The first decision that most people have to make when buying a printer is to choose between a laser or an inkjet one. There is no simple answer, as each of these devices has its own pros and cons. To understand them and select the most appropriate, it is important to know some basics about their functionality.
Inkjet vs Laser: Pros and Cons
The principle behind an inkjet printer is relatively easy to understand. It has a printhead with hundreds of tiny guns that fire dots of ink at the paper. If you use a colour printer, then dots of different inks are placed next to or on top of each other to create nuanced, varied tones and shades. The ink droplets are tiny; thus, our eyes cannot distinguish them, and we see characters, lines and images instead.
On the contrary, a laser printer uses static electricity. The laser is used to “draw” your printing content onto a positively charged photoreceptor drum – this is achieved by discharging certain areas on it. Instead of ink, laser printers use a fine powder called toner. When given a positive charge, the tiny toner particles stick to the previously discharged areas of the drum, recreating what you wanted to print.
Next, a negatively charged sheet of paper is passed along the drum and the toner particles get attracted to it instead. Finally, the paper is passed through a pair of heated rollers, called a fuser. The high temperature melts the toner particles, permanently embedding them among the paper fibres. And, voilà, here comes your print!
As you can see, laser technology is more complicated than inkjet printing; therefore, it is not surprising that laser printers tend to be more expensive. However, the printing process becomes quicker, and the output is more precise. Yet, each of these technologies has its strengths and limitations.
We believe that a laser printer is optimal for offices, where a higher amount of documents are printed. A laser will deliver pages faster, manage crispier details, make less noise and save money over time. If higher upfront costs are not an issue, laser printers are excellent for an occasional user too – since there is no need to worry about clogged cartridges.
However, if you want to reproduce high-quality photography or print on a variety of materials, look for an inkjet model. And if your budget is limited, there will be more options among inkjets as well. Just remember that their maintenance costs are likely to eventually catch up and even surpass those of a laser printer.
Types of Laser Printers
If a laser seems to fit your needs better, the next step is to choose whether you want a monochrome or a colour printer. Monochrome or black and white laser printers are cheaper to purchase and maintain. Colour output means that several different toners are involved; thus, the initial cost and the maintenance expenses will increase substantially.
That said, colour lasers perform beautifully when it comes to graphics, charts, tables and similar documents. Therefore, their costs can be well justified in a busy office. The laser-printed photos look less impressive. Although high-end models perform decently, overall, an inkjet will represent the deep, varied colours of photography better. Alternatively, you can just use a dedicated service and pass the challenges of photo printing to professionals.
Both monochrome and colour lasers can be further divided into print-only and all-in-one devices that can also scan, copy and, sometimes, even fax. While the former do not need much additional explaining, the latter are more complex creatures – both monochrome and colour all-in-ones can actually scan colour images. In contrast, only the latter will be able to copy and print them in colour too. Nowadays, most inkjets tend to be of the all-in-one type, but there are quite a few print-only lasers to choose from. There is a good reason for that - if you don’t need to copy or scan your documents, such machines are more affordable while still delivering high quality, sharp prints.
Understanding the Specs
With printer typology sorted, let’s look into the most crucial features. If you have tried to go through the never-ending product specifications and got a headache, we can completely relate. Thus, we selected and explained the ones that truly matter.
Speed
This quality might seem simple; however, nothing is when it comes to printing. When comparing products, you will notice different figures describing how fast the particular laser printer is. The first page out time is the period that lasts from the moment when you hit the print button to the first printed sheet. For lasers, this typically is around 8 to 25 seconds during which the printer is processing the information you sent and figuring out how to get it on-page.
Then, there is the printing speed, which is measured in pages per minute (ppm). This figure can vary a lot even on the same model, depending on whether printing is in colour or black and white, single-sided or duplex, text or pictures and so on. To ensure uniformity, the printer manufacturers have to test their models according to ISO standards. Still, it is useful to check real-world tests and user reviews to get a better idea of how swiftly your favourite model operates.
Paper Handling
First, you should check what sizes of paper are accepted – most personal printers will support formats up to A4, they will also print on envelopes and labels.
Next comes the paper weight – this figure is measured in grams per square meter (gsm), and a standard printing paper is ~80 gsm. For flyers and brochures, ~150 gsm paper will be optimal, and for visit cards, you might go up as high as 400 gsm – not all printers will be happy with that.
