Laser vs. Inkjet for home office?

I'm sick of buying a new inkjet printer for home every few years. It's always out of C/M/Y, or says it's out, stops printing and redirects me to the full-price printer supplies website. Bargain ink did in the print heads in a year on the last one, a Canon.

Laser is getting cheap, and while the toner cartridges aren't cheap, on $/page it looks pretty favorable.

I don't need photo quality color printing, I do print CAD drawings for the shop, but just 8-1/2 x 11.

I don't need fax, I could do w/o a scanner in favor of getting a half decent standalone scanner.

Who's using what?

No question, I won't own an inkjet anymore.. I have a laser for home use (that I bought used).. If I don't print for 6 months, then need something, guess what? It still prints perfectly fine.

If you need something B/W that will just work, look on craigslist for an older HP 4100N (the N means network is already built in). If you need color, well, that's a bit of a different story, but you still can't go wrong with a laser there, either. I'd look at a Canon or HP, either should be fine.

I got sick of inkjet a couple of years ago, I will never go back. I get about 50 faxes a day and do about 2000 copies a month.

The lazer was cheap, the unit is a quality brand, I get refills from inkjet superstore online and have been very happy with the results to date

I used a little b/w Samsung for years and it was great. Great little printer that I paid $100 for a long time ago.

Newegg is showing color lasers from HP for $200. I'm sure they're basic and not super beautiful at color reproduction but I'd so much rather go that way vs. ink.

Frickin' laser is the only way to go. You can get black only for $75-$100 all day long. Look to eBay for cheap toner cartridges.

You can also refill toner cartridges. Drill, fill, patch. I have not done it, but I suspect you probably cannot re-fill them too many times, but really cheap even compared to aftermarket cartridges.

After having inkjets for years I decided to get a laser a few months ago. Bought an HP LaserJet Pro 200 color printer. The color isn't as good as my old Epson R320 for printing pictures but is acceptable. I haven't check on the cost of cartridges yet but it can't be much worse than buying all 6 cartridges for the R320.

Best part was the ease of setting it up on the network. Only took 5 minutes and hasn't had any problems since then. Much better than trying to hardwire the R320 into the net work.

I have a black and white Brother printer. It was an asset when I was in school; I would print hundreds of pages for reading and assignments. It prints over the network, and it duplexes (prints on both sides). It took me a year of heavy printing to use up the pack-in cartridge; I replaced it with a high yield Brother cartridge that I expect to last a few years.

Never going back to inkjet. Since so many devices have excellent screens with continuous access to the internet, there's no reason to look at a picture on paper. Paper is best for documents, which is where laser printers shine.

when my in-laws moved a few years ago they left me with a small table top canon copy/xerox machine, it has a USB port so works as a printer... I found toner cartridges so cheap it wasn't worth refilling them... lack of color has not been an issue... I keep it hooked up and networked with my desktop so I can print with it from all the other computers.

with how cheap you can get laser for now (saw one for about $50 on newegg just with a quick look) i see no reason going with inkjet unless you need the color...

that being said my uncle gave me an all in one wifi printer/copier/scanner thing... rarely gets used for printing... it's around mostly for scanning documents and such...

HP LaserJet 1100 here. Inkjets suck.