Pricing is everything when it comes to running a business, and that obviously stretches to printing costs too. Trying to cipher which is the most economical laser printer will help you keep your costs down by allowing you the most efficient form of printing.

To help you find the most economical laser printer, we have scoured the internet and found 3 of the most efficient machines money can buy today! And here they are:

Samsung Printer Xpress c410w

This awesome colour laser printer will allow you to print 7,000 pages before you need to change your toner cartridges – this massive allowance will allow you to save money to put into other areas of your business. As well as being the most economical laser printer around, this Samsung device is extremely compact, has a massive 32MB of memory, and has an impressive colour resolution of 2,400 dpi.

HP Color LaserJet Enterprise CP4525dn

The HP LaserJet Enterprise is the other most economical laser printer you can buy today with an astronomical toner yield of up to 8,500 pages – this figure really dwarves the rest of the field, and should help you make some important savings. On top of being insanely economical with its toner, this HP model produces super-speedy prints in as quick as 9.5 seconds, and is compatible with just about any operating system going.

OKI Data C C531dn

Our last offering of economical laser printers brings us to this OKI device – the OKI Data C C531dn. With a toner yield of 5,000 pages this printer is still one of the most efficient and economical machines you can buy today! What you’ll also like about this model is it actually uses LEDs rather than lasers for increased print-efficiency, and it only takes 7.5 seconds to warm-up – which is ideal for those looking to print in a jiffy.

The right printer for your workplace will, of course, depend on where you work. Most offices can make do with a basic black-and-white printer (after all, boring work memos are never especially vibrant), but what if you work in a design studio or somewhere similarly colourful?

We can't recommend a printer for everyone, but what we can do is look at the printing requirements of the 'average' office:

• Heavy Usage: Printers aren't the centre of the office like they were in the days before email, but work printers still tend to be very busy machines. Your office printer should be capable of working at a high capacity, and you'll want an appliance that isn't running out of ink every five minutes.
  
  
• High Speed: This is related to the 'heavy usage' thing - your work schedule is probably pretty full, and you don't want to waste any time waiting for stuff to print (especially if your colleagues are waiting for their documents to go through as well).
  
  
• Multiple Functions: While the average office won't necessarily need a colour printer, the scan and copy functions can still be very handy in even the most monotone working environments. An all-in-one printer can solve a lot of problems and save quite a bit of space to boot.

With all of the above in mind, we think that an All-in-One Monochrome Laser Printer is the best choice for the average office. Laser printing is quicker than inkjet printing (you don't even have to wait for the ink to dry), so even on a really busy Friday afternoon, the print queue should never get too hectic.

Moreover, a laser printer is arguably much better value for money. Toner cartridges cost a little more than standard ink cartridges, but they also last a lot longer, saving you money in the long run. Note also that colour printers use four different toner cartridges whereas mono printers use only one - it's best to stick with black and white if your company can manage that way!

So which printer should I buy?

We recommend something from HP's LaserJet Pro range. The HP LaserJet M1536dnf, for example, is a heavy-duty monochromatic laser printer that also functions as a scanner, copier, and a fax machine.

And don't forget, when your office printer needs a new toner cartridge...we can help!

Laser printers can seem like complicated machines, unfathomable to anyone without an engineering degree. The average person simply prints his documents and gets on with his day, never stopping to wonder how his business memo materialised on that piece of paper.

Still, if you’re reading this, it’s probably because you did stop to wonder, and now you’re naggingly curious about the inner workings of your laser printer. So...

How Do Laser Printers Work?

Well, for one thing, they don’t just squirt ink onto the page like inkjet appliances. Ink and toner are two very different things, and the laser printing process is a little more intricate than printing with ink.

Laser printers make clever use of things like static electricity and oppositely-charged ions, but here’s an analogy that’s slightly easier to swallow: printing with toner is a lot like playing with glitter and glue. You probably did this when you were small; wrote your name in glue, covered the page in glitter, and then shook off the excess to reveal that the glitter had stuck to the glue in the right shapes, spelling your name out in glimmering golden letters.

Well, laser printing is actually very similar to that. Toner is the glitter that spells things out, and because the toner is positively-charged, it sticks to the negatively-charged parts of the imaging drum, which then transfers your images and/or text to the page.

So where does the ‘laser’ enter into it?

Ah, well, the laser is what creates the negative charge on the imaging drum, effectively telling the toner where to stick and what shapes to form. In our glitter analogy, the laser is YOU, squeezing glue onto the page to spell out your name.

This is a somewhat simplified explanation of the whole process, of course, but next time you look at your laser printer, at least you’ll have a reasonable idea of what’s going on in there!

Any other questions? Pop over to our Contact page and the City Ink experts will help you out!

