HP Toner or Inkjet Printing, Which is the More Cost Effective?
Home printing 4 decades ago was limited to low cost inkjet printers with the laser toner printer designed for the office. In more recent times the retail price and the sheer physical size of the laser printer have both been reduced making it an option for home and business. Some black and white laser printers can be bought for under €120 offering useful features such as Wi-Fi and double-sided printing and fit comfortably on your desk!
So how does HP laser toner compare for use in the home in comparison to an inkjet printer. It comes down to the amount of pages your print, the initial purchase price of the printer can be expensive but the running costs for a busy printer can be lower than an inkjet printer. HP are the largest seller of inkjet printers in the UK and Ireland with the HP Deskjet 3050A being it’s most popular printer, while the best selling HP laser printer is the HP Colour Laserjet CP2025.
As a rule of thumb if you consider yourself to print in or around 1000 pages a year then the inkjet printer is the best deal for you. If you print upwards of 200 pages a year then the laser toner printer will be more economical and of course if you print 8,000 – 10,000 pages per year (especially in black and white) then the laser printer will save you an absolute fortune.
Running costs of any printer are crucial and the inkjet printer HP Deskjet 3050A ink cartridges are no exception. These are currently available as both original HP and remanufactured ink cartridges HP301XL Black and colour. The original HP cartridges are manufactured by HP and are costly to buy. The remanufactured version is HP cartridges that have been used, returned empty to a third-party, checked, refilled, repaired if necessary and re-packaged.
Both will work perfectly well in the printer but the remanufactured cartridges are considerably less to buy than the original. It’s the same story with HP Colour Laserjet CP2025 toner cartridges. The original HP toner is expensive but the compatible version can cost up to 100% less. The compatible version of the HP toner is once again manufactured by a third-party company, not HP, and will offer obvious big savings to any business that uses these toners. One piece of good advice to follow is to never buy any printer based on the purchase price alone, always check the cost of the replacement HP ink or HP toner.
The price of print per page should be calculated and more importantly, will the printer work with non-original ink or toner cartridges. The print definition of the inkjet printer is far superior to the laser printer and image printing on photo paper is using an inkjet printer is unbeatable. A big plus for the laser printer and one of the most obvious advantages of printing with a laser printer is the print speed – this vastly out-performs any inkjet printer. Some models of laser printers are also able to perform Duplex printing, that’s printed 2 sides of the page at once. A real time saver for large document runs. Consider buying a printer that is Wi-Fi enabled and will allow device printing remotely from a mobile phone or tablet.
- Published in HP Toners, Inkjet Cartridges