Both colour laser and solid ink technologies are good choices. I have a Tektronix/Xerox Phaser solid ink printer and love it. The colours are nice and I like how printed text has a raised look and feel (like printing on currency). In my opinion, the solid ink is cheaper than colour laser in terms of text printing with occasional colour graphics. Solid ink printers have cheaper and more environmentally-friendly consumables which consist of ink blocks that are melted down and used up and a maintenance kit which is really just a roller infused with some kind of silicone oil. The maintenance kit can be taken apart and the spongy roller is the only thing that can't be recycled; the rest of it is easily separated plastic and metal. Colour lasers require four toner cartridges which get pretty pricey. I would say that four colour inks + maintenance kit for the solid ink printer would come out cheaper than four toner cartridges for the colour laser on an average per-page cost, but this depends on how graphics intensive the printouts are going to be.

One further note is that the Xerox solid ink printers need to be on all the time, so that the ink is kept molten. Each time the printer is turned on (cold start), it will expel a small amount of ink to purge the printhead. For this reason alone, a colour laser may be better for home use.

FewMiles..