Laser or Inkjet - Need a quality home printer

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Dark Prodigy

Jawbreaker
Joined
Mar 10, 2006
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2,803
There's too many damn printer choices out there. Need to replace my aging Brother inkjet printer. Have been reading and researching for quite a while now.. but just can't narrow it down.

1. I need NICE print quality... "near" professional quality, for printing brochures and marketing quality small manuals with graphics.

2. I need automatic duplex (two-sided) printing.

3. speed not too much of a concern.

4. small and compact, not a big n chunky

5. around $400 or less

6. wired or wireless networking

Can an inkjet printer give me the quality and features I need ... as they are cheaper. Or do I have to break the bank on a laser printer....
 
Where do you want to break the bank? Initial investment, or upkeep. A good inkjet will run a similar price as a laser, and then you spend $50 on ink carts every month.

For speedy black/White and economy there are some great lasers out there for only $100 that are wireless and duplex a la Brother 2270DW. Color and speed and duplexing make things much more expensive.

Don't be fooled, inkjets are as much or more expensive over the life of the machine. Within a year, if you print often, you'll have spent the purchase price of the inkjet in ink carts.
 
Skripka said:
Don't be fooled, inkjets are as much or more expensive over the life of the machine. Within a year, if you print often, you'll have spent the purchase price of the inkjet in ink carts.
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And you'll likely be buying another in a couple years. Laser printers are (in my experience anyway) more durable than inkjets.

Where I work people will go through inkjets in 2-3 years. The laser printers are normally around 7-10 years old.
 
BigJayDogg3 said:
And you'll likely be buying another in a couple years. Laser printers are (in my experience anyway) more durable than inkjets.

Where I work people will go through inkjets in 2-3 years. The laser printers are normally around 7-10 years old.
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Depends on how nice the machine was IME. I had an HP Colorsmart 6280 that lasted for a solid 5-6 years. And was a great speedy printer that did color and everything ... and would drink $50 in ink every 4-5 weeks. machine was $400-500 when new

More expensive devices seem to last longer...most people don't drop the coin for nicer ink-vampires.
 
My main concern is print quality. I don't mind spending the $$ on ink, just as long as the print quality is excellent. What is the quality difference between inkjet and laser in the sub $400 range... COLOR printing.
 
Dark Prodigy said:
My main concern is print quality. I don't mind spending the $$ on ink, just as long as the print quality is excellent. What is the quality difference between inkjet and laser in the sub $400 range... COLOR printing.
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At $400 you're shopping the bottom of the heap of color duplexing lasers, and all else being equal an inkjet at that price will probably put out nicer prints in more formats. There are lots of inkjets that do what you want without a regard for speed much cheaper. I'm a brother fan, HPs devices also do nicely tho their driver packages are insanely bloated.
 
if you buy your ink at supermediastore.com its like $9 for a set of ink for my cannon mp560
 
IMO, color laser is very expensive and not economical even when compared to inkjets.

If you dont need speed, pick up an Epson Workforce Pro (4540 or 4530 depending on paper needs). Both duplex IIRC, and both have a 20,000+ monthly duty cycle. We have one on each floor and compared to our Xerox, Ricoh, and HP Color laser's,
The Epson's quality easily matches the laser's, and it is a multifunction as well.

Obviously the laser printers are much much faster (I would say around twice as fast with duplexing), but they were also $500+.

The Workforce Pro's go for 200-300 depending pretty much on your paper needs - they are really similar internally.
 
HP CP2025DN color laserjet. Under $400. Toners run $100-120 genuine HP but last 2000-4000 pages or more
 
Something else to consider is that printouts from inkjets run if they get wet, printouts from laser printers don't.
 
If we are talking printed picture quality then a good inkjet will typically run circles around even a great laser. Most of the major brands also have no smear/run ink but do be prepared to pay.
 
bigddybn said:
If we are talking printed picture quality then a good inkjet will typically run circles around even a great laser. Most of the major brands also have no smear/run ink but do be prepared to pay.
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I agree (having had color lasers home and work for over a decade). Color lasers will do not produce as good of qulaity of photos but great for everything else.
 
Thanks for the replies men. I did some extended testing of some color laser and inkjet printers at my local office supply stores.

I took some .bmp, .jpeg and other graphical w/ text files on a thumb drive to test purely quality of prints. I'll say this: there's no substitute for laser quality printing on laser printers $500+ (the HP color laser printers I tested were awesome). The problem is that they are big, ugly and not very suitable for a home environment.
Inkjet printers are smaller and more compact and excel at photo quality prints specifically on semi-glossy/glossy paper. However, the caveat is that NEED to use glossy type paper to have good quality. I didn't have a problem with text on either formats.

After a few days and the employees of my local office supply shops and my chic were simply tired of me, I decided to buy an HP Envy 110 w/ 3yr extended warranty for $149 @ my local Staples. Its sleek and full of features with above average print quality.

Couple of pics:

DSC_0005-7.jpg


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We'll see how it goes from here.
 
almost every inkjet sucks at photos. very few are very good.

the only thing inkjet is better at than laser is photos.

the decision is clear as day if you don't need super good photos.
 
I bit the bullet and bought the Brother HL-4570CDW color laser. Its bulky, not small, but does everything you talked about. Photos are acceptable, everything else is fantastic. Duplex etc is easy and the toner lasts a long time for me. Biggest advantage, and the primary reason I bought it- Inkjets dry up when you dont use them for a month or two, lasers dont. My printing is sporadic and sometimes I print a lot, sometimes nothing for a long time. Lasers do fine with that. I ended up spending about $350 if I remember correctly on a decent sale. The only thing I wish is that I dropped another $100 and bought an all-in-one printer with fax/scanner etc.
 
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