Do you actually save money with a laser printer at home?

Why toner is better

Laser printers have been around for decades, but up until recently, the overwhelming cost limited their use to well-funded companies. However, the last handful of years have seen almost all major printer manufacturers release a laser model of their own. As most consumers are realizing, today's laser printers are far superior to inkjet printers and more cost-effective.

Laser printers use toner. Toner is a dry powdered ink that resides inside a cartridge and transfers the image from your computer or memory card to a piece of paper via heat during the printing process. Unlike inkjet printer inks, which can dry up and go bad when your printer is only sporadically put to use, toner stays fresh indefinitely. That means you can install a toner cartridge today and use the printer a year from now with no trouble. You can't say that for any other kind of printer on the market today.

The many benefits of investing in a laser printer

For the home user, laser printers save you heaps of cash. First, there's the toner. Since it lasts forever and never dries up, you can print as much or as little as you need without worry. No more wasted ink!

The cost to print is also lower. Laser printers yield more pages than inkjet printers, so you'll make fewer trips to the store to stock up on pricey inks.

Lastly, there's the sheer speed of laser printers over inkjet models. Laser printers are engineered to print up to 100 pages per minute while inkjet printers only output 10-15 pages per minute on average. And time is money!