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Are laser printers cheaper to run the deskjet printers?
I think black and white lasers are, but I'm not sure about colour?
By "cheaper", I'm assuming you mean the inks.
Not sure how many prints a laser printer will do, but I do know that the ink is a lot more expensive. Laser will give you better quality.
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Yeah I meant the inks. I know the laser cartridges are more expensive, but they'll also do a lot more pages than a deskjet cartridge.
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having owned both laserjet and inkjet it will cost about the same for the price of ink but the laserjet is higher quality and faster printing
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Is that for a colour laser?
I've heard that laser printers aren't as good for printing photos and such, is that true?
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You can buy Photo Quality Laser Printers Steve.
The cost of ink carts and laser toner is so variable, surely it is a hypothetical question.....
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It's apples and oranges. Printers are usually rated at pages of standard output per cartridge. However the rub is that the standard output is somewhat less than 5% coverage. When was the last time you saw a photograph or graphic at that density? I have used both color inkjets and color lasers and the cost of both on high density subjects can exceed 75 cents a page. On monochrome text output it is possible to print 5 times the pages with a laser. The biggest problem is that the cost of high yield laser cartridges both monochrome and color puts a big dent in the wallet. $150 or more for monochrome (7-10,000 pages) and up to $500 for set of 4 for color.
If you are doing photographs, I find inkjets better. Lasers are OK for graphics. Lasers can't be beat for text.
If you have a color laser you are tempted to use it. That's how I got mine. An office gave it to me after they found the cost of operation with the employees playing around.
The cost of printing is usually not the cost of the printer but the cost of supplies. I tend to favor HP because the cost per page is low and you still can get toner at the office warehouse 10 years later. There can be a 3 to 1 difference in the cost of operation. So if you print a lot check your estimated cost per year.
Other factors in the choice of a printer is the interface (parallel, USB, network) and the printer language (emulation). I can't use USB with a lot of my computers. I also have a lot of non-Windows systems so GDI printers are out.
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I think you really cannot make a blanket statement about which is more economical, and need to get into specifics of brands.
Before I bought my HP color laser, I cehecked out cartridge prices of the various lower priced printers comparing HP, Samsung and Minolta. the other thing I looked at was availaility of the cartridges. I found that while the usage was the same, many incloude starter cartridges with purchase which do a really small number of prints, and the cartridges for color and black can easily be more money than the printer. HP cartridges are far more plentifull and the prices are much more competitive, plus their printers ship with full cartridges as well.
When I compare my HP 2500 to inkjet, my cartridge for black I get for around $65.
My Epson C84 black cartridge is around $30.
There is no question in my mind that to print as much with the ink jet would easily cost me 4 times as much as the laser, and I have looked at exactly that.In fact in the year I have had the laser printer, I have never changed the black cartridge, and it is still 1/2 full and I print maybe 500 sheets a month on it. So it depends on specific models, really. oh and I never refill cartridges or use generic ones!
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