And here we come to the next specification – the supported media types. Most modern lasers will print not only on standard but also on glossy, heavy, brochure, recycled and other common types of paper. Some will not be ok with photos. As mentioned before, inkjets tend to be more welcoming to different kinds of paper and other media. However, the output quality can change a lot, since, on some surfaces, the ink will bleed more and might result in smudging.
Supporting a wide array of media is small comfort if the printer has problems with tray capacity. We believe that the input tray should hold at least 250 pages – for home and micro offices this amount will last without making refills too regular and annoying. If you put more pages than the maximum capacity, a printer can refuse to print or, even worse – jam. Models with additional trays are also more convenient.
Many feature a bypass tray that allows feeding in envelopes or another odd-size media without emptying the main tray. Some printers feature several input trays or have an option to add them – such models are fit for small to medium offices. The output tray capacity matters too; however, most home models hold 100+ pages easily and rarely have issues.
If you want to purchase an all-in-one, an auto-document feeder is a convenient feature – it will allow scanning and copying of multi-page documents without your assistance. Furthermore, check the auto-duplexing feature. While, nowadays, it is common for printing, some cheaper all-in-ones might not support it for copying, scanning and faxing.
Connectivity
USB connectivity is the standard and featured by pretty much every model. This ensures fast and reliable printing; however, the downside is that the printer must be located quite close to the computer, and it cannot be connected to several devices simultaneously. Therefore, most printers will support Ethernet or Wi-Fi as well. Ethernet allows connecting several computers in a local area network (often abbreviated as LAN), ensuring fast connection. However, LAN is typically used in office environments. If you prefer printing from several devices at home, look for a printer that supports Wi-Fi.
Even more convenient feature is Wi-Fi Direct, which allows matching the printer to another device without connecting to a network first. Basically, Wi-Fi Direct functions like Bluetooth, just way faster. Another nice extra is Near-Field Communication (or NFC) – it allows connecting a tablet or smartphone by simply touching the device to a specified area on your printer. Additionally, many printers nowadays support printing directly from a memory card or USB flash drive as well as printing from a cloud.
Output Quality
One of the most important questions regarding any printer is how well it can perform. Our recommendation is to be honest with yourself – what prints do you need most? Some printers will perform better when it comes to texts, some will excel at producing bright and detailed graphics, and some at handling photos. It makes sense to look for a printer that can decently manage all the things listed above; however, a truly universal soldier that superbly prints everything will be tricky to find and the price will match its status.
Checking out tests and reviews can help a lot to decide, as the quality of the print is hard to measure in numbers. If documents are your priority, look for a device that produces legible and fully formed letters at small sizes and solid, evenly-filled characters at large ones. In general, the majority of lasers manage texts well, while inkjet-printed pages can sometimes suffer from fuzzy edges, bleeding, or slightly offset letters.
Graphics should be crisp with dense and evenly shaded colours while gradients should be smooth without colour banding – horizontal stripes across the page. The photos make an especially tricky task for many printers – cheaper models often struggle to render more delicate details, especially in shadow and highlight areas. If you want a colour printer, accurate representation matters too – some printers tend to noticeably oversaturate images while others spit out palish ones. Nowadays, the best lasers can produce quite decent photos, but an inkjet still would be the first choice for photography prints.
Resolution
Resolution is an often-cited printer specification, even if it is not a crucial factor of performance. Resolution is measured in dots per inch (dpi) that the printer can manage. Modern models will start at 600x600 dpi, which means that a printer is capable of putting 600 dots per inch horizontally and 600 dots vertically. This resolution will be absolutely sufficient for texts and can produce decent photos too. Sure, 1200x1200 dpi may pay off in some more detailed printing tasks, above that you probably won’t notice much difference. Other factors, such as the quality of the paper you use can play a bigger role than a few more minuscule dots.
Durability
Some printers are made to handle considerably higher volume than others. To help users find the model for their needs, two different figures are typically provided. The first one is the monthly duty cycle. This is the absolute number of pages that can be printed per month without jams or other errors and is based on the results of stress testing. You don’t want to reach the maximum printing volume every single month, as it could wear down the machine early. A more useful figure is the recommended monthly volume. This number suggests how many pages per month you should print to ensure optimum performance, taking into account the maintenance intervals and supply costs, the robustness of the engine and other qualities.
Conclusion
Having a good printer at hand undeniably can save time and hassle in our professional and private lives. We researched and compared more than 60 currently available models to recommend only those that combined fast and reliable performance with easy setup, as well as provided adequate quality and features to their costs. Whether you are looking for a trustworthy budget home printer, a powerful multifunction office machine or anything in between, you should find your perfect laser among these top-five models.