It is incredibly common for people to have printers at home these days and it is fair to say that being able to print things as and when you need to is really beneficial. If you’re interested in purchasing a printer, you will have an incredibly vast market to choose from and if you’re not an expert, it can be really difficult to know which printer you should be opting for.
Generally speaking, the vast majority of domestic printers will either be inkjet printers or laser printers and choosing between these two types of printers is the first place to start when deciding which printer to invest in. If you’ve never heard of either of these printer types and you don’t know which would be best for you to have a home, don’t worry, below is everything you need to know in order to make your decision.
What is the difference between inkjet printers and laser printers?
The main difference between inkjet printers and laser printers is the way that they print, so to speak, and the type of cartridge that they use;
Inkjet printers use ink cartridges which, as the name suggests, are filled with liquid ink. This is the most ‘traditional’ type of printer in the sense that when printing a document, tiny droplets of ink will be squirted through nozzles onto the paper. Most inkjet printers will use the ‘CMYK’ colour model to print any colour onto the paper and this means that they will use cyan, magenta, yellow and black ink cartridges.
Laser printers use toner cartridges and these are filled with a fine dry powder that is made from polyester. This type of printer is much more modern than an inkjet printer and it will use electrical charges to create the text and/or images that you’re wanting to print onto the paper. Again, laser printers will use four separate colour cartridges to create the various colours required for the document you’re printing.
What are the benefits of inkjet printers?
One of the biggest advantages of inkjet printers is that both the printer and the ink cartridges can be fairly inexpensive, and they are much cheaper than laser printers and toner cartridges. When you don’t want to spend much money on your printer, you will be able to purchase a good inkjet model from a well-known brand without breaking the bank.
When it comes to printing standard documents with normal font sizes, inkjet printers are suitable for the job and the print quality tends to be quite good. Many actually favour inkjet printers for printing colour documents and photographs, in particular, will be both vivid and detailed when you use an inkjet printer.
Simply put, if you’re going to be printing a few coloured documents on a regular basis, then an inkjet printer won’t let you down.
What are the benefits of laser printers?
Whilst laser printers are more expensive upfront, they are often more cost-effective in the long run. Toner cartridges are known for lasting longer than ink cartridges and they will usually print more pages per cartridge. Due to the fact that they don’t dry up like ink cartridges, you won’t end up throwing lots of cartridges away if you don’t use the printer very often either.
This type of printer is known for being able to print large quantities of documents with ease and very quickly too. Laser printers are frequently used in offices because they are really reliable and advancements in colour laser printers mean that they’re able to print coloured documents and photographs of reasonable quality.
When you have a slightly higher budget and you’re not going to be printing very regularly, a laser printer is probably the way to go.
Purchasing a printer to have at home
Hopefully, you will now know what inkjet printers and laser printers are and the biggest benefits of each of them. Using this information you can decide which type of printer would be most suitable for you to have at home and once you’ve done this, you can then start narrowing down the vast market and looking at the different brands and models available.
If you’re looking for somewhere to purchase a printer from, make sure you visit the Toner One website. We have a selection of printers and electronics available to purchase for incredibly reasonable prices and we can assure you that everything on our website is a genuine OEM product. Once you have purchased your printer, be sure to take a look at the different cartridges we have for sale too, we stock a huge selection of both toner cartridges and ink cartridges. Should you require any further guidance when it comes to purchasing a printer and printer ink, feel free to contact our friendly team, they’re always happy to provide knowledgeable advice.