Every individual; who is running a business or studying needs a printer to save hard copies of their necessary documents so that a printer is an essential need for an entrepreneur or student. Now the next thing is to look for an affordable and fast printer that can provide you with quick print outs at meagre costs. Because in today’s life, everyone is in a hurry and want to spend an amount as less as they can. The technology that manufacturers are using has been increased over time.
Now it is possible to choose a printer according to your needs and your budget. I am sure you heard about laser jet printer. In this article, I am going to discuss the working process and advantages of laser jet printer along with the differences between inkjet and laser printer. Now, to know everything about the laser technology of printing, it is essential to understand what is a laser printer? So let’s start the discussion with a short definition of a laser printer.
Table of Contents
Laser Printer: A Simple Definition
The printer that uses a laser to form a pattern of electrostatically charged dots on a light-sensitive drum and attract dry ink(toner) to produce a good quality print out, known as a laser printer. The dry ink filled in the toner is transferred to the sheet fixed with heat and pressure after the image printed on the sheet. The electric charge is removed, and the extra dry ink is collected.
It is a popular computer printer using a non-impact photocopying technology for printing the documents. IBM did the first use of a laser jet printer in 1984 with their mainframe computers, and they introduced the laser printing technology in 1974. Since then, the price of laser printers get decreased, and technology gets increased.
What Are the Essential Advantages of Best Laser Printers?
1. Accurate Printing
You can get an accurate and perfect printout through laser printers. The dry ink (toner) never fades on the paper, and small electric charge puts only requires heat and pressure to the drum so that it can produce high quality and accurate printouts.
2. Handle Urgency
The laser technology of printing is much faster and smoother. It can handle a high volume of page calmly and helps users if you are in a hurry.
3. Affordable
Are you looking for a printer that allows you to get a high volume of printouts at low costs, then a laser printer is the perfect option? All of the laser printers are affordable and comes with a low cost per page printing.
4. Long Term Use
If we talk about the life of a laser jet printer, then it is appreciable. It comes with a long life that helps users not to change or repair the printer soon. Moreover, all the manufacturers are also offering a minimum one year warranty so that I can ensure the long life of a laser printer.
5. Stays Dry
The laser technology of printing uses dry ink that never gets extra spread. So that the printer and the area around it always stay dry and clean.
What Are the Demerits of Laser Printers?
1. Expensive Than Inkjet Printers
It is the new and convenient technology of printing so that it comes with a higher price tag than an inkjet printer. But the printing cost is very less than an inkjet printer.
2. The Laser Printers for Colored Printouts Are More Expensive
Most of the laser printers working with color laser printer is up to 10-12 times expensive than monochrome printers. Apart from this color, laser printers are also costly than color inkjet printers. But if your requirement is for high volume color printouts, then it is affordable to have a laser jet printer rather than inkjet printers, because the color printing cost is less than inkjet printers.
3. Larger and Heavier
As the laser printers contain drum and laser technology so that it comes with pretty big size and heavyweight. So it is tough to relocate it from one place to another place.
What is the Difference Between an Inkjet Printer and Laser Printers?
One has to know the differences between the best laser and inkjet printers. I am going to tell you the five significant differences between these two printing technologies.
Functionality Difference
The significant difference is the functionality difference and type of cartridges. The laser printer uses dry ink cartridges and give the commands to it where and when the dry ink should be dispensed on to the paper by using electric charges.
Costs Difference
The fact that define costs are not only the price tag or the per-page fee. It also depends on the purchasing and replacing the cartridges. The laser jet printers are highly expensive than inkjet printers at the time of purchase.
The cartridges of inkjet printers also come with low replacement cost, but you have to replace it frequently because the duty cycle of the inkjet printer is very less than laser printers. The toner replacement is costly than ink cartridges, but it can print more pages than ink cartridges.
Space Consuming Difference
If you have less space near your computer table or printing station, than you can go for an inkjet printer, laser printer comes in a quite big size and heavyweight. On the other hand, inkjet printers are always lightweight and consume less space.
Speed Difference
The speed of the printer depends on the functionality differences. The inkjet printers require refilling the paper so that it can slow down the process of printing. On the other hand, the laser printer can load more pages than inkjet printers at a time so that it can deal with a high volume of printing at a very high speed.
