Toner cartridges can print even after the toner gets low just by shaking the cartridge gently.
2) Ink cartridges dry up over time. Toner lasts until it's empty.
3) Slowest laser printer prints faster than the fastest inkjet.
4) Ink is water soluble. One drop of water completely destroys printed text. Toner isn't.
5) Toner cartridges are more expensive, but they last many times more than ink. With certain models you can get more than 3 times the number of pages per dollar with laser than with inkjet.
I am a student, I have to print a LOT and I went through two different inkjet printers before finally investing into a cheap monochrome laser printer and never looking back.
Luke
Sun 13/05/2012 - 11:30
Some of these comments are very accurate, i have a HP Photosmart 3310 i think its printed 8652 pages to date and its used by 5 people. Its about 6-7 years old. It does go through ink and i believe thats due to inkjets requiring cleaning to keep the nosels for clogging? Inkjets shouldn't be left unplugged but rather plugged in and they use the ink... also i have seen many colour inkjets faster then colour lasers so colour lasers are not always faster.
Simon
Tue 15/05/2012 - 10:57
I haven't had a printer since my last cheap inkjet decided that since it was out of red, it wouldn't print black and white any more, couldn't get past it asking for ink on startup. What a money pit. Inspired by Office space, i took to it with a baseball bat. Be warned laser printer i'm about to buy!!
Rene
Sun 20/05/2012 - 13:55
Most lasers have an issue with duplex printing in the form of paper curl. The inkjet maybe a little slower but at least your printouts are flat as they should be, especially if you want presentation quality. I had a Brother SOHO laser HL-5370DW that I gave up on for this very reason. The support people at Brother were polite and trying to be helpful, but were unable to provide a solution. The anti-curl options in the printer setup did not help.
yoda
Mon 16/05/2011 - 10:35
hmmmm. Print well they do. Many choices we have. Yoda get a printer he must. Print Jedi minutes he will.