Choosing A Printer

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Choosing A Printer

A Printer is a printer you say. Yes and No. A printer must accomplish the job you want done quickly and efficiently. If it doesn't do that, it's worthless.

But with so many printers out on the market, which do you choose: inkjet, color, photo, dot matrix, multifunction, WIFI or laser, just to name a few.

There are three different printers in which I will discuss that are the most commonly recognized:

Inkjet Printers

Laser Printers

Multi Function Printers

Inkjet Printer

Inkjet printers are the most common and they vary in price. The inkjet printers offer an inexpensive solution for home users; and on the high end, they offer the professional quality printing.

First, let me say that a printer's speed is usually based on the type of documents you are printing. And comparatively, most of today's inkjet printers print out an average of 13 to 15 pages per minute in black, with 11 to 14 pages per minute for color.

Inkjet printers comes in different categories: 3-color, 4-color, and photo printing. The 4-color printer is the most popular, because they hold 2 cartridges, 1 black and 1 color, or the printer can have cartridges for all four colors: black, yellow, magenta, cyan. (I've had both styles of printers, and prefer the 2 cartridge unit.)

Pros

1. cost of printer is reasonable
2. ink cartridges that contain their own print heads
3. Ability to print a variety of print media
4. Less expensive than laser, while producing quality printing at the faction of the cost.

Cons

1. ink cost-this is where it is important to do some comparative shopping. How much is the inkjet cartridge going to cost, and how long will it last.

Laser Printer

Though in the past you may have found the laser printer in the office, that is beginning to change. Why? Cost is coming down.

The laser printers utilizes two separate technologies:

1) black and white
2) color

The black and white (monochrome) unit is the most popular for the laser printer.

Once untouchable, money-wise for the home user, the laser printer is coming down in price (Around 200 for a home unit). Which may soon make it very competitive against the inkjet printer.

Pros

1. Size of laser printers are getting smaller
2. Speed and lower cost per printed page
3. Laser printers use toner-which means they last longer and costs less over the long run.
4. Connect to a network

Cons

1. Color Laser printers-expensive. Cannot match the quality of an inkjet color printer.

Multi-Function Printer

Multi-Function Printers can be either a laser or inkjet printer. The quality of the multi-function printer is no different than that of a laser or inkjet. As the word "multi-function" states, it allows you to do more with one machine. Such as: scanning, faxing, photo printing, etc.

If you work in a home office, and want to same money by not purchasing all the
units separately, than the multi-function is a good choice.

What Determines the quality of a Printer?

What does determine the quality of a printer? Resolution is the top determiner.

Resolution --is the Dots Per Inch that a printer can place within a one-inch line. In theory, the higher the resolution the better the quality. Which means that graphics will come out sharper and in more detail.

Here is a quick look at the different resolutions from inexpensive to expensive for the laser printer and the inkjet printer.

Inkjet

Inexpensive-low end: 1200X1200 DPI to 1200X2400
Expensive-high end: 2400 X1200 DPI and 4800 X 1200 DPI

Laser

Inexpensive-low end: 1200 x 600 to 2400 X 1200
Expensive-high end: 2400 X 1200 to 2400 X 2400

Though resolution is the standard method that companies utilize to determining the quality of a printer, there are still others factors that play into it's quality. What are they?

Depending upon what type of printer you have, the following should be figured into the quality factor:

Ink cartridges or toner cartridges
Number of colors
paper used
Method of printing.

What Printer Should I Choose?

As you can see, printers have come a long way. Here are some questions to ask yourself before walking into the store or buying online your next printer.

1. Is Cost of Printer Important? If it is, be sure to check the cost of the cartridge before thinking cheap is good.
2. How often will you be using the printer?
3. Is it for home or office use?
4. Do you need faxing, scanning, and photo printing capabilities?
5. Are you only going to be printing documents that require no color?
6. Will you be utilizing documents that use color?
7. Are you going to printing photos, complex graphics, etc.

You are seeing more and more that many of the printers have WiFi capabilities. Though they say that the printer is WiFi capable, be aware that in most instances they also give you the option of connecting your printer by way of a USB cable.

As you can see, buying a printer is not as easy as you may have thought. My advice, shop and compare, and match your printer to your daily needs for your home office or business. And prices, vary, as you will see.

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