# Laser vs Inkjet



## MrMatt (Dec 21, 2011)

Has anyone actually run the numbers?
Perhaps on one of those cheaper Brother printers being sold.

How much is new toner? How long does a drum last?

I appreciate the occasional colour page, but that's not a huge deal.

Being an all in one is a big deal though, I love it.


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## emperor (Jul 24, 2011)

In my case I went with laser because I don't use my printer often, so a lot of times the ink would dry out. 

I would try to clean the cartridges, sometimes it worked, sometimes it didn't. 

With my laser printer if I'm gone to work for 6 months and come back it works fine, no messin around.


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## the-royal-mail (Dec 11, 2009)

We've discussed this topic in the past. Please search for it. 

My current printer is a laser and I've never looked back.


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## kcowan (Jul 1, 2010)

We have an inkjet because we do colour pirnts for pictures. We pay heavily for the cartridges. A laser with an external printing service would be cheaper economically so we are paying for the convenience of printing on demand.

But compared to the old days, printing is really cheap.


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## Guigz (Oct 28, 2010)

I have a B/W all in one laser printer since last year. I have paid about 120$ for it.

So far I have printed 270 pages and the drum life indicator says 98%. The starting toner is rated at 2,000 pages at normal contrast. 

A toner kit will cost about 20-30$ online and lasts between 5,000 and 10,000 pages. I don't know how much the drum will cost to be replaced, the starting drum is rated at 20,000 pages.

What I really love about the printer is the very fast printing speed (22 ppm), the very fast scanning speed, the fact that I can pile a stack of receipts or documents and scan them all at the same time (up to 30 pages) and it puts them to PDF (and also scans both sides!). I also really like the software.

Overall, I am extremely pleased with it. An inkjet printer with the same features(doubtful, especially the speed) would maybe be a little cheaper (-10-20%). 

In the 7 years that we have owned an inkjet printer, we spent maybe 50$ on the printer and probably closer to 500$ on the cartridges with a very low annual volume.


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## Sherlock (Apr 18, 2010)

I just put whatever I wanna print on my thumb drive and bring it to work and print it there. Cost: $0.

Previously I had a bubble jet printer and after not using it for about a year I found that the ink cartridge didn't work any more.


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## somecanuck (Dec 23, 2011)

We use a Samsung ML-1665 laser printer, picked it up new for $40. It's the best non-business laser printer I have used. The software installs like a breeze and stays out of your face (I'm talking to you, HP). It's as low as $20 right now during Boxing Week.


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## Ihatetaxes (May 5, 2010)

We have about 6 inkjet printers at the office, all HP. Never paid more than $100 for one, most were a $30 combo deal when buying a new computer at Best Buy. Almost exclusively printing b&w and spending about $800/yr on cartridges for all printers. Have thrown out two printers in the past four years so 25% failure rate out of the total bought and got a few years out of the two that died.

Primary reason we stick with inkjet is convenience of each employee having their own printer on their desk rather than moving to a big expensive laser in a common area. Several reps from Canon, Xerox have given me a quote on a commercial unit but I'm not convinced we would save money and we would lose convenience.


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## dogcom (May 23, 2009)

I have a Laser printer and can't stand the ink jet printers. Ink jet printers at least for me always get screwed up one way or the other and never work right.

The worst thing with an inkjet was when you could send in for a rebate. You would go through the stupid very hard process mail it in with the codes and then months later you would get a letter back saying you didn't do it right.


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## financialnoob (Feb 26, 2011)

Overall, laser generally wins out. Ink is more expensive.

However, there are a few scenarios where ink is probably better. If you don't print much, ink can be cost-effective since you'll never hit the volumes where toner cost-justifications come into play. 

Ink yields have gotten better over the years. This used to be an easy argument 5 years ago, but the gap has closed considerably. As a general rule of thumb, you can get toner B&W prints for 3 cents per page, and 15 cents for colour. For ink, some printers are rated around those numbers, though most fall into the 7 cents for B&W and 28 cents for colour. 

Those numbers are ones I grabbed from various articles that I read while reviewing for work purposes and I don't stand by any of them in any way  They're just meant as a general guideline. There are always exceptions to both.


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## Guigz (Oct 28, 2010)

financialnoob said:


> However, there are a few scenarios where ink is probably better. If you don't print much, ink can be cost-effective since you'll never hit the volumes where toner cost-justifications come into play.


I would tend to think otherwise. With a low printing volume, you never get to reach the cost effective "sweet spot" of the inkjet since the cartridge will dry out on you and you will only use a small percentage of the ink in the cartridge.

I would be of the opinion that inkjet makes sense where you are printing enough to empty your cartridge before it dries out. However, if you are at this point, might as well go with laser. 

