Laser printers will save you money if you print a lot- you eliminate the expense of constantly buying that expensive ink cartridge. It is convenient, to be sure, but in the long run, theses printers print faster and more economically when you print a large volume of documents.

These printers use ink toner, rather than liquid ink cartridges. Toner comes in a powered ink formula and is much more economical in the long run than liquid ink. When your primary printing need is text documents and you print a high volume of those documents, you will cut your ink costs dramatically by switching to laser printers and eliminating the cost of that individual ink cartridge.

You are probably quite familiar with an ink cartridge. It is a small, replaceable plastic cartridge filled with either black or colored ink. You generally need to purchase one of each to get high quality printing results. While there is nothing better than an ink cartridge in an inkjet printer for photo printing, when it comes to producing high volume text, the cost adds up in a hurry. You will find your bottom line is much prettier by using toner powder and the speed of laser printers instead.
An inkjet printer dispenses the liquid ink from the inkjet cartridge onto the paper with a nozzle spray action, dispensing the ink according to the digital image sent by your computer. A series of extremely small dots of ink are placed on the page, according to the chosen dots per square inch resolution set in the printer properties. The higher the resolution, the more ink used and the higher the cost.

Laser printers, on the other hand, use static electricity to pull the powdered ink toner onto the drum of the printer. A reverse process releases the ink toner onto the page, where heat actually bonds the toner with the paper. The finished product is clear, sharp text that is produced quickly and inexpensively. While laser printers don't quite match the high quality of inkjet printers when it comes to printing photo images, when it comes to black and white text, there is nothing better on the market!

Unlike inkjet and black and white laser printers, color laser printer technology and pricing have not reached their matured stage yet because the demand in the consumer market is still developing. The choices of color laser printers that are competitively priced with good printing quality and low maintenance cost are limited.

Pricing
An entry level or higher end color laser printer for small business use is sold in the market range of about $300 - $500 (not MSRP price). Some printers may be priced in the low $200 range, but they are for household light usage only.

Color Quality
It is important to compare the printout quality of the color printers. There are significant differences from one model to another. There is less difference in the printout quality of black and white laser printers. Most color laser printers can produce comparable quality printouts for general purpose light usage. However, when it comes to commercial printing quality, some brands and models can do better than the others.

Printing Speed
Some cheaper low end models print extremely slowly. To check out the speed of a specific model, you can test print some pages in the retail store. If you are making online purchase, you should compare the printing speed, that is, the maximum pages per minute (ppm) of the printers being considered.

Page yield specification
Page yield means the number of pages that can be printed at 5% coverage. A toner cartridge that has 4000 page yield can print roughly double the number of pages of a toner that has 2000 page yield. Comparing the cost per page of different printer models will give you an objective measure on your selection of printers. As an example, a $60 toner cartridge with a 4000 page yield ($0.015 cost per page) is actually cheaper than a $40 toner cartridge with 2000 page yield ($0.02 cost per page).

Cost of replacement toner
The recurring cost of replacing the laser toner is an important factor in the selection of your color laser printer. There are usually a set of 4 toner cartridges in a color printer: CYMK or cyan, magenta, yellow and key (black). A set of OEM toner cartridges can easily cost from $300 to $400. Compatible laser toners are sold at half of the price of OEM cartridges or at even deeper discounts. Therefore when purchasing your new printer, you should first check the availability and pricing of the compatible toner cartridges of the particular model you want.

Printer Brands
If the availability of competitively priced compatible laser toner cartridges is a significant consideration for you, you will find out that the supply of compatible laser toner cartridges is limited to a few brands, primarily, HP, Brother, Samsung and Canon. HP has over 50% of the market share and offers more choices of color laser printers. Followed remotely behind in the respective market share will be Brother, Samsung and Canon. You will be able to find limited supply of compatible toner cartridges for Dell, Lexmark, OKi, Minolta and Xerox color laser printers.