Your Next Printer: Laser, Inkjet or All-In-One?
Are you looking for a new printer? You might be wondering if you should you look for an inkjet printer or a laser printer. Or how about a basic printer versus an all-in-one (AIO) printer, scanner, copier, fax, and toaster? The choice -- inkjet vs. laser, and dedicated printer vs. all-in-one -- depends on what you print and how often you print it. I'll also touch on wired versus wireless printers. Here's a look at the tradeoffs, and factors to consider when buying a printer... |
Buying Your Next Printer
So you're ready to buy a new printer. Here are some tips to help you decide. An all-in-one printer seems to be the de facto standard for all but the tightest budgets these days. But it's not the right choice for every one.
Laser technology is ideal for black text or graphics. It uses heat to fuse tiny dots of black toner to paper, creating a crisp and fade-resistant image of an all-black document or greyscale picture. There’s no “bleeding” as there can be with ink. High-volume print jobs are handled better by laser printers. Laser technology is inherently faster than inkjet, and a laser toner cartridge prints ten times more pages than an inkjet cartridge.
If you print a lot, if speed is important to you, and you don't need color capability, a monochrome laser printer may be your best choice. Color lasers are an option, but tend to be rather pricey. (More on cost considerations later.)
On the other hand, some bleeding is desirable when printing high-quality color images, like family photos. In nature, liquids blend together to form new colors; they do not just trick the eye by juxtapositioning dots of primary colors, as color laser printers do. Inkjet printers also lay down primary colors only, but they bleed and blend just enough to produce more natural-looking colors. Glossy photo paper is designed for ink; color laser prints don’t look as good as inkjet even on the expensive, glossy paper.
That brings us to cost, both upfront and over the printer’s entire lifecycle. A low-end inkjet printer may cost under $60 on sale. Consumer-grade color laser printers run between $250 and $350; the fastest inkjet printers are in the $300 to $400 range. As you can see, the difference in upfront cost is not that great, but it’s easily made up in the long-term costs of supplies and maintenance. (Printer prices rose during the pandemic, and this trend may continue as more people work and study from home.)
Don’t Forget To Factor in Supply Costs
An HP-branded black inkjet cartridge for an HP OfficeJet Pro 9025e All-in-One Printer costs about $40 and yields about 2000 printed pages (about 2.2 cents/page). The color cartridges cost $30 each and yield 1600 pages (2.2 cents/page). But this $105 Brother TN-850 Black Toner Cartridge prints 8,000 pages (about 1.3 cent/page). So over time, your cost for inkjet printing will almost twice as much as laser.
The price gap between toner and ink narrows when you look at remanufactured cartridges, which can cost 25% to 70% less than OEM cartridges. It’s hard to compare cost-per-page in the remanufactured market because prices vary a lot from one recycler to another, and so does the amount of ink or toner supplied. See my article Should You Buy Discount Inkjet Cartridges? for my recommendations on suppliers for discount ink cartridges. And whether you go with laser or inkjet, always look for high capacity cartridges available because that will drive cost per page even lower.
Some printer vendors unfairly try to prevent you from buying third-party or refilled inkjet cartridges. In my article HP Playing Dirty Tricks? I told the story of my HP printer suddenly telling me that all of my inkjet cartridges appeared to be "damaged," and how I found a solution.
So to summarize the laser vs. inkjet decision:
- Fast printing of black text and greyscale images: go monochrome laser
- Lots of black and occasional, mid-quality color: go color laser
- Low volume printing, upfront cost a major factor: go inkjet
- Printing color documents or high-quality photos: go inkjet
A few caveats, though... If you live in a very dry area, or you print only on rare occasions, an inkjet may not be a good choice. Ink can dry up in dry, hot climates, and print heads may clog if the printer is not used on a regular basis. Laser toner is powder, so it fares well in a dry place. But in high humidity, pages printed on a laser can stick together. If you manage temperature and humidity in your home or office, these problems will most likely not be an issue.
What About Wireless Printers?
I've also not addressed the wired versus wireless printer question. There are several good reasons for buying a printer with wireless connectivity. If you have multiple computers in your home,it's a no brainer. You don't want to run cables all over the place from your computers to your printer. If you have a laptop, a wireless connection to your printer eliminates the need to be tethered to the printer. And if you just want to put your printer in a different room from your computer, a wireless printer is a good choice.
