How to buy a printer

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From mono text documents to picture-perfect glossy photo prints, there’s a desktop printing technology to suit, often with the offer of plenty of versatility under the bonnet.

Do you just want to print documents?

For straightforward text printing, mono laser printers are now available for as little as £60 or so, typically offering print speeds of around 15 to 20ppm, reasonable running costs of about 2p per page, and crisp, sharp output.

The only real problem with mono page printers is that pretty much all of computing nowadays is in full colour, documents included, so it’s a pain to have to see everything as a black and white issue on paper.

Thankfully, the size and cost of colour laser printers has dropped very significantly over the last year, with prices starting at around £150, making them a viable proposition for the home or small office, as well as for bigger business.

For sheer simplicity and minimum outlay, however, you can’t beat a good colour inkjet printer.

Do you want to print photos?

Some inkjet printers are much better than others for printing regular colour documents, such as those in Epson’s DuraBrite range (see below). However, with the advent of digital photography, most of us want to print photos as well and, for inkjet printers, this is a much more movable feast.

To get good levels of contrast, tonal range and colour space (the spectrum of colours that a printer can generate), six inks or more are usually necessary, typically adding light cyan and light magenta to the conventional CMYK colour mix.

Top level photo printers often go a step further, with eight or nine inks in their arsenal to enable an even wider colour space.

For photo printing, it’s also worth checking that the printer can produce borderless photo prints in popular sizes, include 6×4 and 7×5-inch, as well as full A4.

Another consideration is print longevity, with Canon historically lagging behind the performance of most Epson and HP inkjet-generated prints, although the fade-resistance of Canon’s new ChromaLife100 inks is considerably better.

Is direct photo printing important to you?

It’s often convenient to leave computers out of the photo printing equation altogether. Most photo-minded inkjets now have a PictBridge port built in, so that you can print direct from any compatible camera.

admin @ August 27, 2008