Basic Differences between an All-In-One Mono Laser Printer and Other Types of Printers
- Colour: All-In-One laser printers use separate CMYK colour cartridges (red, yellow, blue, black in combination) to print graphics and photos.
- Black and White printers use only black toner, and mono printers are therefore particularly suitable for working with text documents. They can, however, do scanning in colour.
Differences between Laser Printers and LED Printers
LED printers use a series of LEDs instead of a laser to illuminate the image cylinder at the point where the image is to be created. The toner is then sprayed onto the paper, and heat is used to set it ("fuse"). LED technology uses fewer moving parts, so LED printers can be smaller and are generally less faulty. They are also cheaper, print faster and can vary the intensity of the light emitted. This allows them to achieve more subtle transitions of colour shades.
What to look for when choosing an All-In-One LED Printer or an All-In-One Laser Printer
Print Speed of an All-In-One Laser Printer
The print speeds of an All-in-One laser printer range from 12-65 pages/min in black and white and 4-35 pages/min in colour. More expensive printers print faster. The speed (e.g. the difference between 25 and 40 pages/min) in a home environment does not play a significant role. Still, in a corporate environment, printing speed should be taken into account, as slow printing can limit productivity.
| Price Category |
Print Speed in Black and White |
Print Speed in Colour |
| Up to £170 |
about 30 pages/min |
 |
| £
170 up to £350 |
about 40 pages/min |
about 20 pages/min |
| £
350 up to £680 |
about 65 pages/min |
about 30 pages/min |
The speed is also affected by the printing time of the first page. This is the time that elapses from when the computer enters the print job to when the first page of the document is printed. This is usually between 4 and 25 seconds.
The Print Resolution of an All-In-One Laser Printer
The print resolution specifies the density of dots in rows and columns - for example, 2 400 × 1 200 DPI (dots per inch). However, a single parameter (for example, 2 400 DPI) is more commonly used. This single parameter is referred to as the maximum resolution and always represents the larger of the numbers. The higher the resolution, the more detailed the printed image. A resolution of 600 DPI is sufficient for printing text documents, but for high-quality photo printing, you need at least 1 200 DPI, ideally 2 400 DPI. The lower DPI allows printing to larger sizes, but sharpness decreases simultaneously.
The Scanner Resolution of an All-In-One Laser Printer
The scanner resolution of an All-In-One laser printer specifies the number of pixels the scanner can record. It ranges between 300 and 4 800 DPI (dots per inch). The higher the resolution, the more detailed the image, but at the same time, the size of the resulting file increases. For scanning text documents, 300 DPI is sufficient but for scanning photos, choose at least 1200 DPI. For example, you can enlarge historical images of smaller formats many times with higher resolution on a computer.
The Print and Scan Paper Format of an All-In-One Laser Printer
The most common format of a laser printer is A4. Large format printers print at A3 and larger. The largest possible format is always specified, but printers can also print in many smaller formats (e.g. photographs of 15 × 20cm, envelopes).
- A3 - Newspaper (297 × 420mm)
- A4 - Office papers, magazines (210 × 297mm)
- A5 - Notebooks (148 × 210mm)
- A6 - Postcard, school notebook (105 × 148mm)
- C4 - Envelope for A4 paper
- C5 - Envelope for A5 paper (1× folded A4 paper)
- C6 - Envelope for A6 paper (2× folded A4 paper)
Connection of an All-In-One Laser Printer
An All-In-One laser printer is usually connected to a computer or laptop with a USB cable or wirelessly over a WiFi network. A model with a LAN connector or Wi-Fi module can function as a so-called Network printer - multiple computers can access them simultaneously over a home or business network.
Other Useful Features of an All-In-One Laser Printer
- Automatic duplex printing - print directly on both sides of the paper without having to turn the paper in the printer manually.
- Edgeless printing - inks can be applied to the edges of the paper. So you can print without a white border.
- Scan to Email - automatically attaches scanned images as attachments to an email message.
- Display - informs you about print jobs, allows you to enter them and makes them easier to control.
- Card reader/USB printing - possibility to print directly from the inserted memory card or USB drive.
- ePrint - a secure cloud service from HP that allows you to print from anywhere with an active internet connection.
- Air Print - wireless printing of photos and documents from your MacBook, iPhone, iPad or iPod touch. The printers and devices must be connected to the same Wi-Fi network.
- Automatic Document Feeder - allows you to copy and scan multi-page documents without having to manually insert each page individually.
