Laser Printers: What 119 Spec Sheets Actually Say
Resolution is a first number of a pair and sometimes an enhanced one, three speeds repeat across most of the class, and one Brother model is listed under three speeds, 1, 25 and 33 pages per minute.
What we analysed, and how
This report covers every laser printer our site has reviewed and kept: 119 printers from 11 brands, sorted into the class by the printing technology Amazon states for each product, not by the category its review was filed under. Our catalogue’s “all-in-one printers” category held laser and ink tank machines side by side, so the sort matters: Amazon’s own printing-technology field says “laser” for 3 products that are not laser printers (HP Envy Inspire 7955e; Canon PIXMA G3262 Wireless; Fujifilm Instax Mini Link), and they are counted in the other reports instead. For each printer there are two independent transcriptions of the listing, the review’s specification table and Amazon’s detail page, and a figure is called agreed only when both state it and match.
| Laser printers | Count | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Reviewed and kept | 119 | 11 brands; HP 49, Brother 39 |
| State a black-and-white speed | 116 | 97 percent |
| Are colour printers | 39 | 33 percent |
| State a weight | 94 | 79 percent |
| State a paper tray capacity | 103 | median 250 sheets |
| Print duplex automatically | 86 | 72 percent |
| Have Wi-Fi | 74 | 62 percent |
| Are renewed or refurbished listings | 39 | sold used or restored |
| Have a price band on record | 80 | 67 percent |
Speed: three figures that most brands state
116 of the 119 state a black-and-white speed, from 1 to 63 pages per minute, a median of 31. They pile up at a few values: 14 state 30 (HP 6, Canon 3, Brother 3); 12 state 36 (Brother 11, Xerox 1); 12 state 42 (HP 6, Lexmark 2, Kyocera 1). A stack of identical figures is what a product line produces when makers round to a family number, and it means that two printers at 36 pages per minute are a tie on this field and nothing more. No listing says how the speed was measured, whether as a first-page-out time, a continuous rate or a burst, and the 45 that state a time to the first page give a different kind of figure, a few seconds, which is a different thing.
Colour printers are the slower half of the class: the 39 colour lasers that state a speed have a median of 26 pages per minute and the 77 monochrome ones 35, and the colour machines are heavier, 19 kilograms at the median against 10.
Where the review and Amazon disagree on speed, and where one product has three speeds
Our review and Amazon agree on the speed for 88 of the 96 printers that state it in both. The 8 that disagree are the useful part: HP LaserJet Pro M404dn Monochrome is 42 on Amazon and 40 in our review; Canon imageCLASS MF465dw Laser is 22 on Amazon and 42 in our review; HP Color Laserjet Enterprise is 33 on Amazon and 35 in our review; HP Color LaserJet Pro MFP 3301sdw is 26 on Amazon and 30 in our review; HP LaserJet Pro 400 M401n Laser is 33 on Amazon and 35 in our review. A gap of that size, up to 32 pages per minute, is the difference between two products.
The sharper case is one model listed more than once. Brother MFC-L8900CDW appears under 3 ASINs with stated speeds of 25, 1, 33 pages per minute. The same machine cannot be both, and our review for it says 33. A shopper who sorted by Amazon’s field would see one product at three positions in a speed ranking, and the figure that sorts it lowest is a data error.
Resolution is a figure that carries three meanings
88 laser printers state a resolution, and they say 600 dpi (33), 1,200 dpi (35), 2,400 dpi (19), 4,800 dpi (1). The figure looks like a quality ranking and is not one, for two reasons. The first is that it is the first number of a pair: Amazon’s field reads “1200 x 1200” or “2400 x 600”, and the second number is what the machine does across the page. The second is that makers state a native resolution and an enhanced one on the same listing. The Canon imageCLASS LBP122dw’s Amazon page gives 600 x 600 as its resolution and 2400 x 600 as its maximum print resolution; the Brother HL-L2460DW says 1200 x 1200 for both. Read as stated, the Canon prints at twice the Brother’s resolution, and read as native, the Brother prints at twice the Canon’s. The Brother and Canon page sets the two out.
| Stated resolution | Printers | Median speed |
|---|---|---|
| 600 dpi | 33 | 26 ppm |
| 1,200 dpi | 35 | 36 ppm |
| 2,400 dpi | 19 | 32 ppm |
| 4,800 dpi | 1 | 63 ppm |
Speed and resolution are only loosely related: the median speed is 26 at 600 dpi, 36 at 1,200 dpi, 32 at 2,400 dpi, and the ordering is mostly a matter of which brand’s mono lines sit at which resolution, not of the machine trading one for the other.
Functions, and what is wrong with our own tables
27 of the 119 state that they scan or copy as well as print. The check turned up 3 printers that Amazon lists as print only and our review table lists as printing, scanning and copying. The Brother HL-L2460DW is one: its Amazon page says “Print Only” and our review lists “Print, Scan, Copy”, which is a mistake in our review and not a feature of the printer. The same listing is a renewed offer, so its price band and condition are not those of a new unit. 39 of the 119 listings in the class are renewed, refurbished or certified-used, 27 of them HP, mostly older LaserJet models, and the reviews of them describe a model that Amazon is selling second-hand.
Size, weight and what is in the tray
94 state a weight, from 0.5 to 41 kilograms, a median of 11.8, and the heaviest are the colour business machines. The light end is not credible: one listing states under three kilograms, HP Neverstop 1202nw Laser at 0.5, which is not a plausible weight for a laser printer, so a weight in this field is worth reading against the machine’s size and the listing’s own text. A paper tray is the other physical figure: 103 state one, a median of 250 sheets, with 250 the most common.
The brands behind the class
Two brands make up three quarters of the class, HP with 49 and Brother with 39, and Canon follows with 15. That is a fact about what this site reviewed, not about the market, and it weights every median above toward HP and Brother. The three largest brands differ in what they state.
| Brand | Printers | Median speed | Median weight | Duplex |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| HP | 49 | 30 ppm | 12.6 kg | 65 percent |
| Brother | 39 | 33 ppm | 11.7 kg | 72 percent |
| Canon | 15 | 30 ppm | 13.5 kg | 80 percent |
| Lexmark | 4 | 42 ppm | 10.6 kg | 75 percent |
Price bands
80 of the 119 have a price band on record: 21 in $75–200, 39 in $200–500 and 20 in the $500+ band. A band is a range, not a price, and it moves; read it as a tendency. The only pattern is the obvious one: the colour machines and the faster mono machines sit in the higher bands.
How to use this
- Treat a speed as a family number. Two printers that state the same pages per minute are a tie, and no listing says how it was measured;
- Read a resolution as its native figure. Look for the pair, and for the number that is not marked enhanced or maximum;
- Check whether a listing is renewed. 39 of 119 are, and a review of the model is not a review of the used unit;
- Distrust a speed that is a fraction of the same model’s other listing. One product was listed at 1, 25 and 33;
- to narrow by your own answers, use the printer finder; for the type in full, see the laser printer reviews.
Figures are the manufacturers’, as published on each listing and quoted in our reviews; none was measured by us. How we work · Affiliate disclosure