TestFreaks Guide to Printers
When you are going to buy a printer you have several techniques to choose between, ink jet, laser...
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When you are going to buy a printer you have several techniques to choose between, ink jet, laser or color laser, but also a variety of special functions such as photo printing and others.
Ink jets are inexpensive to make and nowadays give a really good picture quality if you avoid the cheaper models. The backside is that they consume a lot of ink which makes cost per print high. Lasers are today also inexpensive; their main quality is quick inexpensive printing with very high quality. Color lasers get cheaper every day, but are still a bit more expensive than the others. They print relatively fast with very good quality. The cost per print varies so keep an eye at toner costs.
One issue that concerns them all are printing time. You have to consider first how many prints per minute it prints and also the start-up time. If you just print some documents or photos now and then, start-up time is probably more important than prints per minute.
Then there is the matter of ink or laser consumption, which is very high for ink jets and relatively high for color lasers.
So what printer should you choose? Well, if you mainly print large volumes of text a black and white laser printer is the obvious choice, it prints fast and to a low cost. On the other hand most of us surely want the possibility to print in color. One option is of course to buy two printers specialized according to your needs but one printer will probably do the job if you choose carefully. Most color printers today, ink jets as well as lasers, have the possibility of different settings; a ”draft” setting that lowers the use of ink/toner (and of course of the picture quality) for more economical printing and a “high quality” or “photo” setting that maximizes the picture quality.
Then there is the question of which accessories you should get; extra paper trays if you use different papers for example for business or private use, duplex units to print on both sides of the paper - which is cheaper if you print large volumes - and more environmentally friendly. A network connection is of course valuable in a net with several computers. Finally – for some of us size matters. A small printer could often be the only solution in a small home office or similar. Fortunately size does not affect the quality.
So when you have decided how and to what you are going to use your printer, look for tests of interesting models – and remember that one of the largest costs of printing is ink or toner.
TIP:
If you got a printer with an Ethernet connection, and the often have one, you could make it available wireless with a wireless bridge so that you can print from any point in your WiFi net.