Take your pick

Inkjet or laser printers? The answer is in your needs

Photocopiers, fax machines and printers are still at play spewing out tonnes of paper every day. In North America alone, office printers churn out 1.2 trillion sheets in one year.

The biggest debate shadowing the printer world is the colour versus inkjet printer argument, which has kept people guessing for years.

The fact that colour inkjet printers have been the standard for several years and are inexpensive, would lead us to believe they must be the perfect office tool. Inkjet printers are cheap and do the job; so why should we look further?

Experts say the math is clear. The more inexpensive the printer, the more you will have to shell out for disposable refills. Printers can be bought on the cheap while the big bucks are made on the refills for the big printer.

In fact, so lucrative is the cartridge replacement market, that it is estimated to be about $21 billion (about Dh77 billion) annually in the region.

Cost isn't the only drawback as far as the inkjet printer goes. Inkjet printers do not print as fast as laser printers and it is not uncommon to have cartridge error messages.

The printers are also set up in a way that makes it difficult to minimise the amount of ink they use.

All this talk about inkjet printers has made people turn to the faster laser alternative. Worldwide desktop monochrome (one-colour) laser printer shipments grew 15 per cent last year to 14.1 million units.

More than half of those are what's known as Multi-Function Printers (MFP), which print, fax, copy and scan. Experts predict that more than 10 million MFPs will be in circulation by 2008.

In comparison to inkjets, laser printers are quieter, faster and hassle free. In spite of that, inkjet printers continue to wield popularity.

Why? Because they are still cheaper and most of them are colour capable. Also the quality that inkjets now produce is of such superior quality that a lot of home and small businesses continue to use them without fear of their documents appearing unclear.

Laser printers are still most of the time confined to black printing, and while there are a plethora of colour lasers in the market, the costs involved are still extremely high. Although it is important to note that prices are coming down substantially.

To summarise, if you print very little, stick to your inkjet or replace it with a more modern model. But if you print consistently in a reasonable volume, it is probably time to take a serious look at a laser printer.

Cheap replacement cartridges are probably good enough if your printing volume and company size aren't that big.

But if you spend a lot on printers and printing, remanufactured cartridges give you wonderful quality and peace of mind for less than OEM (original equipment manufacturer) cartridges.