Laser printers and thermal printers both use a heating element to function. Which of the following differentiates them?

Laser printers use dry powder toner, not liquid pigment - liquid pigment is associated with inkjet printers.

Thermal printers rely on chemically treated, heat-sensitive paper (thermal stock) that reacts to heat to produce an image, meaning the media is proprietary and device-specific. This is the key differentiator - the printer is useless without its specialized paper roll. Laser printers, by contrast, can use standard plain paper.

Laser printers do require toner (dry powder) as their consumable printing material, so this statement is factually incorrect.

Thermal printers do not use any form of toner, refillable or otherwise - they produce images solely through heat applied to special thermal paper.