Making the move from inkjet to laser

After nearly 11 years of faithful service, my HP 930cm inkjet printer finally couldn't take it any more and stopped working. I'm genuinely sad about this as it's done me very good service and saw off newer printers that couldn't quite match it on quality. Rather than just buy another inkjet I decided to get a laser instead and this is why.

Cost

There were other reasons that I'll get on to in a moment but ultimately laser printers are cheaper than inkjets to run, even if they cost more to begin with. My choice of the HP Colour Laserjet CP1525N was partly because it has separate toner cartridges for the four colours used: cyan, magenta, yellow and black.

I'll keep you posted as to whether or not the different colours really do run out at different times or all at once, which would be embarrassing. So far the levels haven't dropped at all and that's with the starter toner cartridges that don't contain as much as the normal cartridges I'll be buying next. And that's after a few full size colour print outs by the children.

Quality

As far as text goes, laser is hard to beat. The text is sharp and easy to read even at 8pt on fairly cheap and nasty paper. The worst part is writing on the paper with a proper fountain pen and watching the ink spread all over the place.

Photos and images look better than I'd hoped for. I haven't used a home printer for photo printing for years anyway, preferring an online photo printing service instead. Even so, the photos I have printed look very good and without a hint of the banding that I've noticed on almost all inkjets.

Size

The laser does fall down compared to the inkjet on size. My choice of a model with separate ink cartridges probably has a lot to do with it and the CP1525n is very deep and quite tall. It's also heavier, although I don't move it around very often.

Printing speeds

As with all lasers, the CP1525n is a little slow getting started but once it gets going it makes short work of even the longest documents.

Networking

The CP1525n even has a network socket so you're not dependant on a single computer to share the printer over a home network.

Not looking back

You've probably guessed that I'm very happy with the move away from the inkjet printer. It does require a considerably more money up front but I'm hoping that this printer will last as long as its predecessor.