Inkjet Printer
vs.
Laser Printer

Using the sliders, set the importance of each aspect.
Choozza will then find the best product for you.

Inkjet Printer

2
Cost
2
Extras
2
Paper Variety
2
Photo Printing
2
Size and Weight
2
Text Printing
2
Volume Printing

Laser Printer

Inkjet Printer

Inkjet printers work by shooting tiny droplets of ink onto the printing paper. The ink is stored in removable and usually disposable ink cartridges. Color inkjet printers will normally have four such cartridges - one for black ink and three others of different colors.
Cartridges are usually replaced and can sometimes be refilled.

Laser Printer

Laser printers usea a laser beam to process the images they print. The laser printer uses toner - which is a dry powder placed on the paper using electric charges.
The toner is encased in a disposable cartridge which is replaced when required.

Cost

Initially, inkjet printers are quite cheap. It's the ink cartridges that cost the bulk of money (and this is usually how the manufacturers make their earnings). The cost of running an inkjet printer over time is far more expensive than a laser printer. As your printing volumes build up, so do your expenses, and ink cartridges are more expensive then toner for the same amount of prints. Third party ink suppliers are almost always cheaper than getting ink from the original manufacturer. So you probably want to ensure you have this option if you're going for an inkjet. The general rule of thumb is that the cheaper the printer, the more expensive the disposable costs for the cartridges.
While more expensive upfront, Laser printers are cheaper in the long run. This is more true the more you print. This holds for black and white laser printers, and for when you are mainly going to print text pages. Colour laser printers are significantly more expensive, and depending on your print volumes and what you print, may not be such a good buy.

Extras

Almost all inkjet printers have memory card readers built in. This is very handy for printing photos directly, without a computer. Inkjets very commonly come in the "all-in-one" variety where you get a scanner and a photocopier as well as a printer. It is less common for home-grade inkjets to have wireless connectivity. This is mainly because inkjets don't normally have memory and must use memory from a computer they are hooked up to. This means that while an inkjet can be shared on a home network, and all computers can print to it, it can not work individually.
Laser printers are usually just printers. While you can find models that have memory-card readers and models that have a scanner and a copier in an "all-in-one" combo, they are not as cheap and widespread as their inkjet counterparts. On the other hands, laser printers always have their own memory, which makes them good candidated for being independant printers. Coupled with wireless networking capabilities, a laser printer can be added to your home network stand-alone - you do not need to hook it up to a computer in order to use it.

Paper Variety

Inkjet printers can normally print on many different paper types. They can do regular A4 papers, but also smaller A5, envelopes, glossy papers for photos, transparencies, etc.
Laser printers for home use usually have only one paper size - A4. This is very handy when all you print are text documents, but less so if you'd like to print your photos on glossy papers, envelopes, party invitations, etc.

Photo Printing

Inkjets excel at photo printing, especially when performed on specialty glossy photo paper. The colors and resolution provided by even simple models may be quite stunning and the top-end home printers can produce photos or graphs at an almost professional level. Most models sold today have slots for camera memory cards and take a variety of paper types, some of which are specific for photo printing. The only downsides are the slowness of printing and the fact that for some models, very few photos may require you to change ink cartridges.
Home grade laser printers use ink for color photos and graphics, and are really not well suited for printing photos. The quality is poor and they can not usually use the special paper types sold for photo printing.

Size and Weight

Most inkjet printers are compact and lightweight. They can be easily moved around the house if required, and do not take up too much space on the desk. Many people store the printer away and take it out to hook up to their computer only when they need it, thereby avoiding clutter in their work area.
Laser printers are generally heavy and rather on the large side. The size and weight are affected by the imaging drum, toner cartridge which is usually larger than the several unk cartridges of the inkjet, and the laser technology encasement. Laser printers are not easy to move about the house, and most people find that they need to set a permanent space for them in their work area. That being said, newer models targetted at home users are getting smaller and smaller.

Text Printing

Most inkjet printers sold for home use today provide good-enough quality for text prints. However, they can't match laser printers in clarity and quality of text and fonts. This is especially true for larger fonts where most inkjets fail to provide flawless letters. Freshly printed pages are a bit wet, and care should be taken to let them dry for a short while so as not to smear the ink.
Laser printers normally boast very high and very accurate print quality. The reason for that is that the laser printers generally have higher print resolution, and can lend more sharpness to the text they print. The fine print in laser printers is really fine.

