| In today's market, there are basically 4 types of | | | | Don't buy one rated for 10,000 pages a month if you |
| popular printers. | | | | know you'll be printing 20,000. You'll wear it out quick. |
| - Inkjet | | | | You can also get color laser printers, their cost has |
| - Laser | | | | come down a lot from the $5,000 units 10 years ago. |
| - Thermal Transfer(Dye Sublimation) | | | | They're usually fine for business type graphics, but I still |
| - Dot Matrix (Yes, they're still selling these!) | | | | like a nice photo inkjet for printing photos. |
| The factors that separate them are simple. | | | | Inkjet's and Thermal printers have much smaller |
| - Initial cost | | | | cartridges and usually run out quicker than the toner in |
| - Operation cost | | | | a laser. Because of that, the cost of printing each page |
| - Speed and Performance | | | | can be much more. These printers can also be |
| - Durability | | | | purchased with the ability to print onto CD/DVD, which |
| - Specialty jobs | | | | is a nice feature. Duty cycle isn't as high as a laser, but |
| If you are going to be printing strictly in Black & White | | | | for home/office printing, most of them can keep up |
| (B&W), you're going to be happiest with a laser printer. | | | | fine. Their B&W text is generally suitable for business, |
| They offer faster print speed, crisper text, and lower | | | | though some of the photo printers have slightly jagged |
| cost of operation. A good one is usually more | | | | text. Again, they're less expensive to purchase, but |
| expensive than an Inkjet, but with the costs of ink | | | | can cost 4 times as much to operate as a laser. If you |
| cartridges, you'll soon recoup that initial investment. | | | | don't do a lot of printing ( |
| A typical B&W laser printer for home-office type use | | | | As it has been for the past several years, dot matrix |
| will run $300-$500 and will give you 20-24 pages per | | | | printers are strictly for invoicing and multi-part forms. |
| minute(ppm). For big office printing, expect over $1,000. | | | | They are noisy, due to the fact that they are an |
| Also expect 30+ppm. You will also achieve a | | | | 'impact' printer. Pins are actually hitting the paper and |
| resolution of 1200 x 1200. Higher resolution means | | | | this gives them the ability to print on multi-part forms. |
| crisper text. Laser printers are also usually rated on | | | | Some of the more expensive ones are extremely fast |
| monthly volume. This is something to consider if you | | | | and are used to generate long reports. There really |
| are purchasing a printer that will get a lot of usage. | | | | isn't much use for them other than that. |