When picking out the best colour printer, you want to consider what type of jobs you’ll need done and how many pages you’ll need to print on a regular basis. You may need a high-quality, heavy-duty colour printer at the office to do some hefty print jobs. Or maybe you just need a simple colour printer in your home office for your occasional document printing needs? Either way, we’ve got you covered. We’ve rounded up the best colour laser printers on the market below, based on printing capacity, colour image quality, and built-in features.
Brother HL-L8360CDW
Best overall colour laser printer
Why you should buy this: High-capacity toner, very fast print speeds, and a wealth of wireless connectivity options.
Who it’s for: Offices with large print volumes, or anyone who needs speedy, colourful prints.
Why we picked the Brother HL-L8360CDW:
Measuring 44 x 49 x 31 inches (width, depth, height) and weighing over 24kg, the Brother HL-L8360CDW is no lightweight. But with print speeds up to 33 pages per minute (ppm) and high-capacity toner cartridges that can last for 4,500 prints, it churns through massive print jobs with ease. The maximum monthly duty cycle is an impressive 60,000 pages, with the recommended amount being 4,000. The main paper tray holds up to 250 sheets of either letter or legal size paper, while a 50-sheet auxiliary tray can be used for alternative media types like letterhead. If you need more paper capacity, additional trays can be added, at a cost, for up to 1,300 pages in total. If you want to make that paper last as long as possible, double-sided printing is also supported thanks to automatic duplexing.
For larger organisations with security concerns, the HL-L8360CDW features a built-in NFC card reader that can scan employee badges to authorise access, among other security features. The printer is controlled from the 2.7-inch touchscreen and can be linked to your company’s Dropbox, Google Drive, or Microsoft OneDrive accounts. For home or small office use, you can print wirelessly with ease via both Apple AirPrint and Google Cloud Print 2.0. Additional wireless standards include Wi-Fi direct, Cortado Workspace, Mopria, and Brother’s own iPrint&Scan app.
Why we love it:
- Prints 33 pages per minute
- Large capacity ink cartridge
- Security features built-in
HP Colour LaserJet Pro M479fnw
Best colour laser printer for photos
Why you should buy this: Great colour print quality in a multifunction printer.
Who it’s for: Anyone who needs to print or copy photos and graphics quickly.
Why we picked the HP Colour LaserJet Pro M479fnw:
Laser printers are not photo printers, per se, but models like the HP Colour LaserJet Pro M479fnw go a long way in blurring the lines between them. While we wouldn’t recommend it for photographers, for the office that needs to make or reproduce documents that contain graphics and photos, the M479fnw is hard to beat. It offers automated duplex printing, copying, and scanning, all from a tap of your finger on your phone, tablet or computer.
Why we love it:
- Great for documents with graphics and photos
- Printing, copying, and scanning capabilities
- Apple AirPrint built-in for wireless printing
Brother HL-L2350DW
Best budget colour laser printer
Why you should buy this: Fast, full-colour laser prints at an affordable price.
Who it’s for: Home and small office customers with moderate print volume needs.
Why we picked the Brother HL-L2350DW:
Any full-colour laser printer that costs less than average already feels like a bargain, and this one offers some solid performance numbers that make it a steal. Print speeds are up to 32 ppm, the paper tray holds 250 sheets of either letter or legal size paper, and a manual feed slot allows for other paper sizes and media types, such as envelopes. For wireless printing, Apple AirPrint and Google Cloud Print support comes standard, as do Brother iPrint&Scan and Wi-Fi direct. The L2350DW offer double-sided printing.
Why we love it:
- Smaller and more compact
- Prints 32 pages per minute
- Affordable price
HP OfficeJet Pro 9010 All-in-One Wireless Printer
Best colour laser printer for home offices
Why you should buy this: Print, copy, scan, and fax documents quickly.
Who it’s for: Busy entrepreneurs who need a capable, all-in-one printing and scanning solution.
Why we picked the HP OfficeJet Pro 9010 All-in-One Wireless Printer:
This colour laser all-in-one doesn’t just print at up to 18 ppm, it can also copy and scan documents — in full colour — at that same speed (monochrome documents can be scanned even faster, at 24 ppm). The main paper tray holds up to 250 sheets with support for various paper sizes ranging from 3 x 5-inch all the way up to 8.5 x 14-inch legal size. With a recommended monthly duty cycle of 150 to 1,500 pages, the HP OfficeJet Pro 9010 is perfect for the print needs of the busy home office.
Even with all that power and versatility, the OfficeJet Pro 9010 manages to maintain an average size and weight for high-end colour laser printers. It includes a 2.65-inch colour touchscreen for navigating the menu system and even has a dedicated USB port for printing straight from a USB device. Wireless printing is possible from mobile devices using Apple AirPrint, HP ePrint, Mopria, or Wi-Fi direct. Google Cloud Print, however, is not supported.
Why we love it:
- Prints 18 colour pages per minute
- Compact for space saving
- Wireless printing and USB port for printing from USB device
Colour laser printers vs. inkjet printers: What’s best?
Laser printers are better for text documents as they produce crisp lines even at very small font sizes. Over time, they are also cheaper to run as you can get more prints per dollar spent on toner than you can with inkjet ink. Laser printers also offer faster printing speeds and can save some serious time on large print jobs.
However, laser printers and the toner they use carry higher upfront costs; if you don’t print very often, you can buy a cheap inkjet printer and it may take a long time before its higher operational costs catch up to the higher initial cost of a laser printer. For smaller print jobs, the faster pages-per-minute rate of a laser printer also won’t be much of an advantage.
While colour laser printers have gotten much better at handling photographs, if you’re looking to make detailed, colour-accurate photographic prints to hang on your wall, display in a gallery, or sell to customers, a high-end inkjet photo printer is still the way to go. Beyond print quality, inkjet photo printers can also handle a wider variety of paper types and sizes compared to laser printers. A colour laser printer will handle inline photos and graphics in documents just fine.
How often will I have to buy toner?
This depends on how much you print. Toner cartridges often have yields of 2,000 pages or more (check the specifications of your printer for your model’s specific yield). For light home use, that means many people could easily go a year or more without replacing toner. For office use, the replacement interval will be shorter, but toner could still last a few months.
At the end of the day, your colour printer should meet your specific needs. If you just need a home printer for the occasional print job, our budget pick is a perfectly acceptable option. If you’ll be printing a lot of graphics and documents with images, you may want to opt for our pick that caters more to these kind of jobs. When it comes to the biggest and heftiest print jobs, Brother HL-L8360CDW is our best pick. Whether you need a printer for your kids’ school projects, your small business, or a bustling office, we’ve got you covered.
