Laser Or Inkjet?

[Clipped]

i need a really good printer...is laser really that much sharper than an inkjet? can lasers be used with regular paper?

[tjo o tjim]

Main benefit of Laser is that it is faster. Print quality isn't that much different. Laser is generally more tolerant of cheap paper than inkjet.

[percy2]

Depends what you want to print, what on and how much of.

Cheers

[sbk]

inkjet ink can run on regular paper, I have found from the paper I have bought here in Thailand.

[cdnvic]

The main advantage to laser is that for printing plain black & white pages its usually cheaper than inkjet in the long run. If you want colour, go inkjet.

But as sbk points out, paper availability/quality/price may be an issue.

[monty]

I have an Epson colour laser printer and am quite happy with it.

It doesn't print brilliant pictures on photopaper like you can with an inkjet printer, but if you just need a lot of decent quality printouts on regular paper the laser is hard to beat, especially in speed!

Price has come down a whole lot as well, the epson (c1100) can be had for 17000 Baht.

Cartridges are terribly expensive but last a very long time!

[cdnvic]

What's the quality like printing photos in black & white?

[Firefoxx]

Advantages of laser:

Ultra-crisp text and graphics on plain paper, lower TCO (total cost of ownership, but that depends on whether you bought a dinky laser printer or a workgroup printer), large volume, more capacity, speed, mostly easily networkable, dependable

Advantages of inkjet:

Awesome photos on special paper, more versatility (heavier paper, CDs, rolls, etc), lower initial cost

[monty]

Black and white pictures is pretty good as well.

Main reason why a laser can't produce excelent pictures is in the fact it can't print on photopaper.

The surface of photopaper is to smooth the tone powder won't stick to it properly.

Supposedly special photopaper for lasers exist, but haven't found any in Thailand...

[cdnvic]

Maybe a matte finish instead of glossy would work.

[Clipped]

after doing a little more research on the net, most are sayig that inkjet is better for color prints than laser.

is this true? as i always thought that lasers were suppose to be superior.

i need an excellent printer to print very detailed color material.

[cdnvic]

after doing a little more research on the net, most are sayig that inkjet is better for color prints than laser.

is this true? as i always thought that lasers were suppose to be superior.

i need an excellent printer to print very detailed color material.

Get a good quality Canon inkjet and you'll have no regrets

[monty]

For very detailed color material, an inkjet printer is definately the way to got!

Major drawback is that in the high photoquality, printing 1 A4 page can take several minutes, and will cost you an arm and leg in ink.

Printing in inksaving draft mode does not give acceptable prints, apart for own use...

Refilling the cartridges is an option, but I've always noticed a quite big reduction in quality with refilled cartridges.

If you'd need more then 30 pages a day, I'd still say the way to go is laser. The quality on regular paper is as good or better then an inkjet printer, and it's fast (5 pages/minute, highest quality).

Inkjet only ouperforms laser in quality when using the special papers...

Some other advantages on laser is better waterproofing (a drop on your page can be wiped off without taking the ink off), and color doesn't fade as fast when stickig the picture up in the sunlight for prolonged periods...

[cdnvic]

If your volume is high enough you can probably get a good deal from a local print shop.

[Firefoxx]

Color lasers, even with good laser photo paper, won't even come close to good inkjets in photo prints. They will do very well on graphics (lines, geometric shapes, etc).

Generally, TCO of lasers is better than inkjets, but it *depends*. Traditionally, "inkjets" in our minds were sub-10k baht printers, while "lasers" cost more than 10k. In those times, TCO was in the favor of lasers. Now the lines aren't so clear, since there are cheap lasers and expensive inkjets. Now, the general rule is "the cheaper it is to buy, the more expensive it is to own". Really big inkjets can print hundreds of full-page photos before needing an ink change, and really small lasers have lousy toner capacity.

But, it's still a matter of what you want to print. Photos? Inkjet, no other way. Graphics/crisp text on plain paper? Lasers.

[JustAnotherFarang]

I just bought the Samsung scx 4200 laser printer with colour scanner and photocopier for 7000 bht

Amazing quality text and very good greyscale graphics.......... check the reviews on Google.

As for inkjets, initial cost is cheaper but that little itsy witsy cartridge is sooooooo expensive and thats how the companies make their money back......... do we all really need colour ??

