Just Buy a Laser Printer...Stop Buying Inkjets
With all the negative things you keep hearing about InkJet printers, it boggles my mind how anyone is still buying them. Printer companies pull some extremely shady, and in some cases illegal, tricks to make money from the ink…You’re only allowed to use the brand of the printer you own, you can’t print if one cartridge is out, they don’t use all the ink in the cartridge, they’re programmed to stop working after a certain period of time, you can’t refill them through a third party company (although SCOTUS decided this was illegal) and the latest: “I can’t use my scanner because I’m out of ink.” Yes, if you’re not aware, in October 2021, there is a lawsuit against Canon over this.
You’re probably thinking, but laser printers are expensive, I can’t afford one. WRONG! You can’t afford to not get one. Yes, the upfront cost is a little more but over time the laser printer will make up for it with the cost of toner. Let me break it down.
InkJet Cost:
About $100
Ink Cost:
About $27
Laser Printer Cost:
About $160
Toner Cost:
About $55
For the inkjet your initial cost is around $127, while the laser printer is $215. You can easily see that’s about a $90 difference. Maybe you can’t justify the extra $90 but if you don’t, you’re going to spend a lot more money in the long run. Here is why:
The ink cartridges above print anywhere from 180-300 pages. The toner will print up to 3500 pages. Best case scenario for both, the toner prints over 11x more pages than the ink. You’d need to spend almost $300 on ink cartridges before you’d need another toner cartridge. You’re probably thinking, but that’s the black and color ink. Yes, it is. The inkjet will use the color cartridges to print black and white pages. Even if you consider that a single black ink cartridge costs $16, you’re still going to spend $160 on ink cartridges before you buy another toner cartridge.
How annoying would it be to replace the ink cartridge 10 times compared to once with the laser printer. Not only is a laser printer cheaper in the long run, it also prints faster, and you don’t have to worry about not being able to print (or scan with some printers) because the yellow ink cartridge has run out.
You might say, but the laser printer doesn’t print in color. You’re right, it doesn’t, but how often do you really NEED to print in color? I can count on both hands the number of times I’ve needed to print something in color in the last 15 years, including every college class. The few times you need to print in color, send it to a print shop and save yourself the hassle of dealing with ink cartridges. It will probably be less than the number of times you need to order those 10 ink cartridges.
If you truly need to print in color, you should be able to justify the cost of a color laser printer. The same rules apply, you’ll make up for the difference in cost over the life of the printer.
Other than the Brother listed above, here are some other laser printers to consider.
