The FIX Arena

INKJET:

Inkjet printers work by spraying small amounts of quick-drying ink through a nozzle onto a sheet of paper; tiny deflective plates alter the ink’s path to create the desired shapes.

Ink is stored in disposable ink cartridges. Low-end inkjet printers use three ink colours (cyan, magenta, and yellow), and usually black as a fourth, compared to a “photo printer” that will have anywhere from a 5- to 12-colour ink system (e.g. light magenta, red, blue, or light cyan). Because a business user may print certain colours more frequently, single-colour cartridges have become more common, as you only need to replace these individual tanks as needed.

Pros and cons:

“Inkjet printers offer outstanding photo and document quality at a great value,” says Justin Joseph, spokesman for Canon’s printer division. “With features such as automatic double-sided printing and individual ink tanks to limit wasted ink, inkjet technology has really grown for the business consumer.”

Another advantage to inkjet over laser is they can be used on all types of paper and enjoy quality that rivals your local photo mat; this is why inkjet printers are more ideal for photos than laser printers.

While inkjet printers are relatively inexpensive (as low as $50), be aware replacing ink may become costly as you’ll burn through these cartridges faster than laser printers.

LASER:

Laser printers apply lasers to an area of a photoconductive drum. The electrical charge causes toner particles to cling to the rotating cylinder, forming a shape that will be transferred over to the printed page through heat and pressure.

Multi-pass colour laser printers use one imaging drum repeatedly for each CMYK colour (cyan, magenta, yellow and black). A faster solution, however, is single-pass (a.k.a. inline) colour laser printers that contain four imaging drums, allowing the page to be printed in just one pass.

Pros and cons:

Laser printers are ideal for producing high volumes thanks to the high-yield inks, plus they are faster at spitting out documents than inkjet printers. If you only need black-and-white printing, consider a monochrome laser printer over an inkjet printer. Other advantages to laser printers include high-volume paper trays, multiple finishing options, and more network options than inkjet printers.

But laser printers cost more than inkjet printers. A decent monochrome laser printer typically costs about $150 on the low-end (add another hundred or two for a good colour laser printer), which is considerably more than a photo lab-quality inkjet printer. It should be noted prices for colour laser printers have dropped considerably over the years.