Its such a rip off for the individual cartridges that you dont print out in full colour as often as you might wish because the cost is so prohibitive

JAF

[friend2]

Laser is great for those that print large amounts, you definitively save alot on ink.

Another benefit is their silent.

No machine gun sounds...

[Clipped]

ok its come down to these for laser printers:

Cannon LBP 5000

HP laserjet 2600n

Epson aculaser c1100

fuji xerox 6120

fuji xerox 525 (on sale)

anyone want to give me an encouraging kick in the right direction? i'd reallly like to hear opinions from owners, regarding photo prints on plain paper.

as for inkjet, imconsidering the

Cannon iP 4200 / 5200/ 5300/ 6700

HP Officejet pro 550

any cannon/Hp inkjet users out here?

the HP is the new technology line, where they seperate the inktanks from the print head.

ButHp doesnt specify the 'pico' size for the drops of ink.

too many printers nowadays...to confusing.

[toptuan]

Traditionally, go HP for long-term reliability. Go Canon for less cost-per-page.

Incidentally, I consistently use laser printers (at work), and inkjet at home. Nearly 100% black & white.

Costs per page (b/w):

laser - 2 baht

inkjet - 4 baht

If I print color on my injket, costs go as high as 8-10 baht per page. Bloody expensive!

BUT, I bought my inkjet for 1,850 baht, new! Save now, pay later.

[The Coder]

Another difference I gather between the two technologies is the durability of the print. Laser is very rugged. Inkjet is subject to fade over time and can blur over time due to moisture. Though I have heard of more heavy duty durable inks being possible. Wow, 8-10 baht a page sounds outrageous. That's more than the cost of professionally printing photos.

[toptuan]

Wow, 8-10 baht a page sounds outrageous. That's more than the cost of professionally printing photos.

Yeah, after printing about 40-50 color sheets, you fork over about 350 baht for a combo color ink cartridge. Do the math.

[Firefoxx]

Keep in mind that this is for printing full-bleed full-color pages. Try doing full-bleed on lasers, and you'll get some pretty hefty print costs. Lasers typically are used for less than 10% coverage per page, but with inkjets and photos, you're getting nearly 100% coverage per page. It's not a fair comparison. Yes, do the math, but do it properly.

Again, the more you pay for the printer, the less you pay in the long run for ink/toner. This applies to both laser and inkjet printers. There are inkjet printers out there that can churn out hundreds of full-bleed A4 prints without needing a ink change. Conversely, there are very cheap lasers that need new toner after only a thousand pages of 5% text. Please, please, please, don't compare a dinky 3,000 baht inkjet with lasers on cost of printing. There is no comparison because you're not printing the same thing, and neither can do what the other can do well.

As for professionally printing photos, it really depends on your definition of "professional". If you're a "pro" photographer, getting a large format inkjet will actually be a lot cheaper and much more versatile than having them printed at a real "pro" shop. You also have a lot more control over the paper and output. If, however, you're the average Joe just wanting his vacation photos printed, then you can go to the local store and get them printed (since every store is doing this for a living, it's technically "professional") and save some money since your 3,000 inkjet isn't really intended for this kind of thing.

[Clipped]

i'll probably get a laser but...

studying inkjets, i wonder what it is that determines the ink usage between a budget machine and a higher dollar machine.

as i have noticed the same thing, my old Hp 895cxi would last an extremely long time per cartridge, about 6 months....but then i get this cheesy little lexmark and it runs out of ink the first week...what gives.

the Hp had way more detail also, but used less ink? seems like backwards reasoning.

heck i may get both an inkjet and a laser to solve my dilemna....but looking at the choices cannon has for the iP range of printers, the iP 4000 (cheapest photoprinter)has the same pico size drop as the higher end inkets, but if i get the lower priced iP4000 will it drink ink?

keep in mind i need the best detail on plain paper.

[Tywais]

as i have noticed the same thing, my old Hp 895cxi would last an extremely long time per cartridge, about 6 months....but then i get this cheesy little lexmark and it runs out of ink the first week...what gives.

