Lemme give you the lowdown on printers.
There is really one type of printer for everyone and what that is depends on a few things.
Lasers:
Pros:
1) Cost of printing is cheap compared to inkjets. You are paying maybe closer to 9 cents per page as opposed to 25 cents per page.
2) Toner doesn't dry out whereas inkjet cartridges can dry out.
3) Toner is less likely to smudge do to moisture, for some people, this means a lot.
Cons:
1) They tend to be slower than inkjets, especially color machines as it has to do 4 passes (one for black, cyan, magenta, yellow) which means color prints take about 4x longer than b/w. A lot of laser color printers are going to do between 4 and 15 color sleets per minute.
2) Lasers give you a lower cost in the long run but the initial cost is pretty big. A lot of machines use toners that cost between $80 - $200 each x all 4 that you need means anywhere from $320 to $800 for a full round of ink.
3) Lasers are not know for their photo quality. Inkjets are much better suited for photo use.
When it comes down to it you only have to ask yourself a few questions.
1) How much? That's is, how much printing are you going to be doing? 100 pages a month? Or are you going to be doing 5000 pages a month?
2) What are you going to be printing? Do you need color? Is it going to be photographs?
If you are looking for high quantities then stay away from your average inkjet or you'll be running to the store for ink on a daily bases and paying threw the nose. Most consumer inkjets cartridges have a advertised yield of ~200 pages.
HP offers some really nice printers that use their #88 ink cartridges. They come in standard and high yield, with the high yield cartridges giving you over ~1000 pages which puts the yield up there in the laser range, but the cartridges themselves are inexpensive. You get a similar if not cheaper cost per page, you get upwards of 30 some pages per minute and you get the photo quality of a inkjet.
I see it as the best of both worlds.
Wow, thats long, but I hope it helps?
