Inkjet or Laser Printer - Make the right Choice!

When purchasing a printer, the question arises whether an inkjet printer or a laser printer would meet the requirements towards the print results better. This guide provides an up-to-date and structured overview of the technical status and gives advice about how an optimal purchase decision can be made.

© HP

1. Inkjet or Laser Printer? - How to Decide

You will find many statements made about the diffrences of inkjet and laser printers: Laser printers are printing at higher speeds and are cheaper. Inkjet printers are inexpensive to buy, but ink cartriges are too expensive. Inkjet printers print very slow. This guide aims to clear up legends and prejudices about inkjet and laser printers. Every user has different requirements towards a printer and the printed product. For private users, small to medium-sized office, larger company as well as professional users such as graphic designers and advertising agencies - we provide answers and solutions.

2. Laser Printers

The first commercial laser printer was designed by Apple Computers in 1985. The printer worked with Adobe's PostScript language, which allows for dynamic scaling without a raster. PostScript laser printers were very expensive due to Adobe's high licensing costs. As a result, open source alternatives to PostScript were developed. PCL (Point Cloud Library) was developed by Hewlett-Packard as an affordable alternative.

© HP

2.1 Laser Printer Technology

Laser printers have a rotating print drum. The drum has an positive electrical charge. A laser beam "writes" the image that will be printed onto the drum by uncharging positive charged areas on the print drum. The laser beam creates negatively charged areas wich will later be the graphics and texts on the paper. Fine toner particles have a positive charge an stick to the negative charged areas on the print drum. The toner particles are heated and pressed onto the paper. Afterwards the print drums charge is released and the printer is ready for the next printjob. The whole printing process only takes very short time and the print result will have a consistent quality and look sharp.

2.2 Advantages

The technology of laser printers has been tried and tested for over 30 years. The components drum and exposure unit form an electromechanical unit which is not very susceptible to interference. A high print resolution in monochrome and color can be achieved and high print volumes are a strength of laser printers. Inexpensive monochrome laser printers for less than £200 are already capable of remarkable printing speeds of up to 40 pages per minute (visit Brother HL-L5000D). You can find inexpensive laser printer models for monochrome printing which are very dependable and suitable for occasional printing.

2.3 Disadvantages

Laser printers are best suited for monochrome or color printing graphics and texts and are not quite capable of optimally creating surfaces and photo-realistic images. If you need to print high-quality images with fine gradations in color, shades of gray and with a high dynamic color range, you should consider buying an inkjet printer. In higher price ranges, however, there are also some laser printers that can print high-quality photos. If this fact is relevant for the user, a more in-depth research on this topic is useful. Laser printers work with fine powder, which is applied to the paper through the use of heat. This powder can lead to fine dust pollution. If possible, laser printers should not be placed right next to the work desk.

© Magnascan | pixabay.com

3. Inkjet Printers

The first inkjet printers were developed and sold by IBM in the 1970s. Those inkjet printers were designed for industy use and were not suitable for an office or to be used at home. Through further development by HP and Cannon, inkjet printers came onto the market in the early 1980s, which were designed for sale in the end customer market and were used in offices. Since then, printer manufacturers have been intensively involved in the further development of inkjet printers and have continuously brought improvements and innovations to the market.

3.1 Inkjet Printer Technology

Inkjet printers fed ink from a cartridge into thousands of small reservoirs in a print head. The ink is then heated rapidly, which causes it to form bubbles. The bubbles propel droplets through a nozzle onto a page. Each drop forms a tiny dot. These dots are placed next to each other and form lines, letters or gradations of color. Dots of black ink, placed very precisely, create crisp text and lines in monochrome printouts. For color prints color ink dots are printed accurately in patterns, creating the impression of different colors on the page. This technology has its limitations. The print head is subject to ware and tare as it has to move back and forth over the page to print the dots in lines. Because the print head has to move back and forth for many lines, inkjet printers used to print very slow, but the technology has improved a lot. Inkjet printer have gone from speeds of 2 pages per minute to more than 30 ppm. Resolution has changed from 300 dots per inch to 2,400 dpi.

© Canon

3.2 Advantages

With inkjet printers the quality of printouts for complex color representations is exellent. High-quality inkjet printers are equivalent to laser printers in terms of speed and printing costs. The prejudice that laser printers are faster and cheaper is no longer true today. In recent years manufacturers have invested in inkjet technology developments.

