With the prices of laser printers becoming more affordable, many home and small offices are choosing to buy laser printers to enjoy the more economical print per page costs, faster speed and professional document print quality.
I reviewed an S-LED printer (DocuPrint M255 z) from Fuji Xerox last week and was curious how its S-LED technology worked. Both LED and Laser involve Page Printing, utilising similar technology – electrophotography.
Laser printers are the workhorse of the office where large numbers of prints are made. This is because they are fast, produce professional print quality for documents, and most importantly – print per page is much cheaper than the inkjet printer at home.
LED printers are also known as laser-class printers. S-LED print head technology keeps the advantages of conventional LED’s mechanical reliability and compact design while improving print quality and reliability.
Only problem is – they used to be bulky and were much more expensive than inkjets. So home and small offices who are budget conscious tend to use inkjets instead, especially if the quantity of prints is small.
Xerox developed the industry’s first laser printer in 1977, offering a lower cost, reliable, and high print quality printer.
Today, laser technology is a sophisticated printing technology, providing fast printing, quality finishing and easy operation advantages.
Fuji Xerox was voted on HardwareZone as the Best LED Printer Brand 2013 – Readers Choice, and Best SOHO Multi-Function Printer (Editors Choice) DocuPrint M355 df. I asked the company how the laser printer compares with an inkjet printer today.
Pros and cons of a laser printer and inkjet printer. Click to enlarge.
The above is their qualitative comparison against a generic inkjet printer. What everybody already knows, of course, is that the laser printer trounces the inkjet for printing large volumes at very fast speed.
36,000 pages over 3 years. *Warranty period of 4 years – 2-year standard (labour+parts) + 2-year limited (parts only) warranty including replacement of drum cartridge. Click to enlarge.
In terms of Total Cost of Ownership (TCO), above is comparison chart for a high usage rate of 1,000 pages per month over 3 years, as well as a relatively low usage rate of 50 pages per month below.
Even for a low throughput of only 50 pages per month over 3 years, a laser could be more economical than an inkjet. Click to enlarge.
In both cases, Fuji Xerox believes laser printers incur a lower TCO than inkjets.
Summing up the charts, there are savings of over 60%, even with low scale of printing of only 50 pages a month over a period of 3 years. The savings increases with the volume of printing as seen in chart 2 of over 36,000 pages in 3 years.
You can enjoy these savings too, by using a laser printer.
Laser printers work in a dramatically different manner. A laser projects the image of a document onto the printing drum, which is electrically charged. This image is then sprayed with dry ink, or toner, which sticks to the charged areas. The drum is then rolled onto paper and the ink is fused to the paper by a heat source.
This printing process differs dramatically from inkjets because the entire document is loaded into the printer, rather than in a continuous stream, as is the case with inkjets. This difference makes the laser printer ideal for entirely different printing needs than the inkjet.
