Are color laser printers fit for home use?

A color printer has become a must-have at home today, much as a PC for each member of the family has become a necessity. Your teenage children need a color printer to print out materials they download from the Web. "For our school work," they say. And there is nothing you can do about it.

If you are not willing to spend a lot of money on a color printer, you can buy a low-end ink-jet printer for each of your children. These printers have become dirt cheap today, although you may experience sticker shock when it is time to buy new ink cartridges. This is how printer makers subsidize their printers. They sell their printers at a very low price, but then we have to pay a lot for the consumables.

Or you can buy a more expensive ink-jet printer and, assuming that all the PCs in your home are networked, connect it to the router and make it the printer for everyone. If the printer is not IP-ready, you may have to connect it to a PC that you will have to leave running all the time.

This proposition may save some money. However, there is still another alternative: a color laser printer. The colors may not be as brilliant as what an ink-jet printer can produce, but it should be good enough for school reports. If you happen to work from home, you will have a much stronger reason for choosing a color laser printer.

But the choice is still rather limited. You will have to look at the low end of the color laser printer models that the leading printer makers have to offer. Epson has several color laser printers, and the low-end Aculaser C1000 may be fit for home use.

From the HP line of color laser printers, for example, you can choose the HP Color LaserJet 1500L or Color LaserJet 1500. Costing between US$800 and $900, they differ only in the number of sheets that their paper trays can hold. These printers are still larger than most ink-jet printers but both have an attractive look.

Lexmark has the C510 laser printer, which costs about $600 to $700. Samsung's low-end color laser printer, the CLP500, costs about $825. The price range you will be looking at for a home color laser printer is $600 to $850. There are also models from Minolta and Okidata, but they are not very widely available here.

What are the benefits of color laser printers as opposed to ink-jet printers for home use? Laser printers in general are faster than ink-jet printers, although the latter have improved a lot in terms of speed. The printout of a laser printer is dry, while the printout of an ink-jet printer takes some time to dry.

However, given the fact that color laser printers are still far more expensive than a decent ink-jet printer, and the fact that color laser toner cartridges are not as cheap as monochrome toner, for now the better choice for home use is still a good ink-jet printer. -- Zatni Arbi