Are you comparing inkjet to laser?
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I haven't made a comparison at all...I'm just curious what everyone thinks. I'm an idiot when it comes to the print world.
My printer runs on a squirrel named "crappy".
Sorry I didn't mean to come accross as tho I were judgeing you for using inkjet over laser quite the contrary I was just looking for clarification on your question about quality and durability of the final print...
I'm assuming when you say "printer downtown" you mean a commercial printing service.
If that's the case there is no corrolation between commercial print houses and consumer printers.... in fact if you are doing volume printing, such as business cards, sales flyers or mailers, it is probably more economical to use commercial print houses to produce these items. Not to mention that because they are using commercial grade printers and printing presses the quality is going to be way above any consumer grade inkjet or laser printer on the market, however if your willing to spend the money you can come close.
For everyday printing in color most printers in the under $150.00 price point are going to be OK... look for resident resolution... meaning the higher the dot per inch native quality the better.... you can buy a printer capible of 2400x2400 software dpi HP is famous for this... but it is false resolution the true native resolution might actually be 600x600 what a lot of inkjets do is use the bleed factor to increase the percieved resolution they squeeze more color in a single dot which blurs but to the naked eye it looks smoother and less pixelated but in fact is no more sharp than 600x600 just smoother.
This is where a laser printer has an advantage, and dissadvantage... with no bleed factor lasers have to rely on true native resolutions to get the same effect that an inkjet does but it will cost more both for the printer and the print supplies (the after purchase costs).
My opinion... for big jobs go commercial.
For small jobs where quality is an issue and is for the benefit of your business (ie a small run of brochures) but yet it's not big enough to take out of house.... go spend the extra bucks and get laser. In the long run a color laser printer will probably be more economical than a color inkjet due to the disposible replacement ink vs toner.
If it's for non-professional material such as personal docs, contracts, inter-office memo's go with an economical laser for b/w or inkjet for very limited color.
The real thing to look at really isn't the initial cost of the printer itself but the cost of the replacement cartridges for that printer....
A good example is the Lexmark Z605 I had.... the printer cost 39.00 but to replace the black and tri-color cartrige is almost $50 bucks... so it's cheaper to through out the printer and buy a new one then it is to keep the printer and replace the cartridge. On top of that I was only getting about 400 to 600 pages per black cartridge and even less with the color.... that translates to about .12 cents per page just in ink cost.
My laser printer a HP 1020 cartridge cost about 39.00 dollars yields b/w at about 1300 pages on average so cost per page is: .03 cents per page
Color laser is a bit more difficult for me to give a cost per page because I don't own a color laser printer plus considering that like some inkjet printers they are a four cartridge er toner system, blk, mag, cyan, and yel. each on the low cost printers usually yield upto 2000 pages per cartrige at an average cost per cartridge of 79.00 bucks.... assuming that all 2000 pages printed used exactly the same amount of toner from each cartridge then cost per page would be: .15 cents per page...
B/W printing at a commercial printer is about .11/page on plain paper
Color printing at a commercial printer is about .80/page on plain paper
Through in high quality or card stock papers and the cost per page goes up.
Wow, writing this I can see going with a color laser for short to medium color runs might be more economical over commercial printing based on the per page costs....
hope this helps
