Having a printer in your home is a great luxury. You will no longer need to make trips to the library just to have your documents printed out. It can save you a lot of time and make your life easier. However, there are an enormous amount of printers to choose from. All printers are not created equal, so how do you decide which one will give you the best value for your money? Here are some tips that will help you when you go shopping for printers.
1. Laser or inkjet
The first decision you will need to make when you start shopping for printers is to decide if your want a laser or an inkjet. The one that you choose will depend on exactly how much printing you plan on doing. Most of the market for printers is made up of the color inkjet variety. This is primarily due to the fact that they are capable of printing glossy photos, detailed graphs and basically anything else you can think of. However, one of the biggest drawbacks of using an inkjet is that the text that it produces tends to lack the sharpness that laser printers are known for. Also, inkjet printers are much slower than their laser counterparts, often costing a lot more money to keep them operating correctly. If you are going to be doing a high volume of printing and you want it to be done reliably and quickly, laser printers will be the way to go.
2. All-in-one
There are inkjet and laser printers that can be purchased with a scanner bed. This gives them the capability to be a fax machine, scanner, copier and to perform all of your printing tasks. These are referred to in the industry as all-in-one machines. Before you buy one of these machines, you will need to consider if you will actually be using all of the features. Buying an all-in-one machine would be less expensive than scanners and printers that are sold separately.
3. Photo printers
Many people are only interested in printing photos they have taken. If this is primarily what you are going to be doing, you should consider buying one of the many printers that are specially designed for the task of printing photos. The quality of the prints that are created by these machines are much better than those produced by standard printers.
4. Cost of supplies
Replacement ink cartridges for printers are not cheap. If you won’t be doing much printing, you will not need to worry about the cost of ink. However, if you will be printing a high volume of material, especially color photos, you would be wise to compare ink cartridge prices.
