Choosing the Best Laser Printer for your Office
When it comes to computer printing needs in the home or office, there are generally two types of machine available on the market. The first is an inkjet printer. These printers are more common in the home and use liquid ink together with tiny nozzles that spray onto paper, creating your images and text. They are much more expensive to maintain and each page you print costs more than the alternative, the laser printer. In this article you’ll learn how to choose the best laser printer for your needs.
Laser printer technology is older than inkjet technology. A laser printer works almost like a copy machine in that it uses a toner cartridge full of black powder, and electrically charged rollers that pull the oppositely-charged powder particles to the paper. Then a heat roller fuses, or melts the toner in place so it cannot smudge or be removed. Choosing the best laser printer really depends on what you will be printing with it.
With laser printers able to print over 8,000 pages on a single toner, versus an inkjet printing 170 pages with a black ink cartridge, you can see that the best laser printer is the one that’s going to end up in your office! If you are running reports, printing school work or literature, then this is the best laser printer for you. True, a laser printer can cost $400, and you can grab an inkjet for $50. Even the replaceables cost more: an inkjet cartridge costs $35 while a toner cartridge costs $115. So why is a monochrome the best laser printer for your business or home? Do the math:
Monochrome laser printer: $150
One toner cartridge: $115
Total, Laser Printer: $265
PAGES THAT CAN BE PRINTED: 8,000+
Inkjet, full color printer: $50
Color and black inkjet cartridge combo: $35
Total, inkjet printer: $85
PAGES THAT CAN BE PRINTED: around 170
So you can see the reason why some companies stick to monochrome lasers for the bulk of their printing demands, and use a couple color inkjets for the small volume of color they may need. To be able to print over 8,000 pages with an inkjet you would need 47 refill cartridges for a total of $1,647.00!!
These numbers show you that a monochrome laser printer could be the best laser printer just from the amount of money you save, every single month.
There are color laser printers on the market, but their pricing is a little more, and they need special color toner. They require four toners, and each one can be as expensive as a monochrome toner. And, because there is less black toner in a four-color setup, you won’t get the same amazing output as a monochrome laser. Their usefulness has yet to be fulfilled, as the best laser printer option remains to print in black and stick to an inkjet for color printing.