Why Buy an LED and not Laser Printer

Digital LED and laser technologies are alike due to the fact that they both use toner for cleaner, crisper images and they both use a heated roller to adhere the toner to the page. However, these two technologies are also widely different:

Simplicity: The most significant difference is that LED printers use a solid-state light source that is far less complex than laser, with no moving parts.

Quality: Digital LED uses multiple light-emitting diodes to create images one full line at a time. It provides a high concentration of light at the center of the dot and hence, delivers sharp details and rich color depth up to 1200×1200 dpi. Laser, on the other hand, relies on elaborate combinations of rotating mirrors and lenses. It renders each dot individually, scanning across each line and then returning back to the next sequence.

Speed: While an LED printhead writes image directly to the drum in one step, laser technology requires a seven-step process to accomplish this task. This process starts with a single light source, and then moves to focusing, reflecting and refracting the laser beam. Afterwards, the rotation of the polygon mirror takes place followed by synchronizing the start line and at last writing the image onto the drum.

Environment: Another major issue to be considered when choosing a printer or a set of printers for your company is Environment.  LEDs consume less electricity than other materials; they have been attracting attention recently as a useful lighting device to curb global warming due to the greenhouse gases released by electricity generation using fossil fuels. Even in its idle mode, an LED printer consumes 2 Watts of electricity compared to 10-20 Watts of that of a Lazer printer. A saving up to 80% on power during weekends and holidays is a valid reason to factor in when considering environmentally friendly products.  For big companies that use thousands of printers in its premises this saving impacts their green approach as well as their budgets.

At OKI we have chosen to develop digital LED technology because we believe it is a technological winner. LED technology is the future. Its various beneficial features are expected to lead a massive surge in high-speed color printers and ultra-high-speed large-scale printers which will make full use of LED’s characteristics. We can see the result now as LED technology continues to show a fast pace of continuing innovation while other technologies are stagnating.

So the question now is, if LED has proven to be worth the investment when will the rest of the vendors who still insist on using older technology join in and provide the HD Printing that answers their customer needs?