They never have more than four colours (CMYK) so they cannot achieve the wide colour gamut of inkjets and because the laser warms the paper, they wonвЂ™t work with coated photo paper. What lasers arenвЂ™t so good at is photo printing. And unlike inkjets, lasers donвЂ™t usually take any longer to print in colour, which makes them ideal for running off brochures. Because the toner is heated onto the paper, every page is warm and dry, whereas inkjets spray liquid onto paper that often takes a good few seconds to dry. And no matter the speed, laser printers are the more consistent and accurate when it comes to printing page after page of text thatвЂ™s immune to smudging. They can print faster than inkjets too, churning out paper at around 50 pages per minute in many cases. They tend to be bulkier machines, built to handle monthly duty cycles of anything up to 20,000 pages. ThatвЂ™s because toner cartridges are able to print not hundreds, but thousands of pages before they need replacing. Laser printers are the opposite of inkjets in that they are generally expensive to buy and cheap to run. The first commercial machine was made by Xerox in 1973 and until recent years, laser has been the expensive printer option and therefore rarely seen outside the office. The laser tracks along a drum creating an electrostatic charge that attracts the toner particles to the right place. Instead of liquid ink, lasers use toner which is a powder and itвЂ™s transferred to the paper using heat. Just be wary about which cartridge system youвЂ™re getting yourself locked into and check the print quality and specifications before you buy. In short, inkjet is your first choice for low volume, high quality prints and photographs.

Inkjet is still the best way to print high-resolution images at high quality and the only way to print photos on glossy photo paper. A colour inkjet printer usually uses four airtight foil cartridges for a colour print, but they can use more colours to achieve an even wider colour gamut. They work by spraying microscopic drops of liquid ink onto paper through a print head made up of hundreds of micro-nozzles. Inkjets are almost always cheaper to buy than lasers. HP sold the first inkjet printer in 1988 for around $1,300 (ВЈ1000) and the same company will sell you something similar today for less than $46 (ВЈ35). Also check out our roundup of the best home printers.These are the best laser printers on the market.We've put together a list of the best injket printers.Inkjets and lasers use very different technologies to achieve the same goal and each one has its pros and cons, so letвЂ™s begin by looking at inkjets. We used to be able to say that laser printers are for the office and inkjets for the home, but in recent years the lines have blurred and now youвЂ™ll find business inkjets aimed at busy office-based workgroups and inexpensive laser printers designed for the home.

Inkjet vs laser printers for home