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Canon, Epson and HP—as well as a handful of other brands—all offer superb printer models that use either inkjet or laser printing technologies. Focus on your needs and not a brand name when seeking a printer that matches your budget and your printing, copying and scanning requirements. The Epson EcoTank Photo ET-8550 has a premium price, but it also is a premium all-in-one. It’s a superb choice for printing photos, graphics, flyers or worksheets. Unlike normal all-in-one models, Epson has optimized this printer specifically for photo output. It delivers detailed prints with vibrant colors by using a six-color ink system—two more than found in the regular EcoTank line.
Your easiest decision is probably whether to get an inkjet or laser printer. Lasers are a good choice if you print a lot of documents that need to be of professional quality to share with clients or colleagues in a small or home office environment. Monochrome laser printers are fast, reliable and relatively inexpensive—and best for text, but not graphics or photos. You can get a color laser, but those models are pricier and more complicated to maintain.
The Best Color Printer For Home in 2022 You Should Know About
Do these models save you money or grant a better performance? Our lab staff noted and tested the features offered by each printer we considered. We measure each top home printer to see how fast it is when printing single- and double-sided pages as well as how long it takes to print in black and white vs. color. As a consumer tech staff writer for Forbes Vetted, it’s my job to stay up-to-date on the latest printers, computers, mobile gadgets and smart devices. When new consumer tech products hit the market, I typically have the opportunity to use them firsthand, which helps me stay current with the latest features and innovations.
If money's tight, start with our picks for the best cheap printers, and check out how to save money on ink. If you're shopping for a business, we've got the best business printers rounded up for you as well. The high cost of printer ink is a traditional sore spot for both home and business customers, which has led to the major manufacturers introducing ways that users can lower their per-page ink costs.
Printers: Frequently Asked Questions
Back then, laser printers created images with superior detail, but the machines were prohibitively expensive. For a dedicated inkjet printer, all-in-one inkjet printer, or photo printer for your home, plan on spending between $300 and $400 to get a printer with a reasonable print speed and high-quality output. Meanwhile, what you’ll find built into a typical all-in-one printer will be a scanner capable of between 300 x 300 dpi and 1200 x 1200 dpi resolution. Obviously, the higher the resolution the better, especially if you'll be scanning photographs or documents with highly detailed graphics or illustrations.
The ADF scanner and overall capabilities of the HP Envy Pro 6548 make it a good jack-of-all-trades wireless printer at a good price. There’s little price difference between this HP wireless printer and the previous one. Designed to look more like an office printer, it has several features that make it suitable for that environment. It’s worth spending some time thinking about printer resolution.
Connectivity options
B&H Photo’s sale saves you $200 off the regular price via a mail-in rebate. The built-in touchscreen provides a simple interface to switch among the print, copy, scan and fax functions. While optimized for busy home offices, this model can also handle the printing needs of your entire family.
Be sure to consider the minimum and maximum paper size you print on, paper thickness, and whether you need a duplexer to print on both sides of the page. You'll also want a paper capacity that won't require adding paper more often than feels comfortable. A good rule of thumb is that you shouldn't have to refill paper more than once a week, on average. Epson's LabelWorks LW-PX900 is a serious piece of equipment ($299 alone, or $379 for Epson's deluxe kit with rechargeable battery and hard-shell carrying case).
What Is The True Total Cost Of Owning A Printer?
As a general rule, if you print text only, or text and graphics that don't need color, a mono laser printer will do the trick. If photos are on your agenda, you need an inkjet or dedicated small format photo printer. If the only color output you print is graphics, you probably want an inkjet as well, but if you print infrequently, an inexpensive color laser may be the better choice.
The printer comes pre-loaded with what HP describes as up to two years’ worth of ink. It supports toner cartridge refills with enough ink to print up to 2,500 ($17) or 5,000 ($30) pages. Not only is this printer affordable to maintain on a cost-per-page basis, but it also quickly outputs long documents at a speedy 23 ppm.
The printer’s maximum paper weight of 80 lb is a useful feature. The HP app largely compensates for the lack of an LCD screen. It also enables scanning to email and even faxing from your phone.
This combined with the intuitive touchscreen makes this a very easy-to-use printer. It’s capable of handling larger workloads and can print automatically in both single and double-sided prints. One of my personal favorite features was the automatic duplex printing. It was a little more difficult to set up right than I’d have liked.
Easily print from any room - from laptops, tablets, and smartphones - with built-in Wi-Fi1. And it is achieved by our expert analysis combined with real-time data from the product itself and how customers reviewed that product. There is no influence from any manufacturers in calculating this score.
This model can get the job done; just be aware that you might run into some problems occasionally. Until recently, monochrome laser printers relied on toner cartridges, while inkjet printers relied on two or more ink cartridges to function. However, many printer manufacturers have introduced ink tanks—sometimes referred to as supertanks—instead of costly cartridges. The latest printers now use easy-to-refill ink or toner tanks and require no individual cartridges.
Which Printers Have The Cheapest Ink?
Replacement ink for inkjet printers that rely on ink tanks is the most affordable option of them all. The Epson EcoTank ET-2800 uses ink tanks, which keeps your ongoing ink costs low. For a long time, CNETs methodology for testing printers didn't change. Our original testing was designed in the days when Wi-Fi printers were rare, and faxing was an important consideration when choosing a device. These days, Wi-Fi is standard, app-controlled printers are everywhere and what and how we print has changed considerably.