Are there downsides to wireless printers? Maybe. If your wifi doesn't reach the place in your home where you want to set your printer, you might need to add a wifi extender to your network. And some wireless printers tend to drop the connection, requiring you to take action to reconnect. Some Brother printers have this problem.
Finally, what about a single-function printer version an all-in-one? As I said, the decision to buy an all-in-one version of a given printer model is really a no-brainer. Who wants to run to the office store to scan a document, make a few photocopies or send a fax? The price difference is minor, and the joy of digitizing all your paper clutter is immense. You’ll save money by not buying filing cabinets, folders, labels, and hours of time as well.
Your thoughts on this topic are welcome. Post your comment or question below...
This article was posted by Bob Rankin on 27 May 2025
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Most recent comments on "Your Next Printer: Laser, Inkjet or All-In-One?"
Posted by:
Jesse Hixson
27 May 2025
My HP inkjet ran out of ink; I went to Walmart to buy ink; would run about $60. Looking around, I saw a Canon full function for $19.95. I bought it and saved a bundle. It works perfect.
Posted by:
John Bell
27 May 2025
What consideration do you give to tank feed inkjet printers? The cost of printing can be dramatically reduced, by using bottles of ink, and not having to buy new print heads in cartridges.
Posted by:
Louie
27 May 2025
I have both. Monochrome laser AIO (Brother) and a HP 2652 Color Inkjet AIO. Never had a problem with toner but yes the inkjet even when kept inside the house will dry out after a few months. So far a damp paper towel has been able to revive the inkjets.
Posted by:
Kurt
27 May 2025
Hoping you would also include ink-tank printers. My experience was Epson Ink Tank was economical to buy and operate, until the printer potty was full -- then it was throw the printer out and replace it. Cannon's Maxima allow you to replace the printer potty -- so that is what we use now. My experience with HP is they do not update drivers, so a windows update or upgrade might make the HP printer non-functional.
Posted by:
Robert van Ruyssevelt
28 May 2025
I have a Brother printer which will block if not used for a while but there is a setting which forces ink through the jets which so far has worked every time...
Posted by:
Robert T Deloyd
28 May 2025
If you are in a place where the air is dry, like where I live in the desert, go with the laser printer; otherwise, your ink will dry out quickly.
Posted by:
Minoo
28 May 2025
What is printer potty? You have given prices to print a page...e.g. 2.3 cents per page, does this price include the cost of paper also? Thank you.
Posted by:
Carol
28 May 2025
We used to throw away our money on HP ink cartridges, periodically battling the dreaded dried up print heads because we aren't heavy printers. When it came time to buy a new printer, we decided to switch to an Epson Ecotank and couldn't be happier. The print quality is great and in 18 months we haven't had to refill the ink tanks nor replace the maintenance tank. It checks for updates all the time and is always online and available.
Posted by:
chris
28 May 2025
A little off subject, but the last time I bought a HP printer I had to subscribe to their ink cartridge subscription before I could get the printer to print. I said no thank you, returned the printer to Best Buy (great return service) and purchased a Cannon printer.
Posted by:
Frederick Roller
28 May 2025
Bought an Epson Ecotank all-in-one 5 years ago and never looked back.Best investment I ever made. As for the "printer potty" it was a very simple, cheap and easy replacement. It took all of 5 minutes to replace.
Posted by:
Tom W Van Dam
28 May 2025
I purchased an Epson EcoTank printer for my home and then one for work. The work one gets more use but I haven't had to purchase new bottles of ink for almost 2 years. It makes a dramatic difference when considering ink costs and it has performed very well. Both of my Epsons also have a copy function on them which has been a lifesaver (mostly at home).
Posted by:
BDD
29 May 2025
I bought a (cheap) wireless cannon printer the wireless option is the way to go.
That said I kept getting error messages saying the printer door is open. Short fix I found a youtube video which was very helpful solving my issue, one tiny part broke off. As they say you get what you pay for. The new ink price is crazy high no matter the price of a printer.