Volume Printing

Inkjet printers print relatively slow and are not really designed for high volume printing. Additionally, the ink on the printed paper is still a bit wet when the paper emerges from the printer, and this could mess up large printing volumes. On top of that, the paper feed tray usually holds a smaller amount of pages than the laser printers' trays, meaning you may have to stop and reload paper half-way through a big document. All in all, the occasional hundred pages document is fine, but if you're going to print these amounts a few times a week - you may want to opt for another printer.
Laser Printers print fast and they are excellent at handling those large volumes. The text quality they produce is a lot better than what you get with most inkjets, and the printed papers do not have wet ink on them, and are less susceptible to smears.

Inkjet Printer

Laser Printer

Inkjet Printer

Average rating: 3.5 / 5
based on 288 customer reviews
Feel factor: 6


HP 3360 Printer

(Score 5/5)

Easy to set up and easy to operate. Great quality print including excellent color quality. A superb jp,e pffoce [rpdict/

Posted on: 2010-07-23
By AlanR



Devil Printer

(Score 1/5)

1. Devil Printer can only take about 10 sheets at a time, forcing you to constantly reload.
2. Devil Printer always interrupts what you're doing to see if it can download upgrades for its software. Said upgrades then cause Windows to crash.
3. Devil Printer will not stop telling you "it's ready!"
4. Devil Printer has a nasty habit of grabbing two sheets at a time and printing on 10% of one; 90% of the other, thereby ruining your print job.

Posted on: 2010-05-06
By Caraculiambro
Helpful index: 100%



Good by HP

(Score 1/5)

I have had several HP printers over the years starting with a HP 660 and have had good luck with them all. ( We still have a 722c that's 7 years old and still working ) But this 6310 is testing my patience. Right out of the box it would not recognize the black cartridge that came with it so, first thing I had to do was go buy a cartridge. Then tech support had me jumping through hoops for three days to fix all the problems. I don't mind spending some time to get a product working but when you pay for a printer, you expect it to work right out of the box not days or weeks later. I have reloaded the software several times ( lost count really ) and every time we try to print, a box comes up to tell me there is no printer and the printer feeds a blank sheet then the next sheet prints ?? The ink is very expensive and refills will not be recognized by the machine. The fax stopped working about a month ago at an inopportune time when a doctor was faxing important data. After 5 try's I told them to mail it. Very disappointed good by HP time to try something else.

Posted on: 2010-04-28
By Terry in Florida



More HP junk, pure and simple

(Score 1/5)

Just like the 6210, this has the dreaded "carriage jam" issue, which means you should avoid it like the PLAGUE. HP has become terrible when it comes to printers, and you'd be better off lopping your fingers off and writing your documents up with all the spraying blood seeing as it would be less painful than dealing with either the 62/6310 series.

Save yourself the infinite grief and just avoid at all costs. You have been warned.

Posted on: 2010-04-23
By John L. Williams
Helpful index: 100%



Ok printer, Ink costs will get you

(Score 2/5)

First off the main reason we bought this printer was to make our wedding invitations with it. We started with the 6200 series, but that printer wouldn't pull paper in straight for the life of it, so the resulting print was slanted on the page, and never at a predictable angel. We returned it and switched to this printer 3 1/2 years ago. It worked for what we needed, but never really wowed us. We were printing on vellum, which we know doesn't absorb the ink as well. We had troubles with the little bristles that stick down after the output rollers smearing the ink on some of the prints.

In the years to follow, we had the printer on a network, and constantly had problems with the printer showing itself offline. We would have to turn it on, and reset the network about 50%-60% of the time we wanted to print.

In our experience a typical ink cartridge would only last for about 100 pages, so for us I would estimate our print costs to be about $0.25/page. We only used the printer for very light duty, probably 30 pages/month, and just last month we got an error message "Power Reset." Tried turning it off and back on, got the same error again, tried unplugging it, didn't work. Tried a few more times, then it started showing the same error, and turning it's self off, but kept the camera light blinking. soon it wouldn't even attempt to turn on. So I got online and searched for a solution, and found out how to do 4 different types of reset, Tried each, and on the full reset, I got it to power on, but all I got was the "Power Reset" error and every light blinked, and it beeped continuously. So I called HP, they said they couldn't help me because it was out of warranty. Said they could sell me a service plan, but weren't confident they could fix it. There solution was "Why don't you buy a new printer?"

