Printers - What is the difference?
Something to consider, aside from initial purchase cost, is
operation and maintenance costs. You can easily pickup an inkjet
for $50, but take a look at the size of the ink cartridges. If
it runs out every 100 pages, you're going to spend much more on
ink in the first year, than if you had purchased a much better
quality laser.
Image Quality B&W text and simple graphics will look sharper on
a laser printer. If you use a good quality inkjet paper though,
most casual users will be hard pressed to notice the difference.
On the other hand, a good photo inkjet printer will give a good
color laser printer a run for it's money, in quality and cost.
If you're going to print a lot of photos, your best choice would
be an inkjet.
Duty Cycle You'll see 'Duty Cycle' listed mostly on specs for
laser printers. This refers to how much paper the printer is
expected to be able to handle each month. This will be a factor
for you if you are buying for a large office, or if you are
publishing your own fliers on a regular basis. You'll have to
ask yourself, "How much printing will I do each month?" Now that
doesn't say your printer will break if it's rated at 30,000 and
you print 30,050 one month. If you know though, that you will
print 75,000 pages a month, don't buy a printer rated at 50,000.
What can connect? The last thing left to consider is, what
machines will be connecting to this machine, and how? Will the
printer be on a network? Will different operating systems access
it? If you're going to be the only user, and you have one PC
with XP running on it, you just have to make sure you have the
right ports and that it has drivers for XP. If, on the other
hand, you are part of a small Linux workgroup, you're going to
be somewhat limited on your selection.
What's Emulation? This is a feature that is mostly used for
older programs. Say you have a printer that emulates an Epson
FX80. That means it understands the commands used to communicate
with an Epson FX80. Your program may require a certain printer
to function properly. Some programs, especially in vertical
markets like Real Estate and Insurance, make direct requests to
the printers. Your printer must either be the right type of
printer, or it must emulate that printer, in order to speak the
language. If you have special software, other than off the shelf
types like Word or Photoshop, be sure to check the program's
printer requirements.