Paper weight refers to the weight of the paper, which is measured in gsm (grams per square meter). Laser printers usually support a wide enough range of papers from everyday plain paper used in most letterheads (which weighs between 70 to 80 gsm) to thicker papers and envelopes, which may weigh up to 120 gsm. A wider range can be very useful for those in the printing, publishing and advertising industry as they can use laser printers for proofing, packaging designs, etc. This also enables the use of the same printer to print on cards, transparencies and plain paper.

NUMBER OF PRINTS
Firstly, you need to analyse as to how many pages actually are to be printed and how quickly want that printed output to appear. Duty cycle is the number of pages printed over a certain period of time. For instance, if your requirement is 600 pages in a month, then that printer will be different from the printer that you need to print 600 pages a week, as the duty cycle of the two is drastically different and clearly the two printers here would have different speeds. The entry-level printers are slower and print an about three to six sheets per minute. Colour printing is slower. For the really super quick printing, you should go for the high-end printers.

Colour is important for those who need to print pages for presentations or maps and other pages where colour is part of the information. Offices are adopting colour printers for printing color brochures, photographs or graphics, one reason why color laser printers are rapidly dropping their prices. Colour printers can also be set to print only in black-and-white. These printers are more expensive to operate since they use two ink cartridges (one colour and one black ink) that need to be replaced after a certain number of pages. Even though color lasers use toner cartridges involving a higher initial investment cost, you'll get good color prints on plain paper at less cost per page. Some new color lasers are also capable of printing glossy photos, though their results usually can’t match the quality of an inkjet in this area. If you don't have much use for colour then it makes sense to go in for a black and white printer. There is no sense spending more money and have more features in a machine than is required.

MEMORY
The memory of the printer is critical to its speed and quality. Some inexpensive printers come with just enough memory for 300-dpi printing, hence the low price. If you want a higher resolution, you'll need more memory paper handling requirements. Paper handling issues fall into three categories: paper capacity, flexibility and paper size. Flexibility refers to both the kinds of paper the printer can use and whether it can hold more than one kind at a time. Some printers can print on thicker paper than others. Make sure the printer can printer can print on all the kinds of paper as well as transparencies you want to use.

Some popular brands and their price ranges
• Canon: Rs 9,495 to Rs 54,995
• Samsung: Rs 12,990 to Rs 84,500
• Hewlett Packard: Rs 9,999 to Rs 32,990

If you must print tons of textual documents, consider buying an affordable laser printer as the print quality offered would be superior to that provided by an inkjet. If you plan to use the printer with the PC, buy one that comes with an ethernet port for networks. Most monochrome lasers come loaded with this feature. Colour laser toner cartridges although expensive turn out to be more cost-effective on a cost per page basis due to their higher yields when compared to that of inkjets.