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Comment by amelius | Hacker News Reader

It really makes more sense to just buy a laser printer, in almost all cases.

Yeah conceptually this excites me but I decided color printing wasn't worth it at home years ago and haven't regretted it.

A colour laser A4 multifunction is only a few hundred bucks these days, five years ago I’d have agreed with you but it might be worth re-evaluating.

I've reevaluated.

Still not worth it. My Brother is hitting 10 years now, and I'm trying to think of many scenarios where I really needed to print colour at home.

I have all Brother printers too, they seem to be the only brand that's not actively trying to screw their customers. My B&W laser at home is on its second drum and still soldiering on, we got an A4 colour laser multifunction for work which does double sided document scanning and printing and it was... I think $380 or something, five years ago. Would buy again. I don't really need colour but it's nice.

I don't think this was a mono vs color argument but rather ink color vs laser color.

If you go with a laser color printer you will have to buy four toners instead of one.

Gggp post said they were just sticking with b+w laser, and gp post suggested a colour laser.

I'd have to buy a printer tho. The one I have has done its job for a decade and I think I've bought a grand total of one offbrand toner cartridge in that time.

Except when you need to ocassionally print/copy in color, in which case inkjets are more economical.

Even if you can afford a color laser, the problem is a color MFP (ie including a scanner) occupies a lot more space compared to a equivalent inkjet, and for some people this could be a deal breaker.

Ever look at how much energy a laser printer uses?

Extremely little? High quality inkjets may make sense for corporate or industrial uses, but the majority of home/consumer use cases probably print very infrequently these days. In that scenario inkjet is pretty bad because the ink dries out between uses - there is a reason it's such a common trope that inkjets never work right when you need them.

I switched to laser because I only print like maybe once a month on average (but when I need it, I need it). I'm not the slightest bit worried about the delta energy usage between my laser printer or the inkjet, and I'm sure the inkjet came out worse given the number of cartridges I had to throw away or paper I wasted printing diagnostics.

None, in the months (sometimes years) it spends switched off (off, not standby) between print jobs. It's a quarter of a century old and I can still get replacement cartridges when I need them.

Are you counting the energy used for print head cleaning, and to manufacture all the wasted ink?

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