Printers

Inexpensive inkjets print color superbly, and they do it faster than ever. Laser printers excel at printing black-and-white text. Economical all-in-one models can scan, copy, and sometimes fax.

Inkjet printers have become the standard for home-computer use. They can turn out color photos nearly indistinguishable from lab-processed photos, along with banners, stickers, transparencies, T-shirt transfers, and greeting cards. Many produce excellent black-and-white text. With some very good models selling for less than $200, it’s no surprise that inkjets account for the vast majority of printers sold for home use.

Laser printers still have their place in home offices. If you print reams of black-and-white text documents, you probably need the quality, speed, and low per-copy cost of a laser printer. Printers use a computer’s microprocessor and memory to process data. The latest inkjets and lasers are so fast partly because computers have become more powerful and contain much more memory than before.


WHAT'S AVAILABLE



The printer market is dominated by a handful of well-established brands. Hewlett-Packard is the market leader. Other major brands include Brother, Canon, Dell, Epson, and Lexmark. Printers designed for printing 4x6-inch snapshots are also sold by Kodak, Olympus, Samsung, and Sony.

The type of computer a printer can serve depends on its ports. The most common by far, a Universal Serial Bus (USB) port, lets a printer connect to Windows or Macintosh computers. Very few models also have a parallel port, which allows connections to older Windows computers. All these printers lack a serial port, which means they won’t work with older Macs.

Inkjet printers. Inkjets use droplets of ink to form letters, graphics, and photos. Some printers have one cartridge that holds the cyan (greenish-blue), magenta, and yellow inks, and a second cartridge for the black ink. Others have an individual cartridge for each color. For photos, many inkjets also have additional cartridges that contain lighter shades of cyan and magenta inks, or gray ink.

Most inkjet printers output black-and-white text at a speed of 1.5 to 12 pages per minute (ppm) but are much slower for color photos. Various models we tested took 2 to 11 minutes to print a single 8x10, depending on the complexity of the image. The cost of printing a black-and-white text page with an inkjet varies considerably from model to model, from 2 to 12 cents. The cost of printing a color 8x10 photo can range from 85 cents to $1.60. Printer price: $60 to $700. You can also get them with scanning, copying, and sometimes fax capability. These all-in-one models typically cost more than stand-alone inkjets. Price: $80 and up.

Specialty snapshot printers. For printing photos at home, a speedy snapshot printer can be more convenient than a full-sized model. Most are limited to 4x6-inch snapshots, but a few models can also print on 5x7 paper. These models use either inkjet or dye-sublimation technology. Like most full-sized inkjet printers, most of these models can hook up directly via cable to a digital camera through the PictBridge connection, so you can print without using a computer. This is the simplest and quickest way to print at home, provided you don’t want to edit the photos. Price: $90 to $240.

Laser printers. These work much like plain-paper copiers, forming images by transferring toner (powdered ink) to paper passing over an electrically charged drum. The process yields sharp black-and-white text. Laser printers usually outrun inkjets, cranking out black-and-white text at a rate of 9 to 24 ppm. Black-and-white laser printers generally cost about as much as midpriced inkjets, but they’re cheaper to operate. Laser cartridges, about $50 to $100, can print thousands of black-and-white pages for a per-page cost of 2 to 3 cents. Price: $100 and up.

All-in-one laser printers add scanning, copying, and sometimes fax capability. Price: $200 and up.

Color laser printers are also available, but they are considerably slower than black-and-white models, cost as much to use as the better inkjets models, and can’t print on glossy photo paper, so they’re not a good choice for printing photos. Price: $300 and up.


HOW TO CHOOSE



Be skeptical about advertised speeds. Print speed varies depending on what you’re printing and at what quality, but the speeds you see in ads are generally higher than you’re likely to achieve in normal use. You can’t reliably compare speeds for different brands because each company uses its own methods to measure speed. We run the same tests on all models, printing text pages and photos that are similar to what you might print. As a result, our print times are realistic and can be compared across brands.

Don’t get hung up on resolution. A printer’s resolution, expressed in dots per inch, is another potential source of confusion. All things being equal, the more ink dots a printer puts on the paper, the more detailed the image. But dot size, shape, and placement also affect quality, so don’t base your choice solely on resolution.

Consider supply costs as well as a printer’s price. High ink-cartridge costs can make a bargain-priced printer a bad deal in the long run. Shop around for the best cartridge prices, but be wary of off-brands. We have found brand-name cartridges that have better print quality and fade-resistance, and per-page costs are often comparable.

Glossy photo paper costs about 25 to 75 cents a sheet, so use plain paper for works in progress and save the good stuff for the final results. We got the best results using the recommended brand of paper. You might be tempted to buy a cheaper brand, but lower-grade paper can reduce photo quality and might not be as fade resistant.

