Just a few years ago, when choosing a printing device, many buyers preferred inkjet models. After all, their incredibly low cost made such a purchase very attractive from a financial point of view.
As an example, we can mention some Lexmark printers, the price of which did not exceed $ 20. In addition, the ability to
print color images, which the matrix varieties could not boast of, was a very significant “bonus”. But the color
laser printer for the home seemed fantastic. First of all, because its cost was equal to, and sometimes exceeded the price of a good laptop.
Recently, the situation in the field of office equipment is changing rapidly and even a person with an average income can easily afford to buy a laser printer for the home. True, models for black-and-white printing are still available, but color ones are still expensive. But history has made science fiction a reality many times, so it’s quite possible that in a couple of years inkjet machines will be just as strange as the matrix ones are now, and they will be replaced by a laser printer for the home that can print in color.
We point out the main advantages of such devices:
- high speed printing;
- low cost of a print if economical settings are used;
- there is no danger of ink drying during a long break in work. Therefore, you can forget about the need to turn on the printer once a week for preventive purposes;
- the durability of prints, as they are not washed out by water;
- a greater number of printed sheets from a single refill cartridge, compared with inkjets without an external ink supply system.
Thus, a laser printer for the home is often preferable. However, only with a balanced choice. Let's try to figure out how to choose a laser printer for the home.
One of the basic rules is not to overpay for functions that are not needed or rarely used. For example, the desire to sometimes print on
sheets of A3
format will require the purchase of a device whose cost exceeds the price of a standard A4 printer by more than 5 times.
A laser printer for the home, as well as for the office, is characterized by the allowable number of prints per month. This value is obtained, given the natural wear and tear of the device. The printer can issue a larger quantity, but its service life will be exhausted much earlier. Sometimes it makes sense to purchase a more expensive model with an increased resource.
For everyday tasks, a buffer memory of 2 MB or more is sufficient. An exception is the need to frequently print complex images from PPT and PDF files.
The processor performance of the printer directly depends on the amount of device memory. For a 2 MB model, a processing frequency of 100 MHz is enough. Unless, when buying a printer with the option of expanding the buffer, you can choose a processor "with a margin".
Also worth paying attention to the interface. You can still find printers on the market that connect to a computer through the LPT parallel port . As a rule, it is either “used,” or balances in warehouses. It is more preferable to choose a model with a USB interface.