I'm only really upset because from a $250 printer you would expect to get more than 1500 pages through it before it fails. It wasn't abused with heavy use. The actual hardware is in great shape and worked fine, it was only the software we ever really had problems with.

Guess HP was right, now I'm shopping for a new printer, But I'm not shopping for a HP.

Posted on: 2010-04-05
By Tyler Maricich
Helpful index: 100%

Laser Printer

Average rating: 4.0 / 5
based on 577 customer reviews
Feel factor: 7


Great product, lousy set up process

(Score 4/5)

This is a nice, budget-friendly laser printer with a lot of networking options. Unfortunately, setting these options up with the included software is a royal pain. I have a simple wireless home network with a Linksys router and two laptops, and it took me 6 hours to get the printer working properly, mainly because I foolishly followed the included documentation and setup software. If setting up your printer near your router, ignore the wireless network option and go straight for the wired network. After 6 hours, I could not get the wireless and wired options to work because the driver setup would not detect the printer. I read online an alternate way to set up using the wired network, and it worked perfectly.

For those interested in buying this printer for a simple wireless setup like mine, you'll save yourself some headache by installing the BRAdmin Light program included on the driver CD and running it to ensure it detects the printer. Plug your printer into your router using an ethernet cable. You should then be able to install the drivers using the wired network option and providing the IP for the printer (can be found using the BRAdmin program). This works on XP and Vista. I never did get the completely wireless setup to work, but since my printer is right next to the router, I really don't need to.

Print speed is decent, the monochrome print quality is good, and the compact size is nice. No autoduplex though, which is to be expected at this price. I also found generic high yield toner cartridges for about $20 after shipping on Amazon, so all in all, its a good pickup.

Posted on: 2010-09-03
By bcarraway



Great for Windows XP/7 and Ubuntu Linux

(Score 5/5)

I simply can't say enough good things about this printer. I first set up the wireless using Windows XP and in Ubuntu 10.04. The XP install was far more complicated (though admittedly straightforward). In Ubuntu it is as simple as System -> Administration -> Printing -> Add New Printer. Search for printers on the network and it will appear in the list on the left pane. Then just select it and Ubuntu will download the drivers.

The printer is fast, fairly quiet, and prints very nicely. What a deal!

Posted on: 2010-09-01
By J H



good for an inexpensive laser

(Score 3/5)

This little laser does the job nicely for my husband, who needs a laser for his work. It has a small footprint, is speedy and very basic. He's happy. The price was more than right, about half what it was selling for elsewhere. It's not nearly as noisy as the inkjet I just junked.

Posted on: 2010-08-31
By Karyl Hubbard
Helpful index: 0%



Read the instructions

(Score 5/5)

This little fellow is a remarkable value. I am a Mac user (Snow Leopard system) and had allotted extra time for installation in view of some cautions from earlier reviewers. To my delight, I followed the instructions for a wired installation and it was running smoothly in just a few minutes. With extra time and an inflated confidence, I decided to add wireless capability for my second Mac, a laptop, which I really didn't need. I went from computer master to grasshopper in one click as now nothing worked including the original installation. Hours later, after downloading printer drivers from both the Brother and Mac web sites, I was no further along. Belatedly working through the detailed installation manual, I found near the end some reset instructions in the "Network" section. These included restarting the computer and pressing the "Go" button seven times. I did this, feeling like a witch from MacBeth, ran everything from scratch and was back in business.

Posted on: 2010-08-29
By Alton Crowell
Helpful index: 100%



Love it, GET ONE!!

(Score 5/5)

IT has been almost a year since we bought this printer. LOVE IT!!!!!!
We have a few small business and print a ton. After I put tape on the toner it seems to print forever. I can't tell you exactly, but I KNOW our ink cost are way down.I have only had three paper jams. The wireless is a little tricky unless you hook it right up to the hub. Speed is great...it goes to sleep to save power. I love it so much I just bought another for my parents who have a lawn mowing business. I would buy it again in without a second thought.

CONS:


Okay, that is all.

Posted on: 2010-08-29
By B. Hanson

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