Compare the 10 Best Laser Printers - August 2017
Every week we analyse the technical specs, reviews and prices of every laser printer on the market in the US to determine our top 10 list. In total we compared over 550 laser printers, 1,780 reviews and 3,580 prices. Last updated 15 August 2017.
HP M553
|
98
|
3 Awards |
|
99
|
Excellent |
|
85
|
Fully-Featured |
|
78
|
$565 / 10 Years |
|
90
|
Excellent |
| Amazon US | $123.03 |
| Tech For Less | $528.97 |
| Overstock | $626.92 |
Canon LBP6230
|
97
|
1 Award |
|
99
|
Excellent |
|
85
|
Fully-Featured |
|
83
|
$49 / 10 Years |
|
89
|
Excellent |
Lexmark Cx410
|
98
|
3 Awards |
|
94
|
Excellent |
|
84
|
Fully-Featured |
|
94
|
$19 / 10 Years |
|
88
|
Excellent |
OKI C332dn
|
95
|
2 Awards |
|
97
|
Excellent |
|
83
|
Fully-Featured |
|
88
|
$26 / 10 Years |
|
88
|
Excellent |
Ricoh SP 6430
|
93
|
1 Award |
|
98
|
Excellent |
|
83
|
Fully-Featured |
|
88
|
$25 / 10 Years |
|
87
|
Excellent |
HP M252
|
94
|
4 Awards |
|
99
|
Excellent |
|
82
|
Fully-Featured |
|
77
|
$153 / 10 Years |
|
86
|
Excellent |
HP M477
|
95
|
2 Awards |
|
96
|
Excellent |
|
81
|
Fully-Featured |
|
73
|
$313 / 10 Years |
|
85
|
Excellent |
| eBay | $299.00 |
| Tech For Less | $301.49 |
| Newegg US | $379.99 |
HP M227
|
93
|
6 Reviews |
|
97
|
Excellent |
|
80
|
Fully-Featured |
|
76
|
$88 / 10 Years |
|
85
|
Excellent |
Samsung M2825
|
92
|
3 Awards |
|
98
|
Excellent |
|
80
|
Fully-Featured |
|
68
|
$743 / 10 Years |
|
84
|
Excellent |
Canon MF249
|
95
|
1 Award |
|
97
|
Excellent |
|
79
|
Good Features |
|
84
|
Excellent |
No matching products found.
Laser Printer Brands
Find out how laser printer brands compare. The average rating for each brand is based on the rating of all of their laser printers. Click on a link to compare all laser printers made by your favourite brand.
| Logo | Brand | Number of Laser Printers | Price Range | Average Rating |
|---|---|---|---|---|
 |
Lexmark Laser Printers | 65 | $25 - $2,700 | 71% |
 |
HP Laser Printers | 56 | $22 - $2,600 | 70% |
 |
Brother Laser Printers | 31 | $22 - $1,850 | |
 |
Samsung Laser Printers | 25 | $80 - $1,533 | 71% |
 |
Ricoh Laser Printers | 21 | $70 - $3,063 | 82% |
 |
Other Laser Printer Brands | 51 | $57 - $3,999 |
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Laser Printer Buying Guide
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.
However while laser printers are very good for black & white printing, they are very weak at anything involving colour. Many laser printers are simply incapable of printing in colour, since the toner they use only comes in one colour. Colour laser printers do exist, but have nowhere near the quality of inkjet or photo printers.
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.
Because they involve far more hardware, colour laser printers are far more expensive than their monochromatic cousins. Moreover, the quality of the printing is nowhere near as good as inkjet or photo printers - you won’t be able to get professional-quality colour depth or detail from a laser printer. Therefore if high-quality colour printing is important for you, you may wish to look into buying an inkjet printer.
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 Retailers, Prices and Features
Laser Printer Prices
Laser printers range in price from $22 to $3,999 and in total we found prices for 249 laser printers. On average, a new laser printer costs $563 and 80% of laser printers are priced between $115 and $1,280. The HP P2035 is the cheapest laser printer at only $22, and OKI MC873 is the most expensive at $3,999.
