Inkjet Vs Laser Printer

In the early days there was a vast differenceare not recommended when printing needs to be
between an inkjet printer and its laser version butdone in large volumes.
with time the difference has narrowed down toThey are known to throw up cartridge error
point where it is sometimes difficult tomessages even though the cartridges might be
differentiate between the two. Most individualsworking just fine. This is not to say that Inkjet
continue to use the inkjet printers, as they areprinters are always problematic but these are just
less expensive and nearly all of them are coloura few errors that do crop up once in a while.
capable. The quality of the inkjet printers hasThe print can also start going haywire sometimes
improved over time and now there is not a hugeand it may start printing in endless loops.
difference in printing quality with the LaserIt is often difficult to minimize and regulate the
printers. It's for this reason that small or homeamount of ink being used in the Inkjet printers.
business can use an inkjet printer without havingThere is a difference in quality of an Inkjet print
to worry about documents looking unclear orand a laser print. Often the laser print is of better
looking cheap.quality.
The laser printer is capable of printing much fasterIt is for these reasons that the laser printers
and usually produces better quality image, it is farsales have taken off in a very big way in spite of
more expensive as compared to the Inkjetbeing a more expensive buy.
version. Laser printers are usually used for blackHowever, in comparison to the laser printers,
printing but there are colour laser printers availablethere are a few positives about the inkjet
now.printers, which are more suitable to the
Having pointed that out, it is also useful to noterequirements of a small or home business where
that the general rule of the thumb for printers isthey do not need to print as many in terms of
"the lesser the cost of the printer, the morevolumes.
expensive the running cost". This could howeverColour laser printers have been around for some
depend on the volume of printing the printer istime but they were frightfully expensive a few
being used for. If the printing volume wereyears ago. A recent study found that last year
minimal, it would be more cost effective to usenearly 1.85 million colour laser printers were sold, a
an inkjet printer. It is very easy to get carriedsubstantial growth from the previous year. A
away by the initial price of an inkjet printer butlarge number of offices are going in for the colour
people buying them are often not aware that thepage printers. This is however not recommended
running cost of the machine would play a hugeif you do not need to print fliers or brochures in
part and should be factored into the decisionlarge volumes consistently.
making. This would be better understood with anThere are a few other advantages that come
example. Let us consider a Canon i320 colourwith a laser printer, for example:
bubble jet printer. It usually does not cost moreUsing a duplex unit: This would enable the user to
than ?30 obviously subject to the discountsprint back to back. This is particularly useful for
applicable at your store. The cost of a cartridge iscreating brochures and leaflets.
usually in the ?10 range and on an average itAdd a paper drawer: This would reduce the
prints 170 pages. Even if you print as few as 7number of user interventions and in turn reduces
pages a day that works out to 2100 pages overthe printer errors.
the year. This in turn works out to an annualAssigning different paper trays for different
expense of approximately ?135. The amount onedrafts can be used to print different documents
spends on cartridges is approximately 4 times thewithout messing about with the tray each time.
price of the printer in the first year itself. This isAn ethernet or a wireless network card can be
the reason the subsequent expenditure needs toadded to the printer to attach it to a network.
be taken into consideration while buying a printer.This functionality can be availed in the laser printer.
Inkjet printers come with some added problemsThis is just to outline the benefits of using each
that need to be looked at and taken intokind of a printer. This is aimed at helping the user
consideration:to weigh the pros and the cons before buying a
To begin with they are not as fast as the Laserprinter.
printers. This is one reason why Inkjet printers