Which one is for you?
When contemplating the acquisition of a printer for home, office, or business use, it’s imperative to be aware of the available options and what each option is capable of offering relative to its intended use.
To begin, there are two main types of printers suited for home, office, or business applications:
Inkjet Printer
Laser Printer
The biggest difference between an inkjet and a laser printer is that inkjet printers use ink, are suitable for low-volume printing, and are generally the preferred choice for personal, home, and small business use.
A laser printer, on the other hand, uses toner rather than ink and is mostly utilized in offices and small to medium businesses where high-volume printing is common, though it can still be an ideal choice for home and personal use.
The main determinant in the choice of a printer would depend on use, i.e., what is to be printed, how often, and the printing budget.
INKJET PRINTERS
How they work: the print head has tiny nozzles or jets that spray ink droplets from cartridges onto the paper as it moves rapidly across the page, forming images and characters.
For occasional printing at home, for personal use, or for a small business, an inkjet printer would be the most preferred choice. Inkjet printers are, in general, smaller and cheaper and can be used to print both text documents and high-quality colour images, particularly photos.
One common drawback for inkjet printers is the tendency for ink to dry up after periods of inactivity. This is not a concern with laser printers, as they use toner, which doesn’t dry up.
LASER PRINTERS
How they work: They work like a photocopier, i.e., data is read and beamed onto a metal drum, which uses static electricity to attract the toner powder to the drum’s cylinder.
The drum then rolls the toner onto the paper in the form of the beamed print, and the toner is melted and pressed onto the paper by heat from a fuser as it passes through the rollers.
COMPARISON AND ANALYSIS
Print Quality or Resolution
For high-resolution photos and images, photo inkjet printers might be the most ideal choice. But if the need is for a reliable option that outputs sharp text documents and acceptable coloured images or documents, especially in bulk, a laser printer would fit the bill.
Although inkjet printers are the preferred choice for coloured prints, laser printers can also produce acceptable coloured prints in addition to the sharp monochrome prints for which they are best suited. Despite having slightly less depth and colour tonality, laser printers are more dependable, long-lasting, and generally more cost-effective in the long term.
When assessing a printer’s specifications, the print resolution is one thing to look at. Resolution, measured in DPI (dots per inch), is a measure of how many dots there are in an inch, which means that the more dots on an inch of paper, the sharper the resolution. A 1200 dpi resolution is enough for good-quality coloured images and about 600 dpi for high-resolution documents.
In summary, monochrome laser printers are great for text and documents. A monochrome printer only produces black-and-white prints. Colour laser printers would be good for text, documents, and medium-quality colour photos. Photo inkjet printers are excellent for producing high-resolution images with rich tones and a broad spectrum of colours.
Print Speed, Volume and Page Yield
In general, laser printers are designed to meet the demands of busy, high-volume applications, such as offices and businesses. They can print between 30 and 150 pages per minute, depending on size and model, as opposed to inkjet printers, which can only achieve between 10 and 17 pages per minute.
The recommended monthly print volumes can vary depending on the printer models in terms of how much volume the printers should be able to handle to keep operating at peak efficiency. The amount a printer may print each month to maintain optimum performance is known as the recommended monthly print volume. How much a printer can print without damaging parts in a month is known as its maximum monthly duty cycle.
Toner cartridges can yield between 3,000 and 10,000 pages per cartridge, while ink cartridges can print between 200 and about 1,000 pages. However, ink tank printers have increased the capacity of inkjet printers, with some offering page yields of up to 7,500 pages. This has eliminated the pain of replacing cartridges for inkjet printers, a common drawback.
The fact remains that ink tank printers are still inkjet printers and still have the same drawbacks as regular inkjet printers, such as clogging of nozzles and drying ink, so they would only be recommended if they’ll be used regularly; otherwise, colour laserjet printers would be advisable.
Prices and Costs
Inkjet printers have a lower upfront cost than laser printers, which can be twice or, in some cases, three times the price of their inkjet counterparts.
While the initial outlay on an inkjet printer is much lower, the cost per page can be significantly higher than that of a laser printer, especially for the cheapest inkjet printers. Some inkjet printers can only output several hundred pages before a cartridge replacement is required, and over time, the notoriously expensive cartridges could end up costing more than the printer itself.
While toner cartridges for laser printers are generally more expensive than ink cartridges, the cost per page makes them cheaper overall in the long run. The cost per page would be the cost of the cartridge divided by its page yield, i.e., Cartridge Price/Page Yield = Cost per Page.
The running costs of an inkjet printer might prove disadvantageous in the long run compared to their laserjet counterparts. In addition to the exorbitant cost per page, ink cartridge nozzles clog up and dry up when they haven’t been used for a while; therefore, one might have to replace cartridges even when they haven’t been used up. Toner cartridges, on the other hand, do not dry up.
Depending on the frequency of use, laser printers can have a lifespan of 5 years, almost twice the lifespan of an average inkjet printer.
In a nutshell,
For a home or small business printer that prints both black and coloured documents, a colour laser printer would suffice. The issue of clogged nozzles and dry ink from periods of inactivity would not be an issue.
For regular, cost-efficient printing tasks, both in colour and black and white, a laser printer or an ink tank printer would be ideal.
For high-resolution images and photos, a professional inkjet photo printer would deliver far superior results than colour laser printers. They would also be ideal for vibrant and sharp coloured water-proof stickers or fade-proof labels, particularly for printers that use pigment-based ink rather than dye-based ink.
Inkjet printers are generally more popular for home and personal use because of their smaller size and affordability, in addition to creating richer graphics and photos. For occasional printing tasks, a fairly priced inkjet printer should suffice. For regular printing tasks, an affordable laser printer would be an advisable option, as it would last longer and, in the long run, be more economical.
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