Difference Between Laser and Ink

Laser vs Ink | Laser vs Inkjet Printing, Cost, Quality Compared

Laser printers and inkjet printers are two of the most popular printing technologies serving the requirements of people both at homes and offices. If you do not know the differences between a laser printer and an inkjet printer, you may unnecessarily spend too much, or you may buy a printer that does not fulfill your requirements. Though both can print text and photographs, there are lots of differences between laser and ink that will be highlighted in this article. There are both space and budget constraints that dictate the selection of a printer. However, it is better having an understanding in the long time operating costs and yield of a printer before making a hasty decision.

At a cursory glance, it is evident that for homes inkjet printers are perfect as there are limited numbers of copies of text and photographs that need to be printed with a printer. In offices, on the other hand, not only higher volume of prints is required, higher quality is also needed. In general, it suffices to know that the technology used in inkjet printers is simpler, and parts of an inkjet printer are also less expensive than those of a laser printer. Inkjet printers spray tiny droplets of ink through a jet and then apply pressure to print the text just as you write with an ink pen on a piece of paper. This means that the resolution is lower while, in the case of laser printers, resolution is much higher that allows the user to select complex fonts without any fuzziness.

When it comes to cost effectiveness, simple jobs like printing banners, greeting cards, graphics and large photo prints are better handled by color inkjet printers in a rather inexpensive manner. In fact, one can print all such jobs at half the price of a laser printer. However, when it comes to speed of printing, laser printers are way ahead of their counterparts. They do take time to warm up, but once ready they can produce a yield that is many times more than inkjet printers.

When we talk of cost, there are two sub categories of initial cost and maintenance cost. In terms of initial cost, inkjet printers are far cheaper than laser printers. However, the maintenance of an inkjet printer is costlier than a laser printer. Though toner cartridges used in laser printers are more expensive than inkjet cartridges, they hardly get replaced whereas one needs to replace inkjet \cartridges every now and then.

Keeping these factors in mind, one can calculate the overall cost involved in both types of printers and then decide which of the two types of printers are better suited to his requirements.