Laser Printers use Toner. The toner cartridges have five year shelf life so you don’t have to worry about them drying out.
InkJet Printers use wet ink in ink cartridges, which generally only have a shelf life of 12-18 months.
Laser Printers are more robust, faster, more reliable, and are built for higher page volumes.
If you need high quality photos, you have to use InkJet. If you need high volume, business level printing, you should use Laser.
Cost per page using Toner (Laser) is generally much lower than Ink (InkJet)
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An inkjet printer uses ink, which it sprays onto the paper as dots.
If low-quality paper is used in an inkjet printer, the paper may absorb too much of the ink and cause it to bleed, or show blurry images. Smoother, higher quality paper will help fix this issue.
The brighter/smoother the paper, the better the image an inkjet printer will produce.
In addition to preventing blurry images or text, coated paper sometimes allows a much higher resolution image.
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Laser printers use toner to produce an image. The toner is fused to the paper through the printing process.
The fusing process is what makes laser printing so much better, there is no drying time to avoid smudging, as the whole process is dry start to finish.
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Inkjet printers are much lower cost to purchase, but the ink can be very expensive as an ongoing cost.
Laser printers generally require a larger spend upfront, but the toner cartridges need replacing less often and have a much faster print speed.