Laser Printer Brands - Price Range
OKI laser printers range in price from $159 to $3,999, and the average price of OKI laser printers is $946 which is the highest average price of all laser printer brands.
Kyocera laser printers start at $520 and the most expensive Kyocera laser printer costs $1,038. The second highest average laser printer price out of all brands is Kyocera laser printers with an average price of $802.
The average price of Lexmark laser printers is $731 which is the third highest average price of all laser printer brands. Lexmark laser printers start at $25 and the most expensive Lexmark laser printer costs $2,700.
Laser Printer Brands - Average Ratings
We have analysed 316 expert reviews and 310 user reviews for laser printers written online and used these reviews to calculate the average rating for each brand of laser printer. The top three laser printer brands are Ricoh, Samsung and Brother. Ricoh has an average rating of 87%, Samsung has an average rating of 83% and Brother has an average rating of 83%.
Biggest Laser Printer Retailers
The biggest laser printer retailer by number of products currently for sale is Newegg US. We found 148 current laser printer offers from Newegg US. The second biggest laser printer retailer is eBay with 122 offers. That means Newegg US is significantly bigger than eBay when it comes to laser printers. Adorama is the third biggest retailer with 94 current offers.
When Are Most New Laser Printers Released?
We looked at the release dates for new laser printers over the last 3 years, but couldn't see any evident pattern. The biggest month in 2016 for new laser printer releases was February, with 28 new laser printers released that month. September was the biggest month in 2015 for new laser printers, with 166 new laser printers released that month. 45 new laser printers were released in September 2014 making it the biggest month that year as well for new laser printer releases.
How Fast Do Laser Printer Prices Drop After Release?
On average laser printers drop in price by 19% in the first 6 months after release. On a typical new laser printer costing $563, by waiting 6 months before buying you could save on average $106.
Maximum Resolutions
This denotes the largest resolution that the laser printer is capable of printing at.
We found 244 laser printers that are 1200 x 1200 DPI laser printers, which makes this the most common maximum resolution amongst new laser printers. We found 80 laser printers that are 600 x 600 DPI laser printers, making this the second most popular maximum resolution amongst new laser printers.
A larger resolution means that the print-out is comprised of more pixels, meaning greater detail and a higher-quality print.
Colours
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 is roughly the same. 239 laser printers out of 517 do are laser printers which support colour and 54% of laser printers are laser printers which do not support colour.
Print Speeds (black, Normal Quality, A4/US Letter)
This measures how long it takes the laser printer to print a single black & white A4 page at normal quality.
Across the range of laser printers, the print speeds (black, normal quality, A4/US Letter) range from 8ppm to 71ppm. The print speeds (black, normal quality, A4/US Letter) of the majority of laser printers range from 27ppm to 33ppm. The laser printer with the fastest print speed (black, normal quality, A4/US Letter) is the LexmarkMS812dtn, which is a 70ppm print speed laser printer and currently retails for $1,263.12. The LexmarkMS812dtn, which currently retails for $559.00, has the slowest print speed (black, normal quality, A4/US Letter) and is an 8ppm print speed laser printer.
A faster print speed means the laser printer is more efficient and can manage larger print jobs faster.
Biggest Laser Printer Retailers
We found 148 current offers for laser printers from Newegg US making it the biggest laser printer retailer. That is significantly bigger than the second biggest retailer, eBay for whom we found 122 current offers for laser printers. The third biggest retailer is Adorama with 94 current laser printer offers.
Which Are the Cheapest Retailers for Laser Printers?
The cheapest store by number of laser printer for which they offer the cheapest price is v with the cheapest price on 79 laser printers.
Proportion of Laser Printers for Which Each Retailer is Cheapest?
The retailer that most frequently offered the cheapest price on laser printers is eBay and offers the cheapest price on 64.8% of its laser printers.