Three kinds of printer often appear in comparison questions: inkjet, laser and 3D.
| Feature | Inkjet | Laser | 3D printer |
|---|
| How it works | Sprays liquid ink in tiny droplets through nozzles onto paper | Uses a laser to draw the page on a charged drum; toner sticks to the charged areas and is fused onto the paper by a hot roller | Deposits successive thin layers of melted plastic (or similar material) that stack up into a 3D shape |
| Output | 2D page (text or image) | 2D page (text or image) | 3D solid object |
Why the three look so different
- Inkjet is cheap to buy but expensive to run because of the ink. Best for low-volume colour at home.
- Laser is more expensive to buy but cheaper per page because toner lasts longer. Best for offices that print thousands of pages a month.
- 3D printers do something completely different: they output three-dimensional objects rather than printed paper. The internal mechanism is unrelated to inkjet or laser.