Is a laser printer worth it for home use?
Yes for most homes. If you print black documents and your printing comes in bursts, a mono laser from about $179.99 costs a few cents a page, cannot dry out between jobs, and prints faster than any home inkjet. It is the wrong choice only if you need color or photographs.
The case for, in four points
- It does not dry out. Toner is a dry powder. A laser ignored for three months prints perfectly on the day you need a boarding pass, which is the single most common failure of a home inkjet. The full answer.
- The pages are cheap. About 3.3 cents on a household high-yield cartridge and about 1.3 cents on the business ones we priced — against several cents a page for ink cartridges.
- It is fast and quiet about it. 36 to 50 pages a minute on the machines we cover, duplexed, with no drying time and nothing to smudge.
- Nothing is locked to a plan. Toner is bought outright, Brother has publicly denied blocking third-party toner with firmware, and no laser we cover needs an account to print. The dispute, reported as a dispute.
The case against
A mono laser cannot print color at all, and a color laser is an expensive way to get color: four cartridges, slower output, and a cost per color page several times a tank printer. Photographs are simply not what the technology is for — a laser lays down toner in a halftone pattern and on glossy photo paper it cannot compete with ink.
Lasers are also heavier and bulkier than cheap inkjets, they warm up, and the second consumable — the imaging drum — is a cost most buyers have never heard of. Drum unit vs toner explains that one, because it is the detail that surprises people two years in.
Where the break-even actually is
Compare like for like on supplies, since the purchase prices are within a few tens of dollars. Three years of black printing at 50 pages a month costs $59 in household Brother toner. At 200 pages a month it is $236, and on the business cartridge $97.
| Supply | Per page | 50 pages a month | 200 pages a month |
|---|---|---|---|
| Brother TN830XL high-yield toner cartridge | ~3.3¢ | $59 | $236 |
| Brother TN920XXL super high-yield toner cartridge | ~1.9¢ | $33 | $134 |
| Brother TN920UXXL ultra high-yield toner cartridge | ~1.3¢ | $24 | $97 |
| Canon 125 black toner cartridge | ~6.1¢ | $109 | $436 |
| Epson 522 black ink bottle | ~0.4¢ | $7 | $29 |
Our arithmetic on genuine supply prices read on the dates in our supply registry and manufacturer-rated ISO yields, excluding the printer and paper. The last row is bottled ink on a tank printer, included for scale.
Two conclusions come straight off that table. A laser is not the cheapest thing to feed — bottled ink is, by a wide margin — and within laser printing the cartridge family matters more than the brand or the printer. Buying a laser whose cartridge is rated at 1,600 pages undoes the entire argument.
Who should buy one, and who should not
- Buy a mono laser if you print black documents, print irregularly, want it to work every time, and do not need color. This is most households.
- Buy a laser all-in-one if you also need to scan and copy — the feeder is worth thirty dollars many times over.
- Buy a business-range laser if you print more than about 150 pages a month. The cartridge gap pays the price difference back. Our high-volume picks.
- Buy a tank printer instead if you print color regularly or photographs at all, and you print often enough that the head stays healthy.
- Buy both if you genuinely need both, and ignore anyone who finds that funny. Two specialised printers cost less than one that compromises.