When it comes to office printers, speed, versatility, and affordability are all important considerations. The Epson WF-C5790 business color inkjet printer and the HP M577dn LaserJet Enterprise laser printer are popular picks across the United States. However, they are based on different technologies. Let’s see how the color inkjet printer compares with the color laser printer.

HP M577dn LaserJet Printer

First, the HP M577dn LaserJet Enterprise printeris laser-based. It uses black and color toner cartridges and prints, scans, and copies. This multifunction printer offers USB, Ethernet, wireless, and mobile connectivity.

With its 3,600 dpi print resolution, the HP M577dn LaserJet Enterprise produces professional quality color and monochrome documents, faxes, and copies. The recommended print volume per month is from 2,000 pages to 7,500 pages.

As you might expect of a laser printer, the HP M577dn LaserJet Enterprise is fast with a 40 ISO ppm rating. Keep in mind, however, that the HP M577dn LaserJet printer does need to warm up before the first page comes out. The first page out time for the HP M577dn LaserJet Enterprise printer is 5.5 seconds for black and 6.8 seconds for color,

The HP M577dn multifunction printer’s high yield replacement toner cartridges cost about $800 for a full set and yield up to 12,500 ISO black pages and about 9,500 color ISO pages. Assuming a monthly print volume of 2,500 pages per month, you would need at least three sets of toner per year, so roughly $2,400 in toner costs per year, more if your print volume requirements are higher.

Epson WF-C5790 Business Inkjet Printer

The Epson WF-C5790 color multifunction printer is inkjet-based and powered by Epson PrecisionCore Heat-Free Technology, which gives it a lot of advantages over the HP M577dn LaserJet Enterprise including dramatically lower energy and ink/toner costs. It, too, prints, scans, and copies, plus it also faxes. The Epson WorkForce Pro WF-C5790 business inkjet offers USB, Ethernet, wireless, mobile, and remote printing.

With a 4,800 dpi print resolution, the Epson WorkForce Pro WF-C5790’s print quality is exceptional. It uses long-lasting, fade-resistant, quick-drying pigment inks and has a monthly recommended print volume of up to 2,500 pages per month.

The the Epson WF-C5790 color multifunction printer uses Epson Replaceable Ink Pack System (RIPS) ink packs. These ink packs bring down the cost of ink dramatically, making the Epson WorkForce Pro WF-C5790 extremely affordable to operate. The printer comes in both a standard version ($299) with starter ink packs and a “Supertank” version ($899) with two years of ink in the box. With the HP M577dn LaserJet Enterprise, you’d have at least $4,800 in toner costs over that same time period based on 2,500 pages per month.

Better print quality and lower costs make the Epson WF-C5790 a great choice, but what about print speed? At 24 ISO pages per minute, the Epson WorkForce Pro WF-C5790 is slower than the HP M577dn LaserJet Enterprise, but for practical purposes, the lack of a warm up time brings it much closer in reality. In the video below, you’ll see this difference in action with the two printers side by side printing the same 16-page document: