Artipot - Free Ezine Articles
 
Home » Computers » Hardware

Laser Printers: The Goods And The Bads

By Gregory McGuire
Sep 25, 2009
In the world of digital presentations, quality is getting higher and higher. You know this if you work with computers at all, as you are constantly pressured to upgrade in order to produce better quality output. With the arrival of laser printers, hard copy output has long been at its peak.

As far as quality and speed goes, lasers blow all the other types of printers out of the water. They do, however, have a downside. In this article, I'll give you the goods and the bads, and let you decide for yourself if a laser printer is right for you.

The Goods

The biggest advantage of laser printers is obviously the quality and speed of their output. They print so fast because they print whole pages at once, as opposed to the line-by-line method of their inkjet counterparts. This is mostly because they use electro-photography technology.

One issue people overlook when comparing printers, which then becomes a huge issue a month later, is noise production. Anyone who has worked in an office with a noisy printer knows this is true. Try negotiating a deal on the phone with a loud, screeching printer in the background, and you'll know what I'm talking about.

Because they are optimized with less moving parts, laser printers seldom create noise. In this respect, they are similar to a copy machine.

Also, most inkjet printers require some sort of supervision. Laser printers offer features like self-printing, which means you can tell them what to do, leave them alone, and count on the job being done when you return. Just try doing that with your inkjet.

The Bads

Yes, the do a much better job than any other kind of printer out there, but there is a price. Have you priced laser printers recently? While their prices may be dropping, the cost of a decent laser printer is still much more than that of a comparable inkjet. And that's not all.

In addition to the high initial investment, laser printers are expensive to maintain. As you can imagine, with all the technology involved in its operation, those who maintain these machines must be highly trained. They don't work cheap.

Because they are so powerful, most need a lot of space to operate. Yes, you can buy smaller, desktop laser printers these days, but you also sacrifice some of the quality mentioned above.

Another issue is health. Laser printers generate high voltages and small amounts of ozone, which can damage the ozone layer in the atmosphere. Some even release particles into the air that have been known to cause lung and other respiratory diseases.

The Skinny

If you absolutely must have the best kind of printer available and cost is not a great issue, a laser printer would be for you. If you're on a budget and space and your environment are concerns, a high end inkjet might be your weapon of choice.
About the Author
Please Rate:

Rating:

(Average: Not rated)
Views:31 
Print Article Email Article Reprint Article Comments (0)
More Articles from Hardware
Top Articles in Hardware