Home Printer Buying Guide: How to choose the best printer

Essays. Coupons. Last-minute directions to Grandma’s house. Whatever you need to print, there’s a home printer that can do it. And intense competition among competitors like HP, Epson, Canon and others has forced prices to such absurd lows that you can now walk into a store – even a local supermarket – and walk out with a brand new printer for $60 or even less.

But selecting a home printer can be tough – given so many options – especially with all the convoluted terms that can complicate the process. With that in mind, we’ve put together a quick-and-dirty printer buying guide for selecting a home printer, with simple explanations of the most common terms and our recommendations that will serve a majority of users.

Update 05-20-2014: This guide has been updated to reflect new trends and features.

                                                        

Inkjet or Laser?

The first question all printer buyers must tackle comes down to a simple matter of what and how much you plan on printing.

Color inkjet printers comprise the bulk of the market simply because they can print just about anything: essays, pie charts, or glossy photos, you name it. But printed text from inkjets doesn’t always look as sharp as from a laser printer, they’re typically slower, and in some cases they cost more to keep running.

Laser printers rule the roost in offices because they can print large volumes of text quickly, reliably, and on the cheap. And besides looking sharper than text from an inkjet, laser printouts won’t run when they get wet. Color lasers have also fallen into the range of affordability for consumers recently, but the cost of replacement color laser toner can be prohibitively high, often making them a poor option for home use.

Unless you plan on printing novels or page after page of school reports, inkjet printers usually make the best bet for home users due to their flexibility. If you need to print a lot of pages, and print them fast, a laser printer is worth considering. They do carry a premium in price, though, over inkjet features with similar speed and often more functionality such as duplexing.

One thing to keep in mind in making your decision is that recently, inkjet printers have been introduced with higher capacity ink cartridges that decrease the cost per page. And inkjet printers have become faster in recent years, sometimes giving laser printers a run for the money.

All-in-One?

Both laser and inkjet printers are available with a scanner bed on the top of the unit, turning them into all-in-one (AIO) machines: printer, copier, scanner, and/or fax (also called a multifunction printer, or MFP). Although you might not need all the functions, buying an all-in-one printer for home use makes a lot of sense, not only because it’s cheaper than buying a a printer and a standalone scanner, but also for the sake of saving room. Since all-in-ones are extremely common and manufacturers rarely charge much of a premium for them (you can often find one for as little as $50-$60) we highly recommend them for home users.

Note: Soon, you may not have to decide whether to purchase a standalone printer or an all-in-one. While manufacturers continue to bring out new printer-only units for the office, most of the new devices being introduced for home users are all-in-one models, phasing out print-only models.

Photo Printers

If you’re more interested in preserving family photos on paper than printing off homework assignments and pie charts, consider a dedicated photo printer. Though they lack the flexibility of multitaskers, the quality of prints is typically much better, and often rivals or exceeds the quality of what you would receive from a kiosk or mail-order service like Shutterfly. The price you’ll pay for the convenience comes out in the print cost. Photo printers can use separate ink and paper, or both can be contained in a single cartridge (portable photo printers). Most printers sold only for dedicated photo or graphic use are either small-size (printing photos up to 4 x 6 inches), or wide format, printing on media up to 24-inches wide. Supplies for these specialty printers are generally more expensive than those for the typical multifunction printer. And many all-in-one devices are quite capable of turning out photos up to 8.5 x 11 inches when you use the right paper.

Supply Costs

Remember the mantra “give away the razor, sell the blades”? That century-old business model is still alive and well in the printer business, where many companies entice consumers with unimaginably low prices on their budget printers, knowing they can milk them over and over again when it’s time to replace the ink cartridges.

Research the cost of replacement supplies before you buy any printer to know what you’re in for when the initial cartridges finally run dry. Depending on how often you plan to print, it can actually be worth it to purchase a more expensive printer in order to buy into a cheaper line of cartridges. Also, look into the possibility of refilling your own cartridges, which can cost dramatically less than buying new every time. Keep in mind though, that printer vendors now add tiny chips to their cartridges that track ink or toner life to make refilling more difficult.

Duplexing (Two-Side Printing or Scanning)

One feature that’s becoming very common, and that we consider a big plus, is automatic duplexing. Duplexing refers to printing or scanning both sides of the page without requiring that you manually flip the page over. On a printer, duplexing is accomplished by printing the first side of the page, pulling the page back through the printer, flipping it over, and printing the other side.

Many all-in-one devices with an automatic document feeder (ADF) for the scanner also have duplexing, scanning both sides of the page as the document feeds through the ADF. An all-in-one without an automatic document feeder can’t duplex scan with you turning the page over on the scan glass.

Duplex scanning is a major convenience if you frequently scan two-sided pages, like those torn from a magazine. And duplex printing is almost a must these days, helping you save paper when single-side printing isn’t necessary.

Networking Capability

Today, nearly every printing device offers multiple connectivity options. USB has been the standard interface for years, and every computer has several USB ports (we doubt many of you are still using computers from the early 1990s, when parallel ports were the norm). Because USB is generally a short, direct connection, it requires that the printer or AIO be located near the PC or laptop. (There are some wireless routers with a USB port, which you can use to connect to a printer to enable wireless printing on a home network.)

But most new printers can now be shared by multiple devices via a network. That could be via Ethernet, where you connect a cable to the router or switch in your network. Ethernet also provides the faster connection. However, this wired setup is more common in an office environment than in the home, so few printers except those in the high-end will have an Ethernet port built-in.

More common is Wi-Fi, which has become the most popular method of home networking, and just about every new printer sold for home or small business has Wi-Fi capability. Many even offer one-button wireless setup (if the router it’s being connected to supports it), making network pairing a snap. A new option called Wi-Fi Direct lets you connect the printer to a laptop that supports it, without having to connect the printer to a network first. Wi-Fi is also used to connect many new smartphones, tablets, and digital cameras by select printers that support mobile device printing, such as Apple’s AirPrint protocol.