Choosing your Laser Printer

Inkjet or laser printer?

There are inkjet printers and there are laser printers – so which one is the right one for you? When you do an inkjet versus laser printer comparison, you will find that there is not much of a price difference when you opt for the basic models. However, if you go for the top end products, an inkjet printer will cost you less than a laser printer. However, in terms of printing quality, especially graphics, laser printers are much better than their inkjet counterparts. A colour laser printer also produces more vivid colours than an inkjet printer. If speed is so importance to you, a laser printer should always be your choice. The only reason why you should choose an inkjet printer over a laser one is because of the ongoing higher costs of a laser printer.

Monochrome or colour laser printer?

It is not that you have to buy a colour laser printer all the time. If you only need to print documents, then a monochrome laser printer is good enough for you. But if you need to print coloured documents and graphics, then opt for a laser printer that allows printing in colour. You should make sure that you buy a printer with a moderate toner cost because otherwise you will end up spending a lot on printing.

Consider a multifunction laser printer

Another point for you to consider is your requirement. Do you want a laser printer for printing only or do you want a machine that can also do additional jobs? You could have requirements like copying, scanning and faxing and for this, a multifunction printer is your requirement. A multifunction laser printer is a machine that can perform all these jobs. Hence, you save space and time – there is no need for you to run to a different machine for printing, copying, scanning and faxing.

Four points related to paper in laser printers

As far as paper handling is concerned, there are four points for you to keep in mind.

The standard paper size is A4 and all printers support this size of paper. But at times, you may also require printing on A3 sheets. So, look for a printer that supports printing on different sizes of paper sheets.

The speed of your laser printer is an important point. Usually laser printers are much faster than inkjet printers but even in laser printers, the ppm (page per minute) value differs. Calculate how much printing you need to do and choose your laser printer accordingly.

The third point is about the size of the paper tray. You don’t want to replace the paper in the tray every day and thus, you should choose a printer that can contain more than the standard 250 sheets of paper.

The last point is about duplex printing. This is a feature that allows you to print on both sides of a single sheet of paper without having to turn the sheet over manually.

Connectivity and convenience

You should consider connectivity because you will want to connect your printer through WAN and Bluetooth. This will not only reduce the clutter of wires, but also allow you to print directly from your laptop or handheld device.

Performance-related points in laser printers

Buy a laser printer that is easy to use and has a limited number of buttons. You should also consider the LED display where the job queue and other piece of information are shown. In terms of performance, consider the amount of noise your laser printer makes and the amount of electricity it consumes.

Which laser printers for which use?

A multifunction laser printer provides you the ease of printing, copying, scanning and faxing and hence, it makes sense to invest in one. The top multifunction laser printers in Canada include Brother DCP-L2540DW, HP LaserJet Pro M201dw, Canon ImageCLASS MF6180DW, Kyocera ECOSYS M6535cidn and Lexmark MS610DTN.

If you go by brand names (and you should!), Brother is a name you have to consider in laser printers. Some of the top selling models of Brother laser printers are Brother HL-L2360DW, Brother DCP-L2540DW, Brother HL-L2320D, Brother HL-L8350CDW and Brother HL-3170CDW.

HP is another big name in laser printers and their bestselling models in this product category are HP Color LaserJet Pro M252dw, HP LaserJet Pro M201dw, HP Color LaserJet Enterprise M553dn, HP LaserJet P3015DN and HP LaserJet Pro 400 M401dne.

The top Samsung laser printers are Samsung Printer Xpress SL-M2835DW, Samsung SL-M2020W, Samsung ML-5515ND, Samsung Xpress SL-C410W and Samsung ProXpress SL-M3820DW.