As @jacobturner said, the laser operates continuously during cuts & scores, but pulses for engraves. “DPI” is a bit of a misnomer since dot spacing in the X direction is controlled via laser on/off timing and dot spacing in the Y direction is controlled via motor stepping.
It’s tricky to convey resolution in a way that both makes sense and is accurate in this system, what we’ve gone with is “LPI” for (horizontal) Lines Per Inch. A more dense LPI setting will give a higher resolution engrave at the expense of a longer cut while a less dense LPI setting will give a lower resolution with a speedier cut.