| Adoption rates of printers for home use have risen | | | | As with all technology however, advancement is fast |
| sharply over the past few years as the ever swift | | | | and costs come down rapidly. What has resulted is a |
| advancement of technology has seen printers for the | | | | wide range of laser printers now on the market |
| end-user go from merely being able to print ASCII | | | | which are capable of printing very good quality |
| characters (text) to being capable of spitting out | | | | images both in black and white and in colour, with |
| full-colour glossy photographs, t-shirt labels and CD | | | | image quality being almost on par with that of a good |
| covers, etc. | | | | ink-jet printer. |
| However, the most common type of home-use | | | | Although not as cheap to buy, their reputation as a |
| printer until now - the trusty ink-jet - has its | | | | hardier workhorse means the life of a laser printer is |
| drawbacks. Namely, the better quality images these | | | | likely to exceed that of an ink-jet, and the |
| printers are able to produce, coupled with their | | | | consumables (namely the toner) will most definitely |
| widening array of uses means that the lives of their | | | | last longer than in an ink-jet. |
| relatively modest-sized ink cartridges are somewhat | | | | Toner cartridges for any laser printer are still in most |
| brief. On top of that, the cartridges are not - and | | | | cases not quite as cheap to buy as ink-jet cartridges, |
| never have been - cheap to purchase, nor are they | | | | but when you consider that they will last many times |
| easily (if at all, in some cases) refillable. | | | | longer and can often be refilled many times more |
| Indeed, laser printers have always been the | | | | without loss of print quality, you are most definitely |
| preferred choice of printer for use in the corporate | | | | saving money in the long run. |
| environment, schools and anywhere where print | | | | Laser printers for medium-to-heavy use at home are |
| volume is somewhat high. However, the drawback of | | | | for some reason still not a widely considered option, |
| laser printers was that traditionally they were only | | | | but when factoring in all the pros and cons it is clear |
| good for printing in black and white text - and in | | | | to see that the laser printer wins out, particularly in |
| exceptional cases, very low-resolution monotone | | | | terms of being a lighter burden on your wallet in the |
| images. For good quality colour images, the ink-jet | | | | long run. |
| was the only real solution. | | | | |