Whether you are working remotely for your employer or are self-employed and running your business out of a home office, you will want to have the right tools to avoid productivity slumps and other roadblocks that can impair performance and hinder success. Of all the equipment from which to choose the two most important are your computer and printer. This article will help you weed through the many printer choices to find the right printer for your specific home office needs.

Laser printers are undoubtedly the workhorses of the business world. With their long life spans, higher speed outputs, and less need for refilling, they have outpaced inkjet printers. However, LED printers are a category of printer also differentiated from the ubiquitous inkjet, but less widely known. Both laser printers and LED printers can print documents in both black and white and in color and can handle crisp text and color graphics. So what is the defining difference between the two and which is best for your business application?

Measuring quality may be subjective, however, there are several ways you can assure the highest quality when it comes to your printing.

Laser printers are office workhorses. They are exceptionally durable with duty cycles that can churn out mountains of pages for proposals, invoicing, marketing, and just about anything else you need faster and with steady reliability. Even today’s home offices can benefit from the addition of a laser printer, especially since there are some very low-profile models that will fit nicely into a smaller work area. Laser printers run using toner, which is more expensive initially than the ink used in inkjet printers, but over the long run, using toner can save you money.

As the name implies, inkjet copiers/printers use a liquid ink to produce an image. A laser copier uses a dry powder called toner to produce an image. These two materials are also applied to the media via different processes. The inkjet uses an array of micro nozzles to spray the ink onto the media where it dries. The laser process uses a series of static charges to transfer toner to the media and then applies heat to melt or fuse the toner to the surface of the media.