Comparison of Technologies: Ink versus Laser: DC Bottom Line
Florian Heise: My opinion.It´s hard to compare an ink printer to a monolaser. But if you are looking for a small, reliable, and economical printer for a small office, you shoudn´t only look for a monolaser.
With an ink printer for the same money (in our test for even less) you get a matching printer, which can print in color in addition. If you are just looking at cost of print (in black), HP´s ink printer does the same job for almost half the price as Brother´s monolaser does. However, if you are using HP´s printer for color printing, you will spend more money on consumables.
HP tells you their color printouts are waterproof due to their pigmented inks. That´s true. But they are not smearproof. Laser printers are water- and smearproof.
In regard to print speed the monolaser is in the lead as well. If you often have big print jobs, a fast mono- or color laser should be your choice. They handle big jobs faster than ink printers.
My personal bottom line
Ink printers have many advantages. Purchase is cheap, and if you keep a close watch on cost of print (www.druckkosten.de
), you will find an ink printer more affordable than a cheap color laser.
If you only print in black, HP´s Officejet Pro 8000 (and the 8500 AIO´s as well) works more economic than Brother´s monolaser in this test. All HP-Officejet-Pro-printers work with large ink cartridges and have low cost of print.
And possible problems with ozone and particulate matter are non-issue with ink printers.
