#Inkjet vs laser printers for home full

#Inkjet vs laser printers for home full

A full set of black and color toner from Brother is currently $176 on Amazon, while a no-name toner set is under $40. I've never purchased 'official' toner for my laser printer, and it's never been an issue. Off-brand ink is the way to go, for both inkjet and laser printers. These restrictions were (rightfully) lifted after a public outcry, but it's only a matter of time until someone tries it again. It was equally ridiculous when HP (and others) tried to DRM their printers, stopping them from working with third-party ink. I thought it was ridiculous when I saw a 3D printer manufacturer adding DRM to its machines, so it could only use one brand of filament material. If you need to scan in dozens of pages at a time, then you need a sheet-fed scanner, and reliable ones are usually only found on more expensive all-in-one multifunction printers or office printers. I've been doing this for everything up to and including very important legal and financial documents for years, and no one has ever complained. What is it you think you're going to scan? Just take a picture with your phone and clean it up a bit in the phone's photo app or a photo-editing app on your laptop. But note these can be more expensive to start with and have very high ongoing costs thanks to recommended specialty ink. If you need pro-quality photo prints, consider a specialty photo inkjet printer. But Fotomat-quality prints on glossy paper? Yeah, you'll need an inkjet for that. Small pictures and illustrations in documents, sure. For all they do well, laser printers aren't great with photos. Some other top printer picks can be found here. I've also had a very reliable color version for a few years, the latest model of that is the Brother HL-元270CDW. If you want to know what I use, at the start of the pandemic, both my mother and I got new monochrome laser printers for our home offices, specifically the Brother HL-L2370DW. That's basically just a slight variation on how laser printers work, so consider them the same thing. There are some versions called LED or digital printers as well. Just think of a laser, either monochrome or color, as your default pick and you'll be a lot happier in the long run. Not perfectly reliable, mind you, but more. More importantly, because so many laser printers started life as pro-level office products before going mainstream, I've found them to be more reliable. Laser toner, even in color, tends to last a long time, and delivers more consistent results.

I've never had to deal with ink cartridges that didn't work, got stuck or only printed a few times before losing quality. Since I switched over to primarily using laser printers, my frustration level - at least about printers - has been significantly lower. Everyone's seen cheap printers where a set of replacement cartridges cost more than the printer itself. But the you-get-what-you-pay for adage still applies. Some inkjet printers are so inexpensive, it's almost like an impulse buy.