Image by MrCrackers (view original here)

With such a broad range of colour laser printers now available on the market, choosing an overall winner is a difficult and daunting task. As such, we have narrowed down the market to our top 3 best buys; and the best thing is we have chosen these 3 purely based on you - the customer’s - reviews.

Dell 5130cdn

The Dell 5130 aims high, and in pretty much every category it succeeds! This colour laser printer boasts blazing speeds of up to 47 ppm (pages per minute), and a first-print-out time of just 8.5 seconds (10 seconds in colour). It also uses ColorbyDell technology to give you exceptional print quality, resulting in rich, glossy, and colourful images. Find high quality toner cartridges for this printer here.

Lexmark c522n

Another class-leading colour laser printer is the Lexmark c522n. This printer is also exceptionally fast, powerful, and packed full of features – though despite this, its intuitive interface makes it a doddle to use! Thanks to its 312MHz processor and 128MB of memory, this printer can also cope with heavy, demanding use. Should you need toner cartridges for your Lexmark c522n, why not check out our full range now?

Canon i-Sensys LBP7750cdn

The last of our top 3 colour laser printers bring us to the Canon i-Sensys LBP7750cdn – quite a mouthful, we know. This big boy basically ticks every box, and would make a welcome addition to any office environment. With speeds of 20.7 pages per minute this is also a seriously speedy printer, that also produces clean, crisp text, as well as deep, vivid colour prints. We also stock high quality toner for the Canon i-Sensys LBP7750cdn at seriously competitive prices.

If you have had a conversation recently with someone regarding printing ink we can pretty much guess how it went. The truth is printer ink is an expensive commodity these days – so much so in some cases it costs nearly as much as the printer itself. While at City Ink Express we sell a range of cost effective printing options, there are some more general things you can do keep the costs down.

Stay Conscientious

Think: do you really need to print that document off? The beauty of our computer-centric lives is that we can store and archive documents quickly and retrieve them with ease, so printing them out needn’t always be an option. There are times when you need to have a document in hand, but for the rest of the time stick it in a PDF, and stick that PDF in an email – it’s free remember!

Eco-Fonts

We’re not sure how many of you know this, but different fonts actually use more ink. For example, Century Gothic uses considerably less than Ariel, so much so that a company printing 250 pages per week would save $80 a year by switching (research according to a study conducted by Printer.com). Now we’re not saying make this change exactly, but certainly be aware of the potential savings.

Printer for a Purpose

 We are going to refrain from mentioning our particular printers, but what you should consider is that there is a printer for every purpose, and understanding this will help you save money in the long run. It may sound counter-intuitive, but it may be actually be cheaper in the long run to own two printers. If you are going to print off black text documents a laser printer is what you need, but then for any kind of photos a colour LaserJet would be appropriate; having a printer that can do both may seem sensible, but in everyday costs you’ll actually be paying more.

Hailing from Kyoto, Japan, Kyocera are another electronics giant that make some pretty cool printers. Kyocera printers include a wide range of laser and multi-functional devices, as well as making their own toner cartridges too – which we do happen to stock by the way, if you are interested.

To give you an idea of Kyocera printers and how well they perform, we have chosen 3 of their most highly rated models and taken them for a spin. Here is what we found:

Kyocera ECOSYS M2030dn

This multi-functional mono laser printer has everything you should hope for in a comprehensive modern device – it prints, scans, copies, and faxes. This printer even has some cool features like a duplex Automatic Document Feeder – or ADF – which eases and speeds large printing loads. Take it from us, this Kyocera printer would more than suffice at the heart of a small office or workgroup.

Kyocera Mita FS-1061DN

This next offering from Kyocera is a tad more basic but still has some winning qualities. Kyocera printers are known for their speed of printing and despite this being one of their lower priced models it still churns out pages at a decent rate. Kyocera’s Mita range is essentially driven at business customers though this device could easily find itself in the hands of a student or homeowner. It should be said though that this is quite a large printer, and with the feed tray open it does take up quite a bit of space.

Kyocera FS-C5150DN

 The last of the Kyocera printers we tested was this colour laser printer! With this device you can save on paper costs and give your documents a professional looking finish using the automatic two-sided printing feature. This printers also lets you print using sizes a4, a5, and a6, so it’s a really versatile little number! All-in-all this is a resourceful and efficient printer that will take care of all your colour printing needs no problem.

What we usually do when discussing printers is give you general brand information and tell what they do best, but for Lexmark printers we thought we would try something different. We thought we’d talk about 3 of the best rated Lexmark printers available today, so you have a flavour of the kind of range they offer, and the kinds of machines they sell.

Lexmark Prospect Pro205

This handsome little chap is a Lexmark Prospect Pro205, and we think it’s a great quality Inkjet printer that would be ideal for home/home office use. We don’t usually recommend Inkjet printers for text, but this Lexmark Pro205 produces great results. With the ability to scan, copy, fax, connect wirelessly, and of course print this multifunctional printer does it all. And if it’s graphics you’re after, this Inkjet really shines by producing some beautiful images!