Quality Difference
The significant difference that everyone should notice that is a quality difference. The laser printer can produce high-quality printing than inkjet printers. If the ink is still wet the print outs through it can get smudged or ruined. But on the other hand, the toner cartridges and the laser technology combination can give you higher quality printouts.
Working of These Printers
- The laser printer uses a photocopier technology for working. Let’s have a brief discussion on the working of laser printers
- At the starting process, the user gives the printing command to the printer, and the printer received a million characters of data from the computer.
- The inbuilt electronic circuit unit read the data and figure out how to print it on the page so that it looks beautiful and accurate.
- The corona wire that gives a static electric charge to the drum gets activated by an electronic circuit.
- The photo receptor drum gets to charge up by the electronic charge given by the corona wire.
- The electronic circuit activates the laser at the same time so that it can draw the image onto the drum.
- The laser beam hits the drum to create a negative charge and erases the positive charges. It establishes the negative charges where the page should be black and positive charges for white areas.
- The input tray feeds a sheet of the paper to the printer, and the other corona wire gives an electric charge to the paper as it moves.
- The paper passes through the two hot rollers, and the toner particles get fused permanently into the fibers of paper by the heat and pressure of rollers.
- When the paper moves through the drums, the positive charges attract the negatively charged toner particles so that the image can be transferred on the paper by the drum.
- After the image transfers on to the paper by the drum, the printout comes to the output tray. Because of the hot rollers, the paper is still warm and hot off the press.
Need for Using the Laser Printer
The next point that is needed to discuss is the use of laser printers. Here we are going to tell you how the laser jet printer is handy. It is used for letters, legal documents, and spreadsheet printing.
The monochrome laser printers can only print the black ad white documents, and it is beneficial for the person or office who has the requirement to print letters, legal documents, and spreadsheets because the laser printers are compatible with all sizes of sheets.
1. Large Format Printing
The color and monochrome both models are suitable for large format printing. A large format printer means the printer that can print sizes larger than 8 x 11. Most of the offices need to print highway signs and billboards so that they need a large format printer.
2. High-Resolution Printing
The laser printer can produce high-quality print outs. The resolution is measured by dots that are high in the laser technology of printing if you have a requirement to print photos and graphics than select a laser printer for high-resolution printing.
3. Home Use
At one time, the laser printers were costly to afford. So that only the entrepreneurs were able to purchase it. But today, the company has made low-cost laser printers that can deal with your letters, resumes, and other documents, and any individual can afford it.
4. Perfect Print Outs
Do you want a dry printout? The printouts come from an inkjet printer that may get smudged and fad, but the laser printer allows you to get dry and accurate print outs.
Faq Section
1. Is Laserjet the Same as Inkjet?
No, the laserjet printer and inkjet printers are not same. Either I talk about the functionality, strength, quality, or cartridges, both technologies are different from each other. The inkjet printer comes with a low speed of printing than a laserjet printer so that it can be a traditional choice for the home users.
The inkjet printers are also not too expensive as they can afford by any individual. On the other hand, the laserjet technology knowns for its printing speed and low-cost printing so that it can be the first choice for office use. Apart from this, high quality and high volume print outs are the basic needs for an office, and laser printers can deal with this kind of requirements.
2. What Type of Printers Are Laser Printers?
The printer that uses dry ink cartridges called toner to print the image on to the paper instead of using liquid ink are laser printers. In other words, it is a similar technology to photocopier technology that uses a laser beam to read the data and transform the image on to the drum. The drum puts an electric charge to the toner to spread the dry ink and transfer the image on to the paper.
3. Difference: Laser and Laser Jet Printers in Brief!
No, there is only the name difference, nothing else. Some of the manufacturers like HP using laserjet for their model names instead of using only laser printers. Brother, Toshiba, xerox are still using laser printers for their model names.
Conclusion
I hope the information given by me will be helpful for you to know what is a laser printer? Here I have discussed the working, features and also the advantages and disadvantages of laser printers. Do you require high volume printing and desire to get a high-quality printout, then you must choose the laser printers. The minimum life of a laser printer is up to ten years. So do not make your decision by just seeing the price tag. I agree that the prices are much higher in a laser printer.
But if I compare the technology, features, and quality, then laser jet printers are the best choice. Therefore, choose the best printer as per your requirement. But, never forget to compare the brands of different manufacturers. It will help you to get the best product. Choices are ample in number, hence deciding is also tricky, but after comparing one can quickly decide which is the best product for using in the office or at home.
