When you first set out looking for a printer, you will usually find two specific kinds.

The most predominant on the market is the inkjet printer. These printers are more common in the home and use liquid ink together with tiny nozzles that spray onto paper, which then creates the image or text on the paper. They are much more expensive to maintain and each page you print costs more than the alternative, the laser printer. Here you will learn which type of printer is best for your needs.

Laser printer technology is older than inkjet technology. In many ways, a laser printer works almost like a copy machine in that it uses a toner cartridge full of black powder, and electrically charged rollers pull the oppositely-charged powder particles along 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, whereas inkjet can only print out 170 pages on a single cartridge. You can see that the best laser printer is the one that’s going to end up in your office. If you are printing reports, printing school work or literature, then this is the best laser printer for you. True, a laser printer can cost $400, while you can pick up an inkjet printer for around $50. Even the replaceable are more expensive: an inkjet cartridge costs $35 while a toner cartridge costs $115. This brings up the topic of why exactly a black and white laser printer would be more preferable to a color inkjet.

Monochrome laser printer basics: PRICE: $150, TONER CARTRIDGE: $115, TOTAL COST: $265, PAGES THAT CAN BE PRINTED: 8,000

Inkjet, full color printer basics: PRICE: $50, COLOR AND BLACK INK: $35, TOTAL COST: $85PAGES THAT CAN BE PRINTED: 170

The big production different makes it obvious why so many large companies choose to use monochrome laser models for large printing jobs, and use a couple color inkjets for their smaller color printing tasks. 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.

It is possible to find color laser printers, but they are harder to find and can cost quite a bit more than their monochrome counterparts. Those types require four separate toners, while each one is cheaper than a monochrome’s one, it still adds up to more. Also, you will get less print outs from a monochrome printer because the ink is dispersed into three colors and black, not just black. For the time being, color models have some more progress to go through before they are as useful as their monochrome alternatives. So while monochrome models are the best laser printers, color models are not quite there yet.

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