I have a Lexmark Z55 and it has some of the sharpest photo prints I've seen. Even printing 8x10, it looks photograph quality - but, a lot depends on the quality/brand of paper you use. I finally found an excellant brand - Konica, which gives me consistant and accurate color re-production. Also water resistant. Many papers I've used (photo glossy) I tested with a drop of water and they smeared. The Konica paper, no problem.

Also, when you buy a printer most of them supply you with only a partially filled cartridge and will empty pretty fast (believe it was one or two weeks for mine). However a proper cartidge (filled) lasts me quite a long time. If you use plain paper with a ink jet it will absorb a lot more ink (bleed) and use the cartridges up pretty fast.

[monty]

Main difference between cheap and expensive inkjet printers is the size of the cartridges.

The expensive inkjet printer hold up to 50 ml in one cartridge, compared to maybe 10ml in the el cheapo cartridges.

That's 5 times more ink, in a cartridge which probably costs little more then the ones from the cheap printers.

Another difference is separate cartridges for the different colors. One color runs out, you replace one color.

On the cheaper printers the 3 colors are often combined in one cartridge, so you're forced to get a new one when maybe 1 color is at 30%, another at 50% but the third ran out...

I have an Epson Acculaser 1100C and I manage around 2000 full size (a4) color pages till the first color cartridge runs out (usually magenta). The other cartridges follow in the next 1000 prints so at a very rough calculation I'd say I manage around 2300 prints out of a complete set of cartridges, which costs 13470 Baht (3X 4490) which works out to around 6 Baht/print.

Normal mixed color & B/W printing yields between 4500 and 5000 prints out of a set of cartridges (the black cartridge costs 3300 Baht)

For me the biggest advantages are speed and ease of use, no messing around changing cartridges too much.

Do note that you have to write off your printer as well, after around 15000 to 20000 prints your photoconductor is worn out, costing a whopping 12000 Baht to replace on the epson.

I just went for a complete new printer reasoning that for 6000 Baht more I get a brand new machine including 4 toner cartridges...

[autonomous_unit]

We have an HP OfficeJet 7130 (inkjet with scanner and copy mode) and have found that its color printing has degraded. My theory is that we did not use it enough and some ink has dried out in the color print-head (it has separate color and black print heads and ink cartridges). After a couple of "clean print head" cycles, it got a bit better but more cycles after that did not improve things further. It prints streaks when I run a color test page that should be printing some smooth gradations of color. The black ink, on the other hand, seems fully functional.

We've only been through about 3 ink sets in two years, having used it almost exclusively for office printing and photocopying of documents. We only printed a few test photos in the months when we first bought it. It can get a burst of use for a few days and then sit idle for the rest of the month. I do leave it in standby mode because I have noticed that it makes sounds like it is pumping some ink through every day or so, and I figure that is good for it...

All of this is to say that the duty cycle of the printer is also important in considering the cost of ownership and durability. Knowing what I know now, I might have considered a laser for our purposes. Or, at least I would have sent periodic color prints to keep the ink paths open (perhaps once or twice a week). A drawback to the laser is that it consumes MUCH more electrical power.

[Clipped]

thanx for the replies, Monty how does that epson stand up to inkjets when printing photos on regular paper?

lexmark has left a bad taste in my mouth with the 2 week ink cartridge ordeal.

[Clipped]

thanx for the replies, Monty how does that epson stand up to inkjets when printing photos on regular paper?

i looked at a sample print from a laser one time, and it had a distinct style to it, kinda waxy, but then i checked out another sample and the texture was like an inkjet..whats the texture like for that epson you have there?

lexmark has left a bad taste in my mouth with the 2 week ink cartridge ordeal.

thanx

[monty]

You could call them slightly waxy...

In my opinion the color prints on normal paper are better then what an inkjet produces. The inkjets really nead photopaper to produce the brilliant pics they are renowned for...

It was a bit of a gamble for me when I bough, since they couldn't show me any sample pictures...

All in all I'm pretty happy with it...

Some reviews for you:

http://www.trustedreviews.com/printers/rev...aser-Printer/p1

http://www.pcpro.co.uk/shopper/reviews/696...aser-c1100.html

[Clipped]

oh good, thats exactly what i wanted to hear, i think you just closed the deal for me...laser it is....but now to choose which laser....

i wonder if i can trust 'trustedreviews' hmmmmm......

Edited January 7, 2007 by Clipped