Decide if you want to print photos without using a computer. Printing without a computer saves you an extra step and a little time. Features such as memory-card reader, PictBridge support (a standard that allows a compatible camera to be connected directly to the printer), or a wireless interface are convenient. But when you print directly from camera to printer, you compromise on what may have attracted you to digital photography in the first place--the ability to tweak size, color, brightness, and other image attributes, though you can do some editing on a printer with an LCD screen.

Weigh convenience features. Most printers can make borderless prints like those from a photo developer. This matters most if you’re printing to the full size of the paper, as you might with 4x6-inch sheets. Otherwise, you can trim the edges off.

If you plan to use 4x6-inch paper regularly, look for a printer with a 4x6-inch tray or a second paper tray, which makes it easier to feed paper of this size. With these small sheets, though, the cost per photo might be higher than combining a few images on 81⁄2 x11-inch paper.

With some models, if you want to use the photo inks to get the best picture quality, you have to remove the black-ink cartridge and replace it with the photo-ink cartridge. Then, to print text or graphics, you have to swap the black cartridge back in. This process can get tedious. The models that hold all the ink tanks simultaneously eliminate that hassle.

Consider connections. Printers with USB 2.0 ports are fairly common now. But they don’t enable much faster print speeds than plain USB. All new computers and printers have USB 2.0 ports, which are compatible with plain USB. Computers more than seven years old may have only a parallel port.

Decide whether you need scanning and copying. An all-in-one unit provides scanning and color copying (and often faxing) while saving space. But scanners in all-in-one units might be slower than stand-alone scanners. Stand-alone units are best for negatives and slides, although some all-in-one units now include a light in the lid and a holder to keep negatives and slides in place. And if one part of the unit breaks, the whole unit must be repaired or replaced.

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Laser Printer Reviews
A laser printer review helps one who decides to buy a laser printer. They are very helpful, especially for a layman who knows nothing about printers. Laser printer reviews come in a systematic format, so that comparisons can be made between different laser printers, which make it easy for the customer to decide the type of printer that will best suit his needs. In a crux, they not only guide us to buy a ‘suitable’ printer, but also one that will prove to be a good value for the money.

What is DPI – Dots Per Inch?
You have probably heard this term many times before especially in the context of printing your digital photos. DPI is sometimes used as a measurement of digital photo printing quality while the truth is that DPI is an indicator of the printer quality.

Understanding The Printer Toner
With a computer printer sitting on most office desks - both at home and at the office - most users have come to understand the role of the printer toner. But, in most cases, the extent of our knowledge is limited to knowing when and how the printer toner cartridge must be changed. And change it we do, without having any real understanding of how it functions within our printer.

Hewlett Packard Printers
Hewlett Packard is one the best provider of company's products on reasonable prices. Hewlett Packard is the premier worldwide technology solutions provider to businesses, consumers and institutions.

The Difference Of A Laser Printer
The choice between the purchases of many different types of printers can be a challenging one. As sophisticated technology continues to change the landscape of the office environment, it becomes more and more difficult to determine the best course of action when choosing an appropriate printer. The laser printer, one of the more popular types of printers, has a variety of benefits that sets it apart from its counterparts.

Tips On How To Compare Laser Printers
If you are in the quest for the best laser printers, then looking for reviews, ratings and comparisons are the best source where you will find all you must know about laser colour printers, multifunction laser printers, laser all in one printers and so on. If you are a tyro in laser printer or in printers in general, these sources will help you a lot to help you make a wise buy.

How To Buy A Good Printer?
Purchasing a printer can be a confusing task. The following is additional information that will help in your purchasing decisions.

HP Printers – All In One/Multifunction, Laser, Ink, and Photo Printers
Choose from a wide variety of dependable HP printers, including all in one /
multifunction printers, photo printers, laser and ink printers.
Official site for HPs line of photo printers, multifunction, and color laser and ink printers.
www.hp.com/united-states/consumer/gateway/printing_multifunction.html

Printers - Scanners - Toner - Monitors - Projectors & More at Super Warehouse
Online computer store.
Online retailer of color laser printers, laptops, hard drives, LCD monitors, and digital cameras.
www.superwarehouse.com

Reviews of Photo printers, laser printers, inkjet printers & more - CNET
Printer reviews and ratings, video reviews, user opinions, most popular printers,
printer buying guides, prices, and comparisons.
Printer reviews and ratings, video reviews, user opinions, most popular printers, printer buying guides, prices, and comparisons.
reviews.cnet.com/Printers/2001-3155_7-0.html

PC World - Photo Printer, Ink Jet, Laser Printer & All In One Printer Reviews, Pricing, Ratings & Buying Advice - PC...
Dell's new Color Laser Printer 1320c debuts at the top of our chart this month,
with a killer price and competent overall performance. ...
... HDTV Laptops Macs & iPods Monitors Printers Spyware & Security The PCW Test ... Top Multifunction Inkjet Printers ... Top 10 Color Laser Printers ...
www.pcworld.com/ic/printers

Printers - Reviews and Price Comparisons – from PC Magazine
PC Magazine provides up-to-date coverage and product reviews of printers.
www.pcmag.com/category2/0,1874,10,00.asp