Printers: How to buy the best printer Buying the best laser printer

Laser toner can be pricey but you'll get lots of prints for your money.

Laser printers are good choices for a home office. They are quick to print but they tend to be quite bulky, so you'll need desk space.

Laser printers cost more

Although you can get a laser printer for as little as £60, toner cartridges tend to be expensive at around £40 or more for just one cartridge.
A toner cartridge will produce lots of prints so, so you'll get your money's worth.
Black-and-white laser printers start from around £40, and you can get relatively compact models from brands like Brother and Samsung.
A colour laser printer will cost considerably more as will multifunction laser printers that can also copy and scan. Expect to pay upwards of £80 for these models.

Laser printers are better for text

Laser printers generally aren't good when it comes to photo printing. If you'll want to print photos at home, an inkjet printer is the better way to go.
But if you print lots of Office documents, lasers offer sharper text quality and better print speeds, even for colour documents.
You can find our which are the best laser printers in our laser printer reviews.

What makes a good laser printer?

• Sharp text It's rare to find a laser printer that fails to print crisp text. 
• Rapid print speed The average laser printer can turn out black text at around 10 pages per minute, compared to six or seven with an inkjet.
• Fast colour prints Photos, or colour web pages with images take around two minutes to print at top quality on an inkjet printer. The average colour laser can turn these pages out in around 40 seconds. 

Additional features to look for

• Auto-duplexing You won't find automatic double-sided printing on cheaper laser printers. Expect to pay upwards of £140 for a laser printer with auto-duplexing. This feature is worth having if you print a lot and want to save paper without having to flip the page manually. 
• Multiple print trays Look for a laser printer with more than one paper tray so you can keep different types of paper in the printer at all times, such as plain or headed paper. The paper trays on most laser printers can hold at least 50 sheets of A4.