Inkjet or Laser Printers?
Printers are better and more affordable today than they have ever been in the past. If you’re buying a printer for personal or office use, you can expect a printer with a reasonable price point and excellent printing quality. You’ll face a rather difficult decision, though, when it’s time to choose an inkjet or laser printer.
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An inkjet printer works by spraying ink through nozzles. A laser printer, on the other hand, uses heat to adhere powdered pigment to paper. Neither type of printer is truly better than the other — they both have strengths and weaknesses. In this article, we’ll compare inkjet and laser printers to make your decision an easier one.
Purchase Price
Today, many printers are multipurpose office hubs with the ability to print, scan, copy and fax documents. If you’re looking for a printer with multiple functions, you can generally expect to spend about the same whether you buy an inkjet printer or a laser printer. The difference is that an inexpensive laser printer can generally print only in one colour: black. All inkjet printers can print in full colour.
Although inexpensive laser printers have a drawback in that they can’t print in full colour, budget inkjet printers have a drawback as well: They don’t come with very much ink. You can generally expect a budget inkjet printer’s “starter” cartridges to last a very short while before you’ll need to replace them.
Long-Term Ownership Cost
In general, the long-term cost of owning a laser printer is less than that of owning an inkjet printer because a laser printer’s toner cartridge can often last a very long time. You’ll spend much less over time replacing the cartridges in an inkjet printer if you only print black documents. To prevent head clogs and promote even print head wear, though, many inkjet printers use the colour cartridges even when printing black documents.
Print Speed
When printing black documents, a laser printer is up to twice as fast as an inkjet printer. While a typical laser printer can print around 20 pages per minute, a very fast inkjet printer can only manage about six pages per minute.
Text Print Quality
If you’re printing documents with moderately large fonts, there is little difference in quality between laser and inkjet printers. With very small fonts, though, a laser printer usually produces clearer text.
Image Print Quality
Inkjet printers are at their best when they’re printing colour images. The liquid ink in an inkjet printer lends itself well to blending, leading to vibrant images that can often look as beautiful as those that you would buy from a professional printing company.
When you print images on a colour laser printer, you’ll often see banding and other issues that lead to less realistic images. In addition, colour laser printers are often quite expensive and too large to be practical for home use.
Do you need help selecting the best printer for your needs? Contact us now for advice.
To learn more about Printers please call us now on 0818 987 900.