Laser Printer Vs Inkjet Printer

A printer is the need of the day for any individual or business. Right from printing documents to color photos, printer technology, which predates even modern computers, has evolved to serve multiple purposes. Laser printers and inkjet printers are both efficient printing technologies, developed independently. This article is a inkjet printer vs laser printer comparison which will aid you in making an intelligent choice between the two, according to your requirements. When buying any product, it's prudent to know about all the choices you have. That way, you can get the product with best combination of features, which falls within your budget. By the time you are through this Buzzle article, you will be able to decide whether laser or inkjet printer is the right choice for you.

Laser Printer vs Inkjet Printer Comparison

I have personally used both types of printers and found them both handy for different purposes. The head to head comparison between laser and inkjet printers presented here, discusses some strong and subtle points of difference between the two types of printers. So, let us begin the comparison with a bit of history.

History
Remington Rand was the first person to develop a modern printer for the Univac Computer in 1953. Contrary to popular belief, laser printer technology predates the inkjet one. Laser printers made their market debut in 1976, courtesy IBM and were invented five years earlier, by a scientist named Gary Starkweather in 1971, who worked at Xerox. They have been around since then. With improvements in technology, laser printers are now affordable and more compact, which was not the case earlier.

If the credit for introducing laser printer technology to the world, goes to IBM, the inkjet printers technology owes its development to many companies like Canon, HP and Epson. These were first introduced in the market in 1979 and are the popular workhorse printers, used widely around the world. After that walk down memory lane, let's get down to brass tacks and start by identifying the basic technological difference between laser and inkjet printers.

Technology Difference
The major point of difference between laser and inkjet printers is of course, their technology. Let us see how exactly they differ in printing technique.

The printing technology of the laser printer is really ingenious and here is a short introduction to its working. It begins with an inbuilt laser beam projecting an image of the digital copy of a printed page onto a selenium coated, charged rotating drum. The laser light maps the 'negative' image of the document to be printed, onto the charged drum by the principle of photoconductivity. The selenium coating becomes photoconductive, that is, it loses charge, in those regions, which are not to be printed! Then the drum rolls and picks up dry ink particles, only from those regions which are still charged. Consequently, the drum imprints ink onto paper, by the effect of heat and direct contact. And presto!Your printed paper is ready! Another technology that has emerged in recent times, which works just as fast as a laser printer, is an LED printer.

Now, let us see how the inkjet printer technology works. Most inkjet printers use a piezoelectric material which has an ink filled cartridge behind the spraying nozzles. When an electric voltage is applied to that piezoelectric material, it vibrates, changing shape or size. This generates a pressure pulse in the ink fluid filled chamber, which makes the nozzle spurt out droplets of ink. That's why it's named the 'inkjet', as it prints with jets of ink produced by voltage pulses.

Printing Speed & Quality Comparison
Laser printers are substantially faster in printing pages, than the inkjet printers. The reason of course is the difference in technology that drives the two. To a laser printer, it does not matter whether a text or an image is being printed, as its speed of printing stays the same in both cases. Whereas, the inkjet has to spray ink for each pixel of the image. So, its speed slows down with textual or image complexity.

When it comes to printing black and white pages, with complex textual details and fonts, laser printers do it best and do it real fast. While the laser printer scores when it comes to textual details and monochrome printing, color photo printing is accomplished best, with an inkjet printer, though speed is not its forte!

Cartridge
The laser printer uses a large single cartridge of toner as its ink, while the inkjet printer needs multiple cartridges of colored ink. These inkjet cartridges generally run out faster than the toner cartridges and therefore, need to be replaced often, by large volume users. With an inkjet printer, you will spend several times more than the cost of the printer, on cartridges. It is no wonder that printer hardware manufacturing companies earn a lot more through cartridge sales, than the printers themselves! If you have a large volume printing load, mostly in black and white text, a laser printer is the most sensible choice as it costs lesser per page, compared to inkjet printers that need a frequent cartridge change.

Size
Laser printers and especially laser color printers are huge compared to inkjet printers, but they are certainly worth the space! The large size of laser printers is attributed to the space needed by toner cartridges. Laser printers can weigh a hefty 40 pounds whereas the heavyweight among inkjet printers can weigh up to 11 pounds. Inkjet printers are comparatively a lot more compact and easily fit in small spaces. If you have a very low volume of printing and don't want a bulky machine, inkjets are perfect for you.

Cost
When it comes to laser and inkjet printer comparison with respect to cost, inkjet is cheaper than a laser printer. However, it has an added later cost of cartridges, which need to be replaced often. With the cost of replaced cartridges (USD 12 to USD 60 each), added over the years, you could pay more for an inkjet than a laser printer, if your printing volume is high. An average inkjet printer can print 100 - 200 color pages, before it requires a change of cartridges.

Laser printers cost more initially, but they do not require a change of cartridge for a long time. The toner cartridges in laser printers can print 2,500 - 10,000 pages, before they require a replacement. The cost of both printers varies according to cartridge quality, brand and features. Inkjet cost ranges from USD 50 to USD 200, while laser printers cost may range from USD 150 to USD 400. Laser printers have an average life of five years compared to an average life of 3 years for inkjet printers.

Performance
In a head to head comparison, if we keep the speed and cost considerations aside, both printers deliver quality images and printed texts. As discussed before, the laser print quality, is a notch better than the inkjet, when it comes to text printing, but even in image printing, they have better resolution and detailing. While inkjet printers are better at printing images and photos, when it comes to providing brightness and rich color.

With this detailed laser printer vs inkjet printer comparison, I hope making a choice between the two is a simpler task for you. If you have a need for a high print page volume and don't need a lot of color printing, buying laser printers is a suitable and reasonable choice. While, if you have a low volume of print work and are more into intricate color printing, an inkjet printer is a smart choice. That is my final verdict on the issue!