How do UV laser engravers compare to CO2 models for detailed designs?

I didn’t even know UV lasers were a thing until I saw someone engraving tiny text on glass like it was printed. That kinda pulled me in. Before that I was only looking at CO2 machines, thinking yeah this should handle everything. Turns out not really.

CO2 is solid for wood and acrylic, I tried one at a local shop and it did clean work but when it came to super fine details, especially on coated stuff, it felt a bit rough around the edges. Then I saw a UV machine in action and it was on a different level, like barely any burn marks, just crisp lines.

One night I went down the usual scroll session on alibaba, just checking what’s out there, and I gotta admit it was kinda cool seeing both types side by side with sample outputs. Some sellers actually show close up engravings which helped more than reading specs.

Small incident, a guy I know tried doing detailed logos on plastic with CO2 and it ended up slightly melted. That stuck with me.

Now I’m confused, is UV worth the extra cost just for cleaner detail or is CO2 good enough if you tweak settings right? What would you pick honestly?