by Reviewrz

Created on: March 13, 2007   Last Updated: May 18, 2007

The choice between a color and black and white printer largely depends on the type of printer that you will be purchasing. There are two main types of printers still in use, and cover the vast majority of printer purchases:

INK JET

Ink jet printers print images on paper by partitioning the image or text to be printed into a grid with thousands and thousands of divisions. Each cell in the grid represents a tiny dot on the page, and so the ink jet printer puts dot on the corresponding area of the page for every cell. This way, when the printing is finished, because all of the cells are so tiny and so close together, the recreate the image being printed.

Ink jet printers have been around for a long time, and so are quite cheap to purchase. You can purchase a decent ink jet printer for around $100. There is a hidden cost, however, which is the cartridges. If you are going to get a color ink jet printer, you will need to purchase a number of color cartridges that are combined in different amounts to recreate any color. These cartridges are very expensive given their life, so you will have an ongoing expense that must be taken into account as well (each cartridge is roughly $20).

Ink jet printers do however print very good color images. Their quality is actually better than laser printers, which will be discussed later on in the article. It is very rare to get an ink jet printer that can only print black and white, so if you decide to buy an ink jet printer, you will almost definitely get a color printer. Also, the speed at which ink jet printers print is not very fast, so this may not be the best option if you print large volumes.

LASER PRINTER

Laser printers work by exposing certain parts of the paper where the image will be to a special chemical. The toner is then released onto the paper, and any part of the paper with the chemical on it 'pulls' the toner onto it. Blank areas do not attract the toner, and so the product is the image on the paper. Laser printers are very fast, and so for volume printing, they are a must. They are a newer technology, and so will cost a bit more initially. You can purchase a decent laser printer for about $200, but they really pay themselves off when you take into account that you don't have to use cartridges. Instead, you use toner, which lasts about a year (often more), and costs about $100. So, if ink jet and laser printers were identical, laser printers are much more cost efficient in the long run, and the extra initial outlay will pay itself off after a year or two.

As mentioned, although laser printers can print color, the quality is not as good as ink jet. Color laser printers are also quite a bit more expensive than black and white (as you may expect), and the toner is more expensive as it has more than just black.

So, although the decision is yours to make, if you get a color printer, ink jet is probably the way to go, whereas if you don't need the color capabilities, it might be best to stick with laser. One solution, if you are a heavy computer user, is to purchase a black and white laser, and a color ink jet. This way, for most printing, you will use the laser, but for color printing, you can use the ink jet, increasing quality and also cutting down on wasted cartridge costs.

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