HOW TO CHOOSE AND GET THE BEST FROM YOUR HOME OFFICE PRINTER
March 14, 2016 Leave a Comment
Print Friendly, PDF & Email
laser v inkjet-smChoosing the best home office printer for your needs really is a case of trade-offs so what we are going to endeavor to do in this review is categorize the types of printer you might want to consider rather than recommend an definitive list of specific models. We will make recommendations but only where that fits the context of buying the best home office printer to suite your personal needs.
I am sure by now you’re familiar with the main differences in printers and those are the two main types that concern us for home use, the laser and the inkjet printer. They can be split down into monochrome and color.
To be perfectly honest for most home office printing a good inkjet will do the job. If most of your work is online and collaborative and all you really need to do is print the occasional page, article or quote, not forgetting of course kids homework projects and the odd family photo then there’s plenty going for the inkjet.
To be perfectly honest for most home office printing a good inkjet will do the job.
[fsbProduct asin=’B00AVWKUJS’ align=’right’] If that about describes your printing output all you really need a sub $100 multi function printer (MFP), which in effect is a printer, scanner, copier and (on some MFP’s a fax) and you won’t go wrong with the excellent Canon PIXMA MX922 Wireless Office All-In-One Printer or the equally inexpensive but worthy HP Officejet Pro 8610. As the saying goes at this price point there’s really no such thing as a bad printer if most of your printing is occasional.
If your printing needs are going to go beyond that and your printing off marketing material, reports and maybe presentation documents then we need to look at your printer needs a little deeper.
Print quality is super close to laser as well so this is a highly recommended little monochrome printer.
[fsbProduct asin=’B00A750ZHG’] So which to choose is it an inkjet, or laser? Do you need color or just black and white? If your only printing in black, white and grey scale then a monochrome inkjet printer like the Epson WorkForce WF-M1030 Wireless Monochrome Printer is difficult to beat with a much lower printing cost than a monochrome laser. This little Epson has reasonable page speed with up to 34 pages per minute and high capacity cartridges. Print quality is super close to laser as well so this is a highly recommended little monochrome printer.
As a general statement Lasers tend to be more expensive to buy and again in general the cartridges are expensive but should provide a much higher quality print output, particularly if you are printing a lot of text. And a good monochrome laser tends to be faster than its inkjet counterpart.
So if you are going to be printing text only then a monochrome inkjet will be your choice, if you’re going to be printing a lot of text and probably looking at 500 plus pages per month then go for a monochrome laser so you then get fast start up, high page per minute speeds with lower ink costs and the increase in quality that a laser printer offers. Take a look at our recommended monochrome printers (Link to monochrome printer page)
A good laser printer will still very much have the advantage over inkjets when it comes to printing clean sharp monochrome text and color graphical illustrations.
Home Office Color Printers.
The lines tend to blur slightly when we throw color into the mix if you’ll excuse the pun!
If you are going to be printing color whether it’s the occasional family photo or some serious presentation material and meeting handouts then we have to consider whether laser or inkjet would be your best option.
A good laser printer will still very much have the advantage over inkjets when it comes to printing clean sharp monochrome text and color graphical illustrations. So if your aim is to design and print high quality quotes and concepts that are going in front of a client or you’re producing your own presentation and marketing assets a good laser printer is going your best choice.
However inkjets have significantly improved in the last couple of years to the point that the quality of text printing and reproduction is in most cases good enough for what you’re producing inside the office and what goes out to clients.
Where an inkjet does trump the color laser is when it comes to printing high quality photographs. If you’re looking for a professional photo printer then you need to look for a high end inkjet. An office inkjet won’t give you exhibition quality prints, but will still give you good results.
As always it’s a matter of carefully considering the job and end results you want your home office printer to achieve and balancing that out against your budget..
Your printer and the total cost of ownership.
When you’re buying a printer the initial purchase is just the start of the journey. The initial price you pay may look very good but we have to consider TCO (total cost of ownership) particularly if your monthly print numbers are high. The ongoing cost of replacing toner and ink over a month and the life of the printer should be a deciding factor in your choice.
Look for the page yield estimate for their or toner ink cartridges for the printer you’re looking at which will tell you how many pages the ink or toner cartridge will print before running out. That’ll also tell you the average cost per page. A simple way to check page yield is to Google ‘page yield xxxxxxx’ where the xxx’s equally your make and model of printer.
As always it’s a matter of carefully considering the job and end results you want your home office printer to achieve and balancing that out against your budget.
All in one printers, the jack of all trades
wireless smart device printingA lot of the printers you’re going to be looking at will in fact be multi-function or ‘all-in-one’ printers that that include a copier/scanner and sometimes a fax. (Who uses fax these days?) The scanner can be particularly useful if you want to create a digital archive of old images and photographs and store them either on your hard drive or in the cloud.
Home Office Printer Features.
Modern technology has adorned today’s printer with a plethora of additional functions in some models such as touch screen menus, direct from camera printing, duplex and printing from a smart device. By far the most useful you will find is ‘wireless’ connectivity. In and around the home the ability to connect several devices to one central printer is an absolute boon.
Again the added features such as high-capacity paper trays, automatic document feeding and double-sided printing or automatic duplex may be features worth considering if you are producing your own marketing materials rather than outsourcing to the local print shop.
Summary – Choosing A Home office Printer.
For occasional home office printing a sub $100 Multifunction Printer will be just fine. Just be sure of your TCO and check the printer model cartridge ‘page yield’ to ensure it’s going to meet your needs. If you’re changing your printer cartridge every week you won’t be happy!
For text printing only consider a monochrome printer either a capable inkjet to save costs or for higher output a monochrome laser printer.
If you’re going to be printing marketing material, proposals and handouts then a good color laser will give great results.
For high quality photo printing it’s going to be a photo professional inkjet to give vibrant natural prints.
Wireless is a must, also but give careful thought to the added functions that will help increase productivity.
A printer has almost become an essential part of our home technology set up. They have become ubiquitous generally sitting in a corner of a study or den printing out the occasional page, homework project or family photo. Now that you’re ready to set up your home office choose your printer wisely and it will give you several years of faultless service and excellent results.
Tags: best home laser printer, best home office printer, best home printers, color laser printer, home office inkjet printer, home office laser printer, home office printer, monochrome printerCategories: Home Office Buying Guides
HOW TO CHOOSE AND GET THE BEST FROM YOUR HOME OFFICE PRINTER
