When the first laser printers appeared we - the people using high end line printers - thought they were slow. That didn't last for more than two years at which point the laser printers handily outstripped the line printers in terms of speed and print quality. They were still massive (that too changed quickly) but not as massive (or as impressive) as a line printer.

The speed with which a properly adjusted lineprinter would eat through a full box of green-white sprocket feed printer paper was very impressive.