Even then, I am not sure that inkjet makes sense in ANY application. If I were to use my laser printer only until the toner ran out (2,000 pages) and then threw the printer in the trash, my cost per print would be 6 cents per page. The amortized capital cost of the entire laser printer (printer + toner + drum) is less than just the cost of INK for the inkjet printer.


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## Plugging Along (Jan 3, 2011)

^ +1 Agreed

We have both laser and ink jet for home. The ink jet is less expensive in cost per page, however, if you do not print enough the ink will dry out. Those refill things are crap too. 

We use our ink jet to print most of our items for day to day. For things that we require a higher quality (pictures, invitations, presentations, etc.) then we go with our laser.

I would think if a person would just get one, I would say if you do a fair amount of printing (enough to use up the ink), and super quality isn't really required often, go with the ink jet. If you don't print often at all, or generally need high quality, then go with the laser.


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## somecanuck (Dec 23, 2011)

Plugging Along said:


> ^ +1 Agreed
> I would think if a person would just get one, I would say if you do a fair amount of printing (enough to use up the ink), and super quality isn't really required often, go with the ink jet. If you don't print often at all, or generally need high quality, then go with the laser.


Laser is cheaper regardless of printing volume. 

For a small printing volume, consider the $20 laser printer I linked. It includes an eco-cartridge for 700 pages, and a standard cartridge does 1,500. New cartridges are around $40, cheaper if you can find a sale. They do not expire as inkjet cartridges do. This particular printer does up to 1200x1600 DPI at 16 ppm. At $20 for 700 pages the initial cost per page is 2.9 cents before tax. It stays at that same cost per page for a new cartridge.

For large printing volume, go with a business laser printer. Most do more than 25 ppm at higher DPI settings and include fax, scanning, duplex printing, and so on. My employer has more than 500+ Lexmark multifunction printers. The cost per page can vary from 2-3 cents depending on your agreement.


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## kcowan (Jul 1, 2010)

Inkjet is higher quality if your settings are correct. Lower quality settings save ink.


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## Plugging Along (Jan 3, 2011)

I still find if I set both my ink jet and laser on higher quality, I get a better quality on the laser with both settings set the same. There is also no 'bleeding' on my laser, and it keeps my paper from getting 'wavy' from the wetness of the ink. For the most part, I'm fine with my ink jet, but there are a few times, where the laser is much better.


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## Sherlock (Apr 18, 2010)

I'm seeing laser printers as low as $50 on Staples website. So why would anyone buy an ink jet any more?


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## Ihatetaxes (May 5, 2010)

Another useful thread found on this forum. I will replace the next inkjet that dies in our office with a laser based on what I am reading here today.


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## somecanuck (Dec 23, 2011)

Ihatetaxes said:


> Another useful thread found on this forum. I will replace the next inkjet that dies in our office with a laser based on what I am reading here today.


You might do well to grab one of those Samsung models while they're still only $19.99/$24.99 (depending on your store) rather than $49.99. I've recommended them to three friends already.


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## the-royal-mail (Dec 11, 2009)

Bang on. All these bubble and ink jets came out en-masse in the 1990s when lasers were far too expensive for the average home user. Back then the BJC250 might run you $200-250 or so while a laser was much, much more. These days with how cheap the lasers have become, and how affordable toner is if you shop around, it is hard to make a business case for anything else. It's basically an uphill battle that I don't understand why anyone would want to fight.


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## financialnoob (Feb 26, 2011)

Guigz: That is a fair point, though you also have to factor in the cost differential for hardware. A colour laser was around $500, while an inkjet could be bought for $50. 

Then again, Samsung released a sub-$200 colour laser recently, which bridges that gap considerably.


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## bgc_fan (Apr 5, 2009)

I recently purchased an HP Laserjet 1025 with wi-fi for about $160. Color lasers are pretty cheap these days. Mind you I still use a HP Laserjet 5L for straight black printing... It has been years since I bought the last toner for that one.


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## FrugalTrader (Oct 13, 2008)

Sorry for thread jacking, but futureshop and staples have some very good printers at great prices for boxing week. For example, staples has the HP 8500A for $90.


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## canehdianman (Apr 7, 2009)

The wife is starting up her home business in a month so we have started getting her some office supplies.

Saw this multi-function printer/copier/scanner/fax at costco.ca and thought it looked pretty good.

Here is the link if anyone is interested - http://goo.gl/tPrrx


To stay on topic, I'll never buy an inkjet printer again. I don't see any benefit to them. They are too expensive.


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## StudioTaxLover (Jan 12, 2010)

but doesn't that make you thief?


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## emperor (Jul 24, 2011)

About two weeks ago I bought a hp cp1025NW color laser printer for $100.00.

Works good


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