A colour laser printer is a specific type of printer, which operates on a similar principle to a photocopier or a multi-functional printer with cartridges. With an inkjet printer, small bursts of ink are sprayed onto the paper, but with a laser printer, it works off a similar principle to that of static electricity. Basically, a laser writes on a positively-charged central drum and creates an electrostatic image of whatever is going to be printed.
Quality and speed counts for colour laser printers
Once the laser has drawn an image, the drum is coated in a fine black powder. This is the same sort of toner used in photocopiers, which it then rolls out onto paper. The powder sticks to the positively charged sections of the drum like with static electricity, and only the powder on the negative image is let down on to the paper. That is how easy it is to produce great black-and-white pages, but a colour laser print is slightly more complicated than that. Essentially, it does goes through the same process four times, once for each of the colours which are cyan, magenta, yellow, and black, or a CMYK process. There are a few different ways this can be done, and how it’s done affects the quality and speed of the print, and also the price.
Four different colours produce a rainbow of colour
The simplest colour laser printer will usually have just one drum, and would roll out four different colours for each page. A slightly more elaborate set-up would do a similar thing, except it would first print the four colours onto a plate and then only print the plate to the page. The most complex printer which would be the most expensive type of colour laser printer has a complete system, drum, toner, and laser for each colour that needs to be produced, making an assembly-line style print.
When you want to buy a colour laser printer, there are a few things to look at. Firstly, you need to decide how much you are willing to spend. If you do not have lot of money, the options you’ll be able to choose from will be limited to the more simple varieties. If you have more money available, you can start to look bigger varieties.
One of the most important numbers to look at when buying a colour laser printer is the print speed of a page in a minute. Because black-and-white copies only use one drum head and one toner, they are normally much faster, so different numbers will tend to be given for black-and-white and colour prints. A high-end fast colour laser printer will have between sixteen to twenty six pages per minute for colour prints and probably higher for black-and-white prints.
Cheaper than inkjet printers in the long run
You’ll also want to know the cost of toner for your printer. One reason people like laser printers is that although the initial unit costs more, over time the lower cost of toner compared to inkjet cartridges more than pays for the unit. Make sure that the unit you’re looking at has affordable toner cartridges, and remember that although the initial price for a cartridge is high, it lasts for many pages. Resolution may also be important to you, and you should know that many laser printers are designed primarily for text and presentation documents, so if you plan on printing images make sure to buy a significantly more expensive photo-quality colour laser printer.
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