Printers

[Aisling]

Can anyone help me? My family are planning on buying a new printer as it is a vital factor in our home business. We have an old and very slow inkjet printer at the moment. My problem is I'm not sure wheather to get a fast colour inkjet or a mono laser printer. How often on average do you have to refill a laser priner with toner and would that be the only running cost (apart from paper of course)? In summary, which would be cheaper in the long run but still be good value/quality? which would be most beneficial? please help xoxo
thanks guys

[Vimialp]

IF you are planning on printing out alot of pages fast, then a laser is the way to go. If you run out of ink in the cartrage, all you have to do it hit it a few times and you can get about 1000 more pages.

[zima]

Laser printers are much, much better value IMHO. I'm always puzzled how general public is tricked into buying inkjets almost exclusivelly - probably because of their lower initiall price.
Case in point: you can buy very good used HP laser printer for 50€...or even better for 100. The rest of the money could go for inkjet if you'd absolutelly need colour prints (I didn't need them for 3 years...), but to be honest:
1. If your document (tables, etc.) needs colour to be readable, there's something wrong with the document.
2. As for photos, it's cheaper than printing to bring them on flashcard or CDR to photolab, and you get higher quality that way also...

Personally, with 200€, I'd probably buy some slightly used, very high quality laser printer. Of course you might prefer new one...

[Aisling]

Thanks for all four votes! Keep your opinions coming. To desrcibe it more, we mainly just print mono documents so we wouldn't really need colour but it moight come in handy in the future.

[shaqnup]

USamsug/U personal laser: you only need the toner

UBrother:/U The BEST! Type is clearly professional quality. CON: Every 10,000 or so you need to also buy a developer cartridge.

USpeed:/U Ink jet vs. Laser. NO COMPARISON. 20 pages per minute laser is much faster than 20 ppm ink jet.

UBest color ink jet for pictures:/U Epsom six color cartridges.

Now, I just given you knowledge that cost me thousands of dollars. Also I was a graphics arts profesional for many years....I know what I'm talking about.

[cruocitae]

Where I live, an usual cartridge for an HP inkjet is around $40 (which is a bit much, according to the min. salary which is around $80), but I buy my original Canon cartridges for $2,5. And yeah, they work great. They print up to 300 pages.. (of course, it depends of letter size and number of letters, but the average is 300).
I think this is great. Somehow I can't vote now, but I'd vote inkjet.

[tanda]

For business documents, a laser printer is the way to go. The speed, quality of printing, and cost savings over time vs inkjet will prove to be the best choice. Good luck.

[LC Trucido]

My folks got a Brother, for homeschooling purposes, and it is indeed a very nice printer for a reasonable price.

[357_magnum]

Definately go for the laser printer. They are fast, relable and resonably cost effective.

[cruocitae]

but not for 200 eur. they're more expensive. at least a good one..

if you want a Chang-Ching-Chuo Lezer Paver meed in tshajna, well, i don't stop you.