[usrusr]

Toner cartridges don't dry out.

Back in the twentieth century, laser printing used to be the exclusive realm of high volume shared printers in offices, but that price cliff quickly disappeared in the twentyfirst. But somehow, the printing cartridge industry managed to keep the illusion of "I don't print enough to warrant a printing method that isn't plagued by drying it when not in use" alive even while offering laser printers for tens of dollars right next to them. Apparently the lure of pretty colors is that strong. I suspect that even people too young to be born when it was still true regularly fall for "I don't print enough to warrant a printing method that isn't plagued by drying it when not in use"

[moffkalast]

Well most of the time I print something myself it's some graphics thing that needs colours. Though yeah some people just print black and white text, even though that hardly makes sense anymore. If you need to get text somewhere just send a PDF. Maybe for signing contracts or something, but for that there's adobe acrobat reader.

Colour lasers remain quite expensive and usually don't include the extra scanner which is handy to have at times. Though lasers do have the benefit of being able to print onto clear transparent sheets which inkjets straight up can't unless you get those special roughened ones.

[Dylan16807]

> Colour lasers remain quite expensive and usually don't include the extra scanner which is handy to have at times.

Looking around it seems like most brands have variants of the cheaper models that also have scanners. The last time I bought a laser printer, both color and black and white, it was a simple choice to have a scanner or not. And $330 at office depot is only 50% more than an inkjet.

[moffkalast]

I mean, looking at what my local stores have on offer you can get a multifunctional inkjet for $90, cheapest colour laser for $340. But realistically are you going to buy the cheapest possible one? You can probably get a very decent inkjet for $150 but for a decent laser you'll probably need to go into the $500 range. It's a roughly 3X price difference.

Still this does surprise me, last I checked they were all over $600 at the very least, so the prices have come down in recent years I guess.

[nybble41]

Given that a full set of replacement ink cartridges can cost $70 or more, it doesn't take very many instances of replacing dried-out but otherwise barely used cartridges to make up the difference in up-front cost.

If you regularly print full-color photos, by all means get an inkjet. (Perhaps consider one of the tank-based models, though.) Otherwise, a laser printer will generally be more economical for home printing in the long run, especially if you can settle for a black-and-white model, and you can always take the rare exceptions requiring full color to a print shop or photo kiosk.