In a home office, versatile printers like inkjet or all-in-one printers are practical choices, providing quality printing, scanning, and copying capabilities. Compact laser printers offer efficient monochrome printing for text-heavy documents, while wireless printers enhance convenience. Consider factors like space, budget, and specific needs to choose the best-suited printer for a productive home office setup.

Inkjet printers are ideal for home offices due to their versatility. They can produce high-quality prints, handle various paper types, and are suitable for occasional printing. Inkjet printers combine inkjet technology with all-in-one functionality, making it a great choice for a home office setup.

Traditional wisdom is that laser printers are faster, more reliable, and less expensive to use, and that they have better output than their inkjet counterparts. But depending on what and how much you print, inkjet machines are often superior.

Granted, laser technology—which applies toner to an entire page in one fell swoop—is inherently faster than the way most inkjets apply ink to paper, with a relatively small printhead moving back and forth, laying down line after line. Medium- to high-volume inkjets typically top out at about 25 pages per minute (ppm), while comparable laser machines are often 10ppm to 15ppm faster. Higher-end, high-volume laser printers achieve print speeds of 50ppm or more (as do HP's PageWide laser-alternative inkjet printers, whose fixed printhead arrays don't travel back and forth across the page). But 25ppm is plenty fast enough for most business environments.

Aside from raw speed, are laser printers more reliable? Years ago, some inkjet printers were more prone to paper jams, clogged nozzles, and inferior output. But those days are over.

As to whether inkjet printers are more expensive to use than lasers, while you can certainly find exceptions, that hasn't been the case for some time now. Indeed, bulk-ink inkjets, most of which use large refill bottles or bags instead of small cartridges of ink, can be far less costly to use than their laser rivals.

Also, it's important to note that inkjet printers tend to use significantly less electricity than comparable lasers. In busy offices where the printer churns out page after page all day, that's an extra, if hard-to-quantify, "consumable" you could save money on with an inkjet.

Finally, the biggest misconception of all: that laser printers, as a rule, produce better-looking output than their inkjet competitors. Again, you'll always find exceptions, but this hasn't been cut-and-dried for quite a while. Where laser printers have always excelled, and to some extent still do, is in printing text or typesetting. Inkjet printers, on the other hand, usually print superior graphics, especially photographs.

This is not to say that laser printers don’t print well. It’s just that inkjets have made great strides. In addition, most inkjet machines can print borderless document pages and photos, making your photos and other marketing materials look more professional. Laser printers, on the other hand, must leave about a quarter-inch of margin all the way around the edge of the paper.

One aspect in which laser printers' toner output does prevail over inkjet output is the durability of the printing. A laser print typically lasts longer without cracking or fading, and is not prone to smudging or streaking if exposed to moisture. That's an advantage in environments where the longevity of hard-copy records, such as medical documentation, is important.

For more on this question, see our in-depth inkjet vs. laser explainer.