Gadget

A laser printer is a one time investment with a long life and low maintenance cost. This is not an inkjet printer, for which you need to buy a cartridge almost every month — here we talked about different types of printers and their differences. Let’s figure out what a home laser printer should be like — which one to choose and what you need to consider. Let’s go through the characteristics of such devices, and, as usual, give a small selection of popular models in 2019.

Choosing the best laser printer for the home: the most important nuances

Let’s figure out what is important when using a device for printing at home, and what characteristics you need to pay attention to when buying a home «laser printer».

Chroma

Buying a monochrome printer for your home makes little sense. It’s more like an office, where the main print is documents. At home, you will want to print photos, beautiful pictures from the Internet, prints on thermal transfer paper. So a home «printing press» should have both black and color toners. From which the next important characteristic immediately follows …

Refueling cost

…because the printer will have to be refilled with four different colors (including black, of course). This will not have to be done so often — this is the main plus that the use of a laser-type device gives. So it would not be superfluous to clarify how much the original consumable costs and whether there is a compatible one. You can refill the toner in a laser printer yourself, the Internet is full of instructions (as well as funny photos, who and how got smeared when he refilled it himself). And how much does professional refueling cost at the nearest service?

Toner life

Translated into human language — how many pages can be printed before the printer has to be refilled. A good home laser printer produces 1200 to 2000 pages before reloading. The resource of black and color toner may be different, this is also worth considering. Of course, the larger the resource, the better, the longer the use of the printer will last before refueling.

Paper size

For the home, print speed is not as important as the size of paper that can be used. As a rule, home laser printers support A4 or A3 formats. Specify what can be printed on: cardstock, labels, glossy paper, transparencies, envelopes, matte paper, thermal transfer paper, and so on. This is usually indicated in the specifications.

Interfaces

A modern printer can accept documents for printing via different channels — wired and wireless. It can be either USB or Ethernet, or Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, NFC. If you think about which laser printer is better to buy for home use, then ideally it should support wireless interfaces. After all, you may suddenly want to print a photo from a smartphone or tablet, for example — “by air” is much faster.

Rating of laser printers for home-2019

As always, here is a selection of laser printers for the home that print well and are inexpensive. It should be noted that even an inexpensive color «laser printer» will cost from 9,000 to 13,000 rubles — this is a single investment in good printing, which is worth saving up for.

Ricoh SP C260DNw

Possibly the best color laser printer on a budget. It provides 2-sided 4-color laser printing on A4 (210 x 297 mm) paper, as well as card stock, labels, glossy paper, envelopes and matte paper.

The resource of color toner is 1600 pages, black — 2000 pages, but if you buy an original replacement cartridge — it will cost about 5 thousand rubles. However, you can choose compatible consumables. The printer initially ships with a 1,000-page starter cartridge. The printer supports Ethernet (RJ-45), Wi-Fi 802.11n, NFC and USB 2.0 interfaces. You can also use Apple’s proprietary AirPrint technology for iOS and OS X devices.

Users note the high print quality and rich colors that are rarely found in this class of printers. In addition, it is considered the most «long-playing» laser state employee for the home.

Samsung Xpress C430W

Next in price is a printer from Samsung, which is also a four-color «laser». It prints on A4 (210×297mm) paper, but the maximum print size is slightly larger at 216×356mm. Therefore, it can also print on card stock, transparencies, labels, glossy paper, envelopes, and matte paper.

Its toner resource is small, if we take the previous model for comparison. The color cartridge will last for 1000 pages, black and white — for 1500 pages. But it supports Ethernet, Wi-Fi 802.11n and USB 2.0 in the same way, as well as AirPrint.

User opinions about the device differ. Some note fast high-quality printing (and there is an economical printing mode), ease of setup and installation, Wi-Fi and AirPrint, as well as small dimensions. Others scold the device for the lack of duplex printing and the very high price of consumables. Users are also very dissatisfied with the fact that the cartridges for the printer are «chip», that is, only the original can be installed — compatible ones will not work. In a word, the device is controversial, but popular.

Kyocera Ecosys P5021cdn

But this model is praised by buyers. The printer supports duplex laser printing in 4 colors. The maximum paper size that can be used is A4 (210 × 297 mm) and the maximum print size is 216 × 356 mm.

The device can print on cards, transparencies, labels, envelopes, glossy and matte paper. Moreover, users note the high quality of printing on any paper: the printer is able to determine its type (although sometimes it gets confused) and automatically adjust its settings specifically for it.

The resource of a color and black-and-white cartridge is the same — 1200 pages. But there is a problem with the support of wireless interfaces: only Ethernet, USB 2.0, as well as SD memory cards (exactly this format, check what the difference is in this article) and direct printing — that is, connecting a camera, flash drive or other device via USB 2.0 direct to printer. So it’s a fully wired device.

Users are very pleased that the printer has non-chip, easy-to-refill cartridges. Compatible cartridges are also supported at a low price, which can be bought instead of the original ones. There is also a surprisingly economical consumption of toner: one refill is enough for almost a year of use.