Compare the Best Laser PrintersJune 2018

There are 2 main types of printers available on the consumer market - inkjet and laser printers. Both have strengths and weaknesses, and your choice will largely depend on what you plan on using your printer for. This guide will concentrate on information about laser/LED printers - for a detailed rundown of laser printers, please see the guide under the inkjet printer category.

Laser printers work by using a very fine laser to help minuscule particles of powdered ink (toner) ‘stick’ to the page in the shape of the letters and numbers to be printed. The page is then passed through between 2 heated rollers (a ‘fusing unit’), ‘burning’ the toner onto the page. Because the laser can move very fast, a laser printer can print at a very fast rate - far faster than any inkjet printer. Also, because the laser is extremely accurate, it allows for extremely crisp prints, with little chance of smudging or blotting.

Cost

Compared to inkjet printers, laser printers are far more expensive - sometimes double or more the cost of an equivalent inkjet model. However while the initial cost is high, the day-to-day running costs are far lower: toner cartridges last far longer than ink cartridges, and are cheaper to replace. Both these factors mean that if you routinely print large amounts of documents, a laser printer will be far more economical over time compared to an inkjet.

Types of Laser Printer

There are 2 main types of laser printer on the market at the moment - laser and LED printers. Both work by the same process - using focussed light to trace a path for toner particles on a page. However while a laser has to track across the page from one side of a line to the other, an LED printer can use a static bank of LEDs to ‘flash’ an entire line in one go. This means that LED printers are far faster than laser printers which achieving the same high-quality prints. However since LED printers are a new technology, you can expect to pay more for an LED-enabled printer. If you find yourself regularly printing a lot of documents, the saving in time may well be worth the expenditure.

Black & White vs. Colour

Laser printers are primarily monochromatic, since they only use a single colour of toner. However colour laser printers do exist - they work by having 4 separate cartridges and drums (black, yellow, magenta and cyan) so the paper is passed through each colour of toner in turn, building up a fully-coloured print as it goes.

Print Speed

Laser printers are far faster than inkjet printers, and are capable of a very high rate of pages printed per minute. That said, there is a large variety in printing speed within laser printers, with some models capable of printing pages twice as fast as other devices. This is especially true of LED printers, which are capable of an extremely high page-per-minute rate. All of our printers have detailed stats on the number of pages they can print a minute, broken down into monochrome and colour, as well as by quality (draft, normal, high-quality). This will allow you to make the best decision as to the laser printer that best suits your needs.

Connectivity

Most newer models of laser printers have an array of network connectivity options to make printing easier and more efficient. Ethernet connectivity is now a common feature in modern laser printers - so data can be transferred over a network without having to plug your computer into the printer directly. This makes it far easier to share printers with groups: the printer can be placed in a central area and used freely by everyone around.

Additionally, many models of laser and LED printer also have wifi and/or bluetooth connectivity. These options mean that you do not even have to use a cable to use the printer - data can be transferred over wireless connection.

Finally, the newest models of these printers have support for cloud or app printing. These options allow you to send a document to print from anywhere in the world - from a browser over the cloud, or from an app on your smartphone. While you will pay more money for these options, the convenience they provide may be worth the extra expenditure.

Laser Printer Prices

The price range of laser printers is from $42 to $11,399 and in total we found prices for 142 laser printers. The average price of a new laser printer is $786 and the 80% of laser printers are priced between $120 and $1,900. The most expensive laser printer that we found is the Lexmark X952dte at $11,399, and the cheapest is the Samsung SL-M2020W at only $42.

Laser Printer Brands - Price Range

The average price of Ricoh laser printers is $1,178 which is the highest average price of all laser printer brands. Ricoh laser printers range in price from $141 to $3,349.

Lexmark laser printers range in price from $99 to $11,399, and the second highest average laser printer price out of all brands is Lexmark laser printers with an average price of $1,113.

Xerox laser printers start at $87 and their most expensive laser printer costs $2,800. The third highest average laser printer price out of all brands is Xerox laser printers with an average price of $1,042.

Laser Printer Brands - Average Ratings

We have analysed 639 expert reviews and 7,074 user reviews for laser printers and used this data to evaluate the average rating for each brand of laser printer. The top three laser printer brands are HP, Samsung and Xerox. HP has an average rating of 85%, Samsung has an average rating of 82% and Xerox has an average rating of 80%.

Biggest Laser Printer Retailers

The biggest laser printer retailer by number of products currently for sale is Amazon US. We found 189 current laser printer offers from Amazon US. The second biggest retailer is Overstock with 78 offers. That means Amazon US is more than twice as big as Overstock when it comes to laser printers. Newegg US is the third biggest retailer with 32 current offers.

When Are Most New Laser Printers Released?

The most common period for new laser printers to be released in is between October and December. If you wait until October 2018 then you might be able to get better features on your laser printer. Also the price of the current laser printers may drop off just before the latest models are released in October. December was the biggest month in 2017 for new laser printers, with 325 new laser printers released that month. The biggest month in 2016 for new laser printer releases was October, with 38 new laser printers released that month. In 2015 most new laser printers were released in September, with 119 new laser printers released that month.

How Fast Do Laser Printer Prices Drop After Release?

On average, in the first 6 months after release, laser printers drop in price by 15%. That means a saving of $120 on a typical $786 new laser printer if you wait 6 months before buying.

Maximum Resolutions

This denotes the largest resolution that the laser printer is capable of printing at.

We found 288 laser printers that are 1200 x 1200 DPI laser printers, which makes this the most popular maximum resolution amongst new laser printers. 600 x 600 DPI is the second most popular maximum resolution amongst new laser printers. We found 78 laser printers that are 600 x 600 DPI laser printers.

Print Speeds

This measures how long it takes the laser printer to print a single black & white A4 page at normal quality.

The print speeds of laser printers range from 8ppm to 75ppm. The print speeds of the majority of laser printers range from 25ppm to 35ppm. The HP M609, which currently retails for $1,037.97, has the fastest print speed and is a 75ppm print speed laser printer. The HP M251n, which currently retails for $116.49, has the slowest print speed and is a 14ppm print speed laser printer.

Colour Printing

This denotes whether the laser printer has the ability to print in colour, or whether it's limited to black & white.

The number of new laser printers that do and are laser printers which do not support colour printing is roughly the same. 244 out of 531 do are laser printers which support colour printing and 287 out of 531 are laser printers which do not support colour printing.

Which Are the Cheapest Retailers for Laser Printers?

The chart below helps you decide which retailer is normally cheapest for buying laser printers. For each retailer it shows the total number of laser printers where they currently have a market leading price. The chart below helps you decide which retailer is normally cheapest for buying laser printers. For each retailer we took all of their prices and looked at what proportion of those prices where the cheapest on the market. The cheapest retailer that we found was Amazon US. 110 of their laser printer prices were the cheapest that could be found anywhere.

Proportion of Laser Printers for Which Each Retailer is Cheapest?

Assessing how cheap each retailer is for laser printers by counting the number of cheapest prices for that retailer, makes the retailers that offer the greatest number of laser printer prices more likely to offer the greatest number of cheapest prices. The chart below considers the proportion of each retailer's laser printer prices that are the cheapest compared to other retailers. The cheapest retailer that we found using this approach was Amazon US. 58.2% of their laser printer prices were the cheapest that could be found anywhere.