Laser Printers

Compared to inkjet printers, laser printers have lower operating costs, print faster, and are more suitable for printing stacks of documents. On the other hand, their photo printing is a bit worse. Not sure if you should choose a multifunction, B&W, or colour laser printer? Read on.

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Multifunction Laser Printers

Multifunction laser printers serve as copiers and scanners at the same time, saving you space and money, since buing an all-in-one device is cheaper than buying them all separately. You can choose from colour and black and white printers. A multifunction laser printer is suitable for offices, schools, businesses, but also households with higher printing needs.

All devices in one.
Takes up less space - can fit on a single shelf.
More environmentally friendly.

Can only carry out one task at a time.

Black and White Laser Printers

Black and white laser printers are ideal choice for printing lots of text documents. Laser printer toners (pigments) cost less and their printing speed is exceptional.

Ideal for high-volume printing.
Fastest printers.
Cheaper printing costs.

No colour printing.

Colour Laser Printers

Colour laser printers come in handy when black and white simply aren't enough - for example, if you want to print documents with colour-coded graphs, charts, pictures, and other graphical elements.

Colour printing.
Colourful presentations are more effective.
Photo printing.

More expensive toner refills.
Worse photo quality.

Laser multifunction printer
Multifunction Laser Printers

Black and White Laser Printers

Color laser printer
Colour Laser Printers

Ink Tank Laser Printers

Ink tank laser printers are notable for their exceptionally low printing costs. This solution does not require you to replace any toner cartridges - the printer has an ink tank system that you can refill as any other tank. Some printer models can print several thousand pages without needing any refill at all.

Printing Technology - LED or Laser Printers?

In addition to standard laser printers, you can also find LED models. How does a laser printer work and what type should you choose?

LED printers are simpler and faster

A LED printer has a fixed LED instead of a laser. This means the overall construction is simpler and doesn't have any moving parts, making it less vulnerable to mechanical faults and easy to maintain - you can just open the cover and clean the diodes with a cloth.

Laser printers provide higher print quality

Laser printers prints using one laser beam. This printer type includes moving parts, which is reflected in higher service costs. When cleaning the printer, you need to disassemble the entire laser unit.

How does a laser printer differ from an inkjet printer?

While an inkjet model uses ink cartridge, a laser printer use toners. Printer drums are also part of the consumables. Once you start to notice significantly worse print quality, it's time to replace the drum.

Which parameters to consider when choosing a laser printer?

Laser printers have many different features and parameters.

When choosing a laser printer, paper size is key

Conventional laser printers can handle standard A4 paper sizes. You will often come across models that support the two most popular formats at once, namely A4 and A5. When buying a printer, carefully consider what paper you need and use. For example, if you often print posters, plans, and design drawings, buy a large-format printer.

Paper Format	A0	A1	A2	A3	A4	A5
Size in mm	841 × 1189	841 × 594	420 × 594	420 × 297	210 × 297	210 × 148

Laser printer resolution - How to determine printing quality

The resolution is given in DPI (dots per inch). The higher this value, the better the printing quality. If you want to print photos, you should opt for a higher printer resolution.

You need a resolution of 4,800 × 1,200 DPI or higher to print photos.
For ordinary text documents, 600 × 600 DPI is more than enough.

Sometimes, you just need to print a lot. If you are buying a printer for a large office or another similarly busy workplace, take the maximum monthly duty cycle into account.

Laser printer speed really pays off if you print a lot

Everyone wants to have things done as quickly as possible, and this also applies to laser printers, which print faster than inkjet models by design. The speed usually varies depending on the type of printing. If you check printer parameters, you will usually find the following numbers:

First page out is how much time it takes for the printer to deliver the first printed page after receiving the print data.
Black and white print speed means the number pages printed in black and white the printer can produce in one minute. This information is also given for colour printing, which is usually slower.

Be sure to consider the size of the laser printer. Some species are suitable for desk placement, while others are expected to stand alone on the floor.

Laser Printer Interfaces

Laser printers tend to have three main interface types:

USB is an universal interface supported by all household computers; enables printing from one device only.
LAN allows you to print from all PCs in the network, which is particularly useful for businesses with a large number of users.
WiFi laser printers bring wireless network connection using WiFi technology.

Scanner Is an Integral Laser Printer Component

Laser printers can also serve as scanners, integrating multiple useful devices into one.

Laser Printer Scanner Types

Laser printer scanners come in two varieties.

Flatbed Laser Printer Scanner

The flatbed type is the most common. The scanner creates a scan after you place a paper sheet on the glass.

Allows you to scan paper sheets and larger prints.

You need to scan each sheet separately.

Sheet-Fed Laser Printer Scanner

The sheet-fed type scanner is often used in large laser printer models for businesses. As the name suggests, it works by moving the paper across a stationary scan head after you load it into the tray.

Enables you to load multiple sheets in the tray at once.

Rarely supports anything except the A4 paper format.

Other Laser Printer Features

A laser printer may also have other useful features and functions.

You can deliver documents by fax. All you need to know is the recipient's phone number.
Cloud printing technology Google Print (remote printing) and AirPrint (driver-free printing).
A memory card reader allows you to print from your camera and other devices that support memory cards.
Automatic duplex printing saves time. It prints a sheet of paper on both sides automatically, so you don't have to turn the sheet.