Walnut Creek, CA – Printer Education | What Printer Should I Buy? | Printing

Here at Laser Printer Resource, we are often asked the question: What printer should I buy?

Generally speaking, even a home office will see savings on imaging costs with the purchase of a laser printer. Although the initial cost of printer and toner cartridges are more than those of inkjet printers, a laser printer uses ink far more efficiently than an inkjet printer. For example, one of the smallest laser printers, the HP P1006, has a toner cartridge that prints 1500 pages per cartridge, while the HP 4000 has cost-effective recycled toner cartridges available that prints 10,000 pages per cartridge.

By contrast, the HP 61 inkjet cartridge will print only 190 pages, and the larger HP 94 prints 480 pages.
Also, printers tend to break. When they break is often sadly predictable: about a year after the purchase, after the standard warranty has expired. Even worse, Laser Printer Resource usually cannot fix these printers. Not only do the manufacturers not offer the parts for printer service centers, but fixing the printer usually is not worth it. The inkjet printer usually costs about as much as a printer repair call.

So, in summary, inkjet printers tend to have higher printing costs and to be less reliable than laser printers. For a fast, reliable machine, we recommend the purchase of a laser printer.