Best Laser Printer Reviews 2018

You might be able to get a steal on a laser printer, but a cheap laser printer usually has a low print volume capacity and a slower printing speed. The price range for a good laser printer for your home office or small business usually costs $120 – $500.

On the low end, you are probably looking at $120 – $150 for a small laser printer. If you want something that runs a little faster and has advanced features, such as a high-speed all-in-one color printer, you’ll probably spend around $300. Add anywhere from $50 to $100 for add-ons like installation fees, or bonus ink cartridges.

The more-expensive home or small business laser printers run $300 – $500 and can handle high-volume print jobs. For large-business laser printers that do lots of multi-tasking, the price range is much higher, around $2,000 – $5,000. But in this buying guide we are going to stick with home/small-business laser printers.

With so many options on the market these days, you should definitely come prepared with a list of what to look out for before buying a laser printer.

Here’s a great checklist to ensure you get the right printer:

• Printer speed: PPM or pages-per-minute
• Capacity of sheet tray
• Paper size accommodation
• B&W or color printing
• All-in-one capabilities such as scan, copy, fax
• Confidential printing
• Wi-Fi- and smartphone-compatible
• Cost of ink cartridges
• Two-sided printing
• Quality of graphics
• Warranty

Another feature to look out for if you tend to print a lot of high-volume printing jobs is how many pages the laser printer can print per month and still perform efficiently.

You can get your basic black-and-white printer (also called monochrome) to shave a few bucks off the price-tag, but a full-color laser printer offers more printing options in the long run.

Due to innovations in printer technology, you no longer have to wrangle with a nest of thick cables behind your printer to hook it up. There are a few connection options, depending on the brand and model. You can go for a LAN line or a USB connection, and many updated models also come with Wi-Fi and mobile compatibility.

If you’re working out of a home office, you should definitely consider an all-in-one laser printer that will scan, fax, copy, and print for you; they’re very convenient and save time and money. For those Top Secret documents that are meant for your eyes only, you can get a laser printer with privacy printing that incorporates check points before it prints a document.

The sheet input tray needs to be filled quite often on some of the smaller laser printers. A few models only hold 50 – 100 sheets at a time. If you don’t want the hassle of frequently refilling the paper tray, look for a laser printer that holds at least 200 – 250 sheets of paper at a time.

A laser printer that comes with a user-friendly touchscreen makes operation much easier. Most newer models use this feature for programming these days.

Wi-Fi-compatible printers make for a much cleaner design by cutting out the tangle of cords that you had to contend with back in the day. Generally, setting up the Wi-Fi connection isn’t too daunting; you just have to check out the username/password on your router, and make a connection through the printer set-up and preferences on your computer.

Some printers weigh as much as 50 pounds, and can be hard to handle for certain segments of the population. For those who don’t have bulging biceps—such as kids, senior citizens, or any person(s) with disabilities—check out how much the printer weighs. A lightweight printer is easier to lift and sometimes it takes a few tries to find an ideal location for a printer.

If you tend to print large documents with many pages, definitely look for a printer that has a high page volume per minute printing speed. A print speed of 25 to 30 PPM reflects a high-volume print capacity that’s a real time-saver, and makes a huge difference for large print jobs. If you tend to print a lot of pages at once, you should also check how many sheets the input and output tray can handle, so you don’t have to refill it in the middle of a print job.

You can enhance the energy efficiency of your printer by choosing one that has a stand-by mode when not in use. Another important factor when it comes to efficiency is the cost of replenishing the ink cartridges. One of the most expensive liquids on earth today is printer ink. When you find a model you like, it’s a good idea to price-compare the cost of ink (and check out the volume of ink in each cartridge) with other brands that you are considering.