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I’m firmly in the laser camp here. In college I bought an HP LaserJet 5. It was old then, well past EOL, but was fully functional and previous owners had added
by hnbear 4y ago
I’m firmly in the laser camp here.
In college I bought an HP LaserJet 5. It was old then, well past EOL, but was fully functional and previous owners had added a network card, so Icould add it to my appartment’s network and we all shared it. It printed thousands of pages with no trouble at all.
Recently after starting to WFH I realized how much I like reading contracts or longer docs on actual paper, and how much the kids ask to print work out. I’ve never had an inkjet last more than a year. I found a Canon C743 online second hand, and it’s printed flawlessly and quickly for several years now. It was $175 down from $450, not much more than a high end ink jet. I scan a lot more than I print too, so the AIO is great.
Lasers have quick print times, even better in volume, much more serviceable, don’t dry out, ink lasts ages, etc. the biggest issue with inkjets is that you need to use them often or they dry out, and the cartridges don’t hold much either. To infrequent printers they’re effectively single-use.
Inkjets typically sell themselves on photo quality, but photos are far more economically printed at better quality and consistency at a CVS or Walgreens. Typically our local stores do same day printing of basic photos for very very little, far less than inkjet ink.
- pkulak 4y agoI only did laser too, for years, until I checked out the new high capacity ink jet printers. It’s pretty much just an ink jet that you pay full price for (over $300), and it has huge buckets each of CMYK. When they run out, you buy new ones in bottles the size of a small mustard container for under 20 bucks. Now I get color on every page, and those wonderful, ink jet blacks I’ve been missing. And per page, it’s cheaper! Those laser cartridges are really expensive. Sure, it’s slow per page, but I only print a page or two at a time. Oh, and you refill the ink, not replace the cartridge. So if the printer company ever decides to charge $100 for a refill, sourcing it somewhere else should be trivial.
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- tinus_hn 4y agoNote that the old LaserJets consume a very large amount of energy, even when not in use.
- merry_flame 4y agoLasers have quick print times, even better in volume, much more serviceable, don’t dry out, ink lasts ages, etc. → all these problems have been solved by the Epson Ecotank series as far as I'm concerned. Laser printers are terrible in terms of interior air pollution and idle current.