Compare the Best Laser PrintersJune 2018

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

The price range of laser printers is from £24 to £4,577 and in total we found prices for 288 laser printers. The average price of a new laser printer is £426 and 80% of laser printers are priced between £90 and £810. The Ricoh SP112 is the cheapest laser printer at only £25, and HP M682z is the most expensive at £4,577.

Laser Printer Brands - Price Range

OKI laser printers start at £120 and their most expensive laser printer costs £2,911. The highest average laser printer price out of all brands is OKI laser printers with an average price of £723.

HP laser printers range in price from £50 to £4,577, and the second highest average laser printer price out of all brands is HP laser printers with an average price of £665.

Kyocera laser printers start at £133 and their most expensive laser printer costs £3,686. The average price of Kyocera laser printers is £662 which is the third highest average price of all laser printer brands.

Laser Printer Brands - Average Ratings

We have evaluated 639 expert reviews and 7,074 user reviews for laser printers from across the internet and used this data to determine the average rating for each brand of laser printer. The top three laser printer brands are HP, Samsung and Xerox. HP has an average rating of 85%, Samsung has an average rating of 82% and Xerox has an average rating of 80%.

Biggest Laser Printer Retailers

The biggest laser printer retailer by number of products currently for sale is Amazon UK. We found 290 current laser printer offers from Amazon UK. The second biggest retailer is Ebuyer Business with 182 offers. That means Amazon UK is much bigger than Ebuyer Business when it comes to laser printers. Ebuyer is the third biggest retailer with 180 current offers.

When Are Most New Laser Printers Released?

October to December is the most common period for new laser printers to be released in. If you want the latest laser printer technology you may want to consider waiting until October 2018. Alternatively you might be able to buy one of the current laser printers cheaper in October once the latest models have been released. The biggest month last year for new laser printer releases was December, with 325 new laser printers released that month. October was the biggest month in 2016 for new laser printers, with 38 new laser printers released that month. In September 2015 119 new laser printers were released making it the biggest month that year for new laser printer releases.

How Fast Do Laser Printer Prices Drop After Release?

In the first 6 months after release, laser printers drop in price by 1% on average. If you are prepared to wait then you could save an average of £4 on a typical £426 new laser printer by waiting 6 months before buying.

Maximum Resolutions

This denotes the largest resolution that the laser printer is capable of printing at.

We found 288 laser printers that are 1200 x 1200 DPI laser printers, which makes 1200 x 1200 DPI the most frequently found maximum resolution amongst new laser printers. The second most popular maximum resolution amongst new laser printers is 600 x 600 DPI. We found 78 laser printers that are 600 x 600 DPI laser printers.

Print Speeds

This measures how long it takes the laser printer to print a single black & white A4 page at normal quality.

Comparing all laser printers, the print speeds range from 8ppm to 75ppm. The print speeds of most laser printers range from 25ppm to 35ppm. The HP M609, which is available at £796.25, has the fastest print speed and is a 75ppm print speed laser printer. The laser printer with the slowest print speed is the Canon LBP7660Cdn, which is a 10ppm print speed laser printer and currently retails for £251.57.

Colour Printing

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 printing is roughly the same. 245 out of 531 do are laser printers which support colour printing and 276 laser printers (52%) 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 Amazon UK. 165 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 Amazon UK. 56.9% of their laser printer prices were the cheapest that could be found anywhere.