And which is better for basic, every day things?
I’ve been looking into getting a printer for my home office, but frankly I’m confused at the different printer options and the differences between them.
Please help!
In: Technology
Inkjet Printers use liquid ink that is sprayed onto the paper through tiny nozzles. The ink dots are arranged drop by drop to form the image or text. Inkjets offer a wide color gamut, making them ideal for photo printing. They are generally more affordable and suitable for home use due to their lower initial cost, but ink refills can be expensive.
Laser Printers use toner powder that is electrically charged and then attracted to the areas of the paper where it is needed to form an image or text. Lasers are faster than inkjets, especially for larger print jobs. They produce sharper text and images with better contrast, making them suitable for business documents. However, laser printers have higher upfront costs and consume more energy.
Inkjet printers use liquid ink. Generally the cartridges are smaller (there are printers that you can just fill a tank with ink, but most domestic printers have replaceable cartridges), and if you don’t use the printer very often the nozzle part can get clogged and need to run a cleaning cycle to fix that. Inkjet printers tend to be cheaper to buy but slower/more expensive to print larger volumes.
Laser printers use toner powder that is fixed to the page with the application of heat. Laser printers tend to be bigger, the toner cartridges last longer and need less maintenance cycles, but may be more difficult to maintain at home due to the heated parts. Laser printers are faster and cheaper to print large volumes but more expensive to set up initially.
To add to what others have said. I’ve found inkjets are a huge pain if you aren’t printing regularly. If you don’t print anything for months you are pretty much guaranteed that the ink will have dried up. I’ve been using the same laser cartridge for years with no issues. Just a bit more expensive up front. But the darn inkjets I would literally have to replace every time I printed (once every few months)
For regular home office use, a small laser mfp (multifunctionprinter) machine is to be recommend. Since you can make copies and scan stuff etc. They cost a little more, and take up a little more space. But, it’s worth it.
Just avoid HP as they’re becoming assholes more than before.
To add to what others have said the other thing is cost.while laser printers are more expensive, ink refills can be absurdly expensive, and there’s massive fuckery going on with things like subscription services, and the inability to print black if another ink cartridge is empty.
If you can, go laser. If you can’t, it may well be cheaper to just pay for a web service to print and mail your documents.
tl;dr: Just get a Brother laser printer. Either Verge or wirecutter has more a more specific standard recommendation.
All inkjets are shit because (a) they clog themselves up if you don’t use them quite frequently, (b) they use absurd amounts of ink to try to unclog themselves, (c) the ink is stupidly expensive, and (d) the manufacturers do lots of annoying bullshit stuff that makes your life harder to try to make it more difficult to use cheaper third-party ink.
Non-Brother laser printers are shit because they do a bunch of annoying bullshit to make it more difficult to use third-party toner cartridges.
I had a samsung inkjet. Comes cheap but maintaining it is costly. Now i have brother laser jet. Havn’t had to worry a bit about maintainence. Go for laser jet without second thought.
https://www.theverge.com/2024/4/2/24117976/best-printer-2024-home-use-office-use-labels-school-homework
> *After a full year of not thinking about printers, the best printer is still whatever random Brother laser printer that’s on sale.*
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