3.3 Disadvantages

Inkjet printing technology is complex. Further developments in ink, print head technology and optimal print materials are rapidly creating new generations of devices which are incompatible with each other. Printers with a low purchase price often have high follow-up costs. Total costs for individual print volumes should be taken into account. You can use our online printer consultant and benefit from an overview of all follow-up costs.

4. Inkjet and Laser Printer Target Groups

When evaluating whether an inkjet printer or laser printer should be purchased, the user group and the requirements towards the printer must be taken into account.

© hamonazaryan1 | pixabay.com

4.1 Home Users and Occasional Printing

Most people that use a printer at home like to buy an easy-to-use printer which takes up little space. For both, inkjet printers and laser printers, there is a large and inexpensive varaity of printers to choose from on the market. If high color quality is required for printing photos, the purchase of an inkjet printer is recommended. Before buying, it is advisable to compare inkjet and laser printers with regard to the price per printed page and the costs for replacement materials such as ink cartridges, paper or print heads. Before buying a printer to use with a Linux operating system, it is advaisable to check on the manufacturer's website whether drivers for Linux are available.

Home users may also consider purchasing an all-in-one inkjet or laser printer which allows for scanning, copying and, if necessary, faxing documents as well as printing. Multifunction printers do not cost much more than "simple printers" and are recommendable for the all-round use in a private household. It should be ensured that in addition to a USB connection, the printer is WLAN compatible. If you use a smartphone or tablet and want to print quickly and easily from a mobile devices, you should make sure that the printer has the appropriate connectivity. Cloud printing for example allows you to send documents from a mobile device to the printer.

4.2 Small to medium-sized Businesses

For small to medium-sized offices printing costs, durability and long-term use of a printer are important factors when it comes to purchasing an inkjet or laser printer. To evaluate the Total Cost of Ownership (TCO) to make a decision wether to buy an inkjet or laser printer makes sens. TCO takes into account the device life with all fixed and variable costs and the internal return on capital. Small to medium-sized businesses may benefit from purchasing a network-compatible professional printer with scan and e-mail function, which can print in black and white or color. Our online printer consultant can help you to find both - an inkjet or laser printer - with the lowest total costs based on your individual requirements.

For companies with 5 printers or more, it is worth considering Managed Print Services. MPS ensures that the printer is always functioning due to maintenance and dosen't run out of supplies. Learn more about Managed Print Services.

4.3 Medium to large-sized Companies

Larger companies must analyze and evaluate their printer fleet under diffrent circumstances. Each department may have different requirements towards a printer and choosing to purchse different printers for diffrent departments can make sense. Special knowledge is required to solve questions of networking, decentralized and central availability, authorizations as well as the assignment to cost objects and cost centers in the company's financial system. Software solutions allow for a clear overview and an effective management of all printers within a company. The company can gain an overview of the compleat printer fleet, evry individual printer operating status, including fill levels of toner and ink. You can download our free software client to manage your printer fleet effectively and save time and money!

4.4 Professional Users

Professionals such as graphic artists, designers, advertising agencies, photografers or architects have high expectations towards the quality of their printouts. The decision wether to buy an inkjet or a laser printer should be based on a thorough evaluation of what print results are needed for which purpose. A combination of high quality inkjet and laser printers may be necessary. Postscript language is required when working with software applications such as cloud solutions in desktop publishing and in the prepress area. Neutral expert advice seems appropriate for users who need printers for professional purposes.

© andreas160578 | pixabay.com

5. Summary

A precise analysis of the advantages and disadvantages is necessary before making any purchase decision for or against a laser or inkjet printer. Prejudices such as laser printers are inexpensive and fast and inkjet printers work slowly and are expensive are outdated. The purchase price of a printer alone is not enough to make a purchase decision on. For both, private and professional users, it is important to take a holistic view of all aspects such as applications, quality requirements and total costs over the service life of the printer. When you or your business need a printer for professional use, have very high quality requirements and a high print volume, specialists should be consulted before purchas. A professional printing solution can be configured to meet all economical and technical requirements as well as be tailor made for the customer and easy to manage. Sometimes it is not a case of inkjet or laser printer, but a combination of both printing thechnologies can lead to the optimal solution.

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