Personal lasers give the same kind of performance as yesterday's office printers. With claimed print speeds of up to 12ppm (though rather slower than that under test), you can easily print out a substantial document over lunch or produce single pages in a few seconds.

Although you're restricted to mono print, the image quality from these 600dpi printers is surprisingly good. They're certainly suitable for photographic images as well as business graphics and text.

Of the five printers examined here, The Lexmark E210 was the fastest by a short head from the Epson EPL-5900L and HP's LaserJet 1000W, while the Kyocera FS-1000+, rated one of the three fastest, lagged behind by a good bit.

Cost of running the printers showed a different picture, though, with Lexmark's cartridge looking very expensive in comparison with those for the others. Kyocera, with its lifetime drum, comes in best, as you pay only for toner. Overall, though, a good compromise on costs, speed and print quality is the Canon LBP-810.