Lexmark C543DN

Our next Lexmark printer is this C543DN. This is a reliable, high-specification laser printer that would work a treat in a small office environment. If you’re after impressive graphics then there are other Lexmark printers out there for you, but this particular model produces clean, crisp text that makes it perfect for printing out documents. The C543DN also comes with standard duplexing which is a real bonus on a printer of this price. This is a fantastic little colour printer with a great engine and an irresistible price tag.

Lexmark C748de

Our last offering to you is a real workhorse of a printer – the Lexmark c748de! We have given you an Inkjet printer for graphics and home use, a laser printer for small office use, and now this device is for speeding through far greater workloads. This high capacity laser printer is one of fastest around and should cope no problem with the busiest of work environments. The printing itself is extremely sharp with deep blacks, and it even prints photos to an exceptional quality also.

Konica Minolta are a Japanese electronics company that specialise in a wide range of imaging products. They make a wide-range of products from cameras to X-ray imaging systems, but it’s Konica Minolta printers that we’re interested in today!

Konica Minolta boast a product portfolio that is as cutting-edge as it is versatile! From systems such as their bizhub PRO and bizhub PRESS, to swift multifunctional devices and efficient laser printers, Konica Minolta printers feature innovative hardware that deliver exquisite results in black or colour.

Their laser printers in particular are much renowned. Konica Minolta printers satisfy a diverse range of complicated needs for home and office users alike – those needing network support, high quality imaging, high speed, compactness, and good value are extremely well catered to.  Konica Minolta’s colour laser printers in particular should be mentioned for their ability to achieve a fast output and print at a high quality simultaneously – and should you need toner cartridges for your Konica Minolta printer then make sure you check out City Ink Express.

Konica Minolta printers are also known for their comparatively low price. Even back in the 1980s when they were responsible for the KISS laser printer it was the cheapest of its kind, though that was $1995. Nowadays you will find a well-priced selection of laser printers and multifunctional devices that are equally competent in home and office environments. 

Dell is an absolute giant in the PC and laptop industry, but what about their printers? At City Ink Express, we don’t just like to palm you off with ink and a printer, we like to give you a flavour of the kind of brand you’re going to be dealing with. So, here is a little brief about Dell printers…

When you first think of Dell you think of computers, but they actually have a decent, extensive range of printers on offer too. If you are looking for a laser printer in particular then Dell has ample choice for you. The good people at Dell have kindly made the differences between their printers apparent through the model number prefixes and suffices.

Also, the ‘c’ and ‘b’ at the start of the number refers to whether the printer is capable of colour printing, or simply black and white. Should you want fax capabilities as well, look out for a ‘f’ suffix in their multifunctional machine range. Basically, if know what you are looking for you will be able to find it just by checking out the model number – which is surely a helpful bonus.

We have generally only heard good things back from Dell printer owners; it seems they put the same level of quality-control into their printers as they do into their hardware. You can expect to find an entry level Dell for around £54, and if you own a business they also make some larger, superior machines which are capable of heavy usage – this comes as no surprise as Dell made their name with business consumers.

Dell printers are still new to the game so perhaps not the crème de la crème, but if you are after a reliable laser printer which performs a number of different services then you won’t go far wrong with one!

Our Inkjet CISS (continuous ink supply system) and toner cartridges for laser printers are two of our most popular products. While each has its own individual benefits – which we will discuss – people often ask us which is best; in order to try and find an answer to this riddle, let’s take a look at how each performs in several critical area of printing. 

Cost

As with all electronic products, you can pay as much or as little as you choose to depending on the specifications you want. Generally an inkjet printer with a CISS system will cost you less than a laser printer upfront, especially if you need to purchase the toner on top of the cost of the printer itself. As far as everyday running costs go your CISS system will be cheaper to run too - though it is worth mentioning that toner does last a lot longer than conventional inkjet cartridges, so it’s still a sensible purchase.

Print Quality

Both printers are more than capable of producing high quality prints, but there are some differences. Laser printers fuelled by toner are able to print faster and sharper than inkjets. If you wish to print for photography purposes however, an inkjet CISS produces superior high-resolution photographs.

Longevity

Because toner cartridges do not have heads which burn out or clog up, they will last a lot longer than conventional inkjet printers, though the addition of one of our CISSs will help this. Another advantage of toner is that because it is dry it won’t dry up if you should not use your printer for long periods of time. Our Inkjet CISS printers do however have a smaller carbon footprint as they have a lesser heat output and lower electricity costs than laser printers.

As you can probably tell by now, there is no straightforward to this question. What we have ciphered though is where each printer is advantageous - all you need to do is assess what exactly you want from your printer, and make your choice accordingly.