Best Laser Printers
Laser and Inkjet Printers
Ink jet and laser printers have become so good that they offer users more versatility than ever. From compact models — like laser label printers that also handle photos to full-service laser printers for the office, high-quality printing is just the tip of the iceberg when shopping for the latest inkjet color printers or laser color printers at Lenovo.
Of course, there are different factors to consider when picking out the perfect printer for your needs. It’s important to consider the differences between the different product categories and look at some of the features of ink jet and laser printers in more depth. Ultimately, what you want to use your printer for will be a big factor in finding the best model for you.
What Types of Inkjet and Laser Printers offered at Lenovo.com?
There are three main types of printer product categories based on the ink and printing technology they use. The most common color ink printers for home use are ink jet printers. Laser black and white printers, on the other hand, are mainly used in offices and businesses. The other type of printer are instant ink printers, which are the most compact.
● Inkjet Printers
Color inkjet printers are commonly used for at-home printing, both for school and for home offices. At this point, most models are pretty powerful all-in-one machines that can print, scan, copy documents, and more.
Ink jet printers use ink cartridges to print out documents. The number of ink cartridges that an inkjet printer uses varies based on the model. A purely black and white inkjet printer may just use one cartridge for black and white ink. Color ink printers, on the other hand, can use as many as six different ink cartridges or more, depending on how advanced they are.
That being so, the most common all-in-one color ink jet printers use two to five ink cartridges in total. Ink from the ink cartridges are applied through thousands of really tiny jets (commonly referred to as nozzles) in the print head (which is what you place the ink cartridges into). Each of these nozzles is so precise that it’s actually thinner than a strand of human hair. This allows printers to get high resolution when printing documents and photos because they’re able to print thousands of dots per inch (dpi).
● Laser Printers
Laser printers are the other major printer type that are primarily used in office and business settings. There are both color and monochrome laser printers available. The reason that laser printers are used for business is because they are designed to process higher printing volume at faster speeds.
While laser printers color and black and white use ink, it’s a different kind of ink from inkjet printers that’s referred to as toner. Toner comes in replaceable cartridges, though they are much larger and a different shape than ink cartridges.
As its name implies, laser printers use an actual laser to print documents. When a print job is sent to a laserjet printer, the laser runs back and forth across a drum inside the printer. The drum activates the toner to transfer the image to paper. The ink in laser toner is dry, whereas the ink used in the inkjet printing process is wet.
The laser printing process is faster than inkjet printers. Entry level laser printers can produce around 20-40 pages per minute (PPM) and pro lazer printers are even faster.
● Instant Ink Printers
Insta ink printers (also known as laser cutter printers) are the newest of the three printing technologies. Laptops and devices can connect to these printers easily via WiFi or Bluetooth technology, making the printing process completely wireless.
The biggest differentiator between instant ink printers and inkjet and laser printers is that instant printers don’t require the use of ink cartridges. Because of this, instant printers are some of the most compact and portable printer models available — often measuring under five-inches and weighing less than 25-ounces.
Instead of cartridges or ribbons for ink, laser cutter printers use a special type of paper that has the ink already embedded into it. The printer applies heat to the paper at precise temperatures to activate the ink and process the photo.
Comparing Product Features of Inkjet and Laser Printers
● Multifunction and All in One Features
Pretty much all laser printers for sale have long had all in one features because of the fact that they’re used in office settings. You can expect laserjet printers to have printing, scanning, copying, and even faxing capabilities as standard. Of course, these features offer a lot of versatility to cater to a modern workplace. For example, laser printers offer the option to scan documents to various destinations (email, desktop, the cloud).
Most inkjet printers for sale are multifunctional as well, offering copying and scanning along with printing. The main difference is in efficiency. An entry level all in one inkjet printer will likely have a flatbed scanner for both scanning and copying purposes. This limits users to scanning and copying one side of a single document at a time.
● Print Speed and Volume of Inkjet and Laser Printers
One of the biggest differences between laser and inkjet printers is in print speed and volume. Laser printing technology is faster and can handle more volume than ink jet printing technology can.
At minimum, you can expect the most basic level laser printer to process anywhere from 20-40 PPM. Inkjet printers, on the other hand, can be as slow as 5-15 PPM at the entry level. Speed can vary between laserjet color printers and black and white ones, because printing in color is generally slower. Print resolution also affects print speed for both laser and inkjet printers.
Of course, the fact that laser printers have faster printing speeds means that they’re better equipped to handle a high volume of printing. Laser printers are also designed for a high volume of printing as they have high-volume document feeders and paper storage.
If you’re deciding between printers laserjet or inkjet and speed is a factor, the lazer printers for sale have the edge over most of the ink jet printers for sale that you'll find.
● Print Resolution Features for Inkjet and Laser Printers
If print resolution is a feature that’s important to you, there can be some big differences between printers laser color and printers ink jet color when it comes to producing high-resolution images.
Because inkjet printers use thousands of precision jets to apply wet ink to a document to produce images, it can achieve a depth of resolution that laser printers generally can’t. High end professional inkjet printers canon and other brands can print over 5000 dpi (dots per inch) in color. Even some of the most high end Lexmark laser printers and others can print up to 1200 dpi in color.
Ultimately, inkjet models are designed more for printing high resolution images whereas the features of laser printers are better suited for volume, speed, and efficiency. That being so, laser printers will produce high enough resolution documents for professional use.
Inkjet and Laser Printers Uses
● Laser Printers All In One for Business Use
Laser printers are ideal for business use. Not only are they speedy, easy to maintain, and can handle a high volume of printing, they also have a low cost per page compared to inkjet printers.
If you compare the cost of ink cartridges for Canon printers and ink cartridges for Brother printers to the cost of toner cartridges for laser printers, you’ll see that the initial cost is higher for laser toner cartridges. However, the ink for Brother printers and ink for Canon printers will run out much faster than laser toner cartridges.
Laser printers can print at an extremely low cost per page, especially when printing in black and white. Finding laser printers monochrome without the ability to print in color is not uncommon due to the fact that many offices don’t need color for day to day printing.
● Laser Printers for Home Office Use
If you look at laser printers on sale near me, you’ll notice that there are a lot of smaller options for home office use (lexmark c150 laser printers are one example). Because of the efficiency, features, and low printing costs of laser printers, they have become desirable for people running businesses out of their home who need to do a lot of printing.
Small home businesses and solo entrepreneurs may need to print a high volume of envelopes, labels, postcards, or card stock, for example. Doing so at a high volume on an inkjet printer can be difficult if you have to do so frequently. Because of this, there are more laser printers near me that are designed for smaller workgroups and home use.
● Inkjet for Multipurpose Home Use
Similarly, when searching for inkjet printers near me you’ll find that many of the options are very versatile printer models. These do-it-all ink machines are ideal for multipurpose home use for school, light business use, photo printing, and more.
Finding ink for printers near me is easy, so replacing cartridges in inkjet printers used at the home is very accessible. All in one ink printers also come in handy for scanning and copying documents when the need arises, which can happen when preparing for travel, registering for something, or converting paper documents to electronic format for your records.
Lenovo Has the Latest Ink Jet and Laser Printers
Once you have an idea of what features you’re looking for in a printer, you can take a look at all the latest ink jet and laser printers available from Lenovo. Whether you’re in the market for an ink jet printer, laserjet, compact instant ink printer, or even laser 3d printers, start your search by taking a look at the latest models available at Lenovo.com.