Laser / LED Printers: Great Value at a Good Price

A color laser printer at a great price (well under $200) from Samsung will fit the bill for small and home offices that need sharp and clear color prints. It's quiet but not all that fast, which isn't a major issue unless you need to print a lot. A networkable version (not tested) adds something to the price tag along with a level of convenience. All in all, a good entry-level color laser printer.

If you need a high-quality and fast monochrome printer for a home or small office, this is a great choice. It's fast, connects easily to wired or wireless networks, and features an automatic document feeder to help you get work done quickly and efficiently. At just over $200, this is a great printer at a decent price.

Brother's HL-3070CW is a very good deal--for about $250 it can compete easily with color laser printers. (An LED printer uses LEDs rather than a single laser as a light source.) I found it fast, relatively easy to set up (though wireless could've been a tad simpler), and the output (color and black) excellent. Replacement toner isn't cheap (around $70 per cartridge), but the black cartridges are estimated for 2,200 pages and the color ones for about 1,400 pages, so they should last a long time.

Fast, quiet, and very cool looking, this is a reasonably priced monochrome laser printer. Why is it just as much money as the CLP-315 Samsung printer above? Well, it's mostly the futuristic styling. But it's also extremely quiet, and I appreciate that a lot, working in a small home office. Souped-up versions that can be networked cost extra; they're only worth the extra dough if you need those features.

This printer does only one thing, but it does it exceptionally well. And amazingly fast. It's the high end in terms of price, but if you require really fine-looking, crisp, sharp monochrome prints, the Phaser is great. And did I mention it's amazingly fast as well? No fancy features or gadgets, no networking with this one; but if you need a solid, fast, black-and-white printer, you can't go wrong with this Phaser.

SMBs with a knowledgeable IT person (and a few strong backs) in search of a color laser printer that will make handouts look like they came from an expensive printer will find a match with the HP Color LaserJet CM2320nf all-in-one printer. It's huge and heavy, and it can be quite slow in printing large files; but the color output is extraordinary enough to help you overlook most of its shortcomings.