Compare the Best Laser PrintersFebruary 2020

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

Laser printers range in price from $29 to $5,978 and in total we found prices for 204 laser printers. On average, a new laser printer costs $750 and 80% of laser printers are priced between $100 and $1,802. The cheapest laser printer that we found is the HP M176 at only $30, and the most expensive is the HP M855XH at $5,978.

Laser Printer Brands - Price Range

The average price of Ricoh laser printers is $1,141 which is the highest average price of all laser printer brands. Ricoh laser printers start at $30 and their most expensive laser printer costs $3,856.

HP laser printers start at $30 and their most expensive laser printer costs $5,978. The second highest average laser printer price out of all brands is HP laser printers with an average price of $1,082.

OKI laser printers range in price from $159 to $5,799, and the third highest average laser printer price out of all brands is OKI laser printers with an average price of $1,048.

Laser Printer Brands - Average Ratings

We have evaluated 368 expert reviews and 2,880 user reviews for laser printers and used these reviews to evaluate the average rating for each brand of laser printer. HP is the top rated laser printer brand with an average rating of 86%. Lexmark is the second best brand with 78% and Ricoh is the third best brand with 76%.

Biggest Laser Printer Retailers

We found 76 current offers for laser printers from Overstock making it the biggest laser printer retailer. That is over 8 times bigger than the second biggest retailer, eBay for whom we found 9 current offers for laser printers.

When Are Most New Laser Printers Released?

November to January is the most common period for new laser printers to be released in. That means that most of the latest laser printer technology was released in within the last 3 months, and now is good time to buy. Last year most new laser printers were released in January, with two new laser printers released that month. August was the biggest month in 2018 for new laser printers, with 19 new laser printers released that month. 91 new laser printers were released in November 2017 making it the biggest month that year for new laser printer releases.

How Fast Do Laser Printer Prices Drop After Release?

New laser printers drop in price by an average of 12% in the first 6 months after they were first released.

A typical new laser printer costs on average $750. By waiting 6 months before buying you could save on average $91.

Maximum Resolutions

'Maximum Resolution' denotes the largest resolution that the laser printer is capable of printing at.

The most common maximum resolution amongst new laser printers is 1200 x 1200 DPI. We found 322 laser printers that are 1200 x 1200 DPI laser printers. 600 x 600 DPI is the second most common maximum resolution amongst new laser printers. We found 102 laser printers that are 600 x 600 DPI laser printers.

Print Speeds

'Print Speed' 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 most laser printers range from 35ppm to 40ppm. The Lexmark MX711DE, which is available at $799.99, has the fastest print speed and is a 70ppm print speed laser printer. The laser printer with the slowest print speed is the DELL C1760NW, which is a 15ppm print speed laser printer and is available at $274.99.

Colour Printing

'Colour Printing' 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. 257 laser printers (45%) do are laser printers which support colour printing and 316 out of 573 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 Overstock. 59 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 Overstock. 77.6% of their laser printer prices were the cheapest that could be found anywhere.