If you thought personal color laser printers, with their fast print speeds and high text quality, were solely for the office, check. it's been a protracted time returning, but really personal color lasers are finally here. it is not simply that the value is true, either; the size is finally right, too. Getting to this time took a surprisingly long time. QMS introduced the first desktop color laser, the QMS ColorScript Laser one thousand, in 1993. the value was simply $12,500—a breakthrough, compared to $40,000 or therefore for alternative color lasers at the time. It's taken 15 years to go from that first expensive and hulking desktop color laser to the private color laser of nowadays. You could argue that the category has been obtainable for a short time, based mostly on prices that are low enough to justify obtaining a printer for one person's use—say, $400 and below. (That's a savings of nearly 97 percent compared to QMS's first color laser, while not even taking inflation into consideration.) but most sub-$400 color lasers are massive and heavy. a lot of exactly, they have been too massive to comfortably share a desk with and too heavy for one person to maneuver around. Typical weights for low-end lasers are in the 50- to 75-pound vary. What's modified recently is that several newer models are not solely priced right for personal use—with prices as low as $200—but they are small and light enough to qualify as personal without any stretching of the definition. The HP Color LaserJet CP1518ni Printer, for instance, takes up less space on a desktop than several, if not most, inkjets, with a footprint of simply 15.7 by 17.8 inches. simply as important, it's solely ten inches high, therefore you will not feel as if the printer is towering over you either. The Samsung CLP-315 is even smaller, at 9.6 by 15.3 by 12.3 inches (HWD). each printers also are lightweight enough for one person to move: The CP1518ni weighs forty pounds and therefore the CLP-315 solely 24.3 pounds. Color laser all-in-ones haven't quite shrunk all the way down to really personal size however, but they are obtaining shut. The HP Color LaserJet CM1312nfi MFP above all measures simply nineteen.1 by19.6 by 19.3 inches (HWD). that's slightly larger than you'd in all probability want sitting on your desk, but it's sufficiently small to find space for easily, even during a home office. One issue you may not expect regarding these personal printers is that they are relatively slow for lasers—so much so you'll be able to find many business inkjets that may beat them on speed. all of them supply much crisper, a lot of professional-looking text than inkjets do, however, and they conjointly tend to supply better-looking graphics on plain paper. They even do an inexpensive job with photos, though inkjets still have the clear advantage when it involves image quality. It's a smart bet that the number of really personal lasers will grow, but there is no got to wait. because the printers during this roundup demonstrate, the category is off to a great start. to learn a lot of regarding our prime picks for personal color lasers, look into the full reviews.