Laser or inkjet printer?

Enhance your productivity with an office machine that will come in handy whenever you are working either in your home or in your small office.

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Having your own multi-function printer with copying and faxing capabilities, also known as a multi-function center (MFC), will save you trips to the nearest imaging center. But you must consider relevant factors before you make that purchase. One major thing to take into account is choosing the right kind of machine that will fit your needs.

There are basically two major types of printers or MFCs – the lasers and the inkjets. These two kinds of MFCs use different types of technology: the microscopic ink droplets for inkjets and the fine powder in a toner cartridge for lasers.

Each technology has its own set of advantages when it comes to meeting your different printing needs. Your choice should be made based on your planned usage of the product. To help guide you in your purchase decision, here are some facts you need to know about inkjets and lasers.

Lasers for document printing

Brother, a manufacturer of both laser and inkjet printers, recommends lasers for document printing.

Although and inkjet’s print speed is at par with some laser models already, printing up to a maximum of 22 pages per minute, laser printers are generally preferred over inkjets especially when it comes to document printing, especially for small texts that tend  to appear heavy when printed.

You can also find entry-level monochrome laser printers more affordable than inkjets. For example, Brother’s laser HL-1210W, which has print speeds of up to 20 ppm in A4 paper and 21 ppm in letter-size paper, fetches a price of Php3,990, while the lowest-priced colored Brother Inkjet Printer, the DCP-J100, which also has copy and scan functions, costs more at Php4,950.

The other factor to consider in choosing a printer is the cost of buying the consumables – the ink for inkjets, and the toner and ink for lasers.

The unit cost of the consumables is computed by dividing the total cost of ink and toner with the number of pages they can produce, or what is known as the cost per page.

Printing in black-and-white using monochrome laser printers is more cost effective than using inkjets, based on cost-per-page computations, especially for document printing.

Inkjets for color printing

While printing in black-and-white is more economical with lasers for documents, printing in color, especially documents that are printed occasionally such as photos or presentation charts, seems to be more affordable in terms of machine acquisition and consumables with inkjet printers.

Most colored laser printers come in more premium models. For example, while colored Brother inkjets  Multi-Function Centers–the DCP-J100 (Php 4,950) and the DCP-J105 (Php 5,950), which can scan, copy and print wirelessly–are relatively more affordable, the HL-3170CDN entry level Brother single function colored laser printer, which prints up to 23 pages per minute, costs Php 15,990.

Aside from having more affordable models and consumables for color printing, colored inkjet printers can reproduce even the subtlest color gradation in images.

Most colored inkjets also come in more compact models, which can easily fit into small spaces such as your computer table.

Choose wisely

So, next time you buy printers or multi-function centers, ask yourself whether your home or small office needs a printer more for printing your colorful pictures, charts and illustrations for office presentations, or for printing voluminous black-and-white documents. Your choice will really depend on your needs.