Citizen Printer

what's the difference between inkjet and laser printers?

i am looking for a new printer and they have the option for "laser" or "inkjet" printers. i want to make a well-informed purchase so i am looking for the following information: What is the difference(s) between laser and inkjet? which is better? Thanks in Advance.

Public Comments

1. Ink jet printers print, like there name says by spraying jets of ink onto the page. They are small, quiet, cheap, and with the right ink/paper can may photo quality prints. They are also by far the most expensive per-page to operate anything from 20 to 75 cents per printed page. They are also, as a rule, quite slow. Laser printers don't use ink, but rather toner, an electrically charged powder. A laser charges up a drum (basically "drawing" the page onto the drum) and then the toner is attracted to the charged portions of the drum and then put on the paper. A very hot part of the printer called the fusor then actually melts the toner onto the page. Although you will never get photo quality out of a laser, printer, the quality is very good and they are very fast. Also, the cost per page is much lower, sometimes as low as 6 cents per printed page. BUT laser printers cost a lot more at the outset, and the toner is very expensive. It is cheaper per page, but because a toner prints a lot of pages, each one can set you back 75 bucks and up. If you are going to do a LOT of color printing, and not much photo printing, the laser is the way to go, if you aren't going to print all that much, or you want to do high quality photos, you need the ink jet.