On Friday, August 22, 2003, at 09:14 PM, Clyde Kahrl wrote:
There is absolutely no comparison between inkjets and lasers. Lasers make unbelievably beautiful text. and they are much much faster at high resolutions and even faster if you make a second copy. Lasers work on ordinary paper. Lasers are very cheap. Lasers never break down. Lasers are really waterproof and don't smear.
A laserprinter can be left on for weeks at a time and respond in a minute. An inkjet will clog if the cartridge is not used for a > month.
A laserprinter uses a cartridge that costs $50 and prints 3-5000 copies. A set of inkjet cartridges for $50 might print 100 copies. A laserprinter uses paper costing $2 a ream. Some inkjet paper costs $2 a sheet.
The thing is, there are lots and lots of 14 year old laserwriter IIs out there and they still work. some of these have printed several hundred thousand copies.
I have had 7 or 8 inkjets and they all break down. They clog, they break, the company does the warranty work. And I keep them for limited use puposes, but for the office, for economy, and for reliability you really have to use a laser.
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Yes, all relatively true, but try telling your 5 year old how beautiful the greys are when there were 34 colors, not counting black, white or grey, on the art project they just completed on the screen in KidPix.
Also, you can use regular $2 per ream paper in an ink-jet. However if you want the very best output, you do need special paper to see all the colors a photo ink-jet can produce in all its glory, all 65 million of them, not just 256 greys. Also you can get archival quality prints that are said to last up to 80 years with the right ink and paper.
Yes, for the office (unless you need to print photos where a color laser almost is acceptable), long term economy (if you print a lot, my StyleWriter cost 150 in 1996 and I bought 3 cartridges @20 ea for a total of $210 for 7 years of use and was only retired because of it not being compatible with OS X. What kind of laser could I have bought in 1996 for $210, assuming I would still be on my first toner cart?) and reliability (at least for good quality, name brand ones-even HP has made a few dogs over the years) a laser is the best choice.
In addition, most lasers are built to commercial grade specs, meaning they are designed to print a higher volume and to be used by more people than an ink-jet. If you look at the manufacturers page per month rating, you will see that even low end lasers are built for almost 10 time as many pages for month as an ink-jet, and you pay the additional money up front for the quality.
Also, most consumers buy the consumer rated ink-jets, not the commercial grade one that are designed to be used in an office environment and can cost $500 and up. This does not even consider the large format printers and plotters that can print up to 48" width (and I am not even getting into the super size ones that they use to print the sheets for billboards and similar sized projects-remember the Think Different banners that Apple put out on the side of buildings a while ago?) and can cost thousands of dollars. Try seeing how many Architectural firms are willing to give up their large format plotters that use ink-jets to go with a large format laser printer that can print up to 17" wide at most.
All in all, there are good uses for both ink-jets and lasers, as long as you understand the limitations of each.
Len
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