Laser printers, an alternative for Inkjet?

Speed and quality

It is a given that price is not one of the reason to purchase a colour laser printer. There are some other aspects that are in favour of  the laser printers though, one being the speed of printing. Even a cheap laser printer will print a ten page document in around 30 seconds, something not any inkjet on the market can do. When printing photographs the difference is even more apparent: a picture on A4 takes an average 10 seconds on a laser, 20 seconds if we add up the loading time and printing time. An inkjet, no matter what the manufacturer promises, does not even come close to these times.

The second advantage for the laser is the print quality of text, a letter will always look a lot better when printed on a laser printer. Things like company logos, small pictures, etc in a text document will look a lot more professional when printed on a laser printer. Small companies can benefit from having a cheap laser printer for mailings and offers.

If you want to use a colour laser to print actual photographs the advantage swings back to the inkjet printer. Although image quality has improved on laser printers, even the cheapest inkjet printer can produce better quality images than any laser printer. Especially when comparing an inkjet printer with photo cartridges to a laser, it is evident that ink is a much better material for printing images than toner. A small note to this; a colour laser printer will produce a better image quality on standard paper, as ink will run on this kind of material. This has a positive effect on the price per page, as photo paper is still a lot more expensive than standard A4 paper.