1 - Making a choice
For moderate use
No point overspending if you don’t use your printer much: there are no really bad jet-ink printers on the market. They all produce nice documents (word processing, internet pages and so on) and photos that won’t look amiss in your album. Quality doesn’t vary a great deal between a 50-euro model and one that costs double. What does vary however is how the manufacturer makes their profit. The cheaper the printer, the more cartridges it will use. When the cartridge is cheap (you can get them for 9 euros) the quantity of ink inside is often very low.
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£55 - £85
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£60 - £256
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£93 - £160
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For more frequent use and wireless
Wi-Fi has arrived in the world of printers. Installing a wireless machine is very simple. Neither speed nor print quality is affected. But you do get rid of the cable and you can easily share the printer between several computers in the house, or even with friends who are passing through with their laptop. It really is a practical solution. This option is only currently available on mid and high-end models, which need more expensive cartridges (that also last longer). Make sure you go for XL cartridges when you can: they’re a good deal more economical.
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£179 - £179
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£19 - £159
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£122 - £229
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Pro-personal models with fax
Faxes are still used a good deal. They’re important documents in business affairs. This means that all manufacturers have models in their catalogue that have the fax feature, even sometimes with a document loader. This type of printer is a good solution for an independent professional or for a small team.
Great progress has been made in this category but they are still rather expensive: rather than cramming a load of buttons onto a panel, which makes machines complex to use, some manufacturers have introduced touch screens, which display just the common features. This is a very efficient and practical solution. One day we’ll only have printers of this type. For the time being however, this new feature is expensive (around 300 euros). They will gradually come down in price over the next few years.
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£75 - £75
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£77 - £77
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£143 - £166
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Pro and shared: networked lasers
The network option for laser printers often costs an extra 50 euros – necessary if you want to share a printer between several colleagues.
As you move up towards higher-end machines you’ll also find larger paper loaders of 250 pages and over that can be increased if needed (as an option). The trend with jet-inks is also arriving on lasers: multifunctions are beginning to edge out single function printers. Price differences between the two however are still quite significant. It’s over to you to assess whether you need a scanner, copier and fax, all in a network.
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£85 - £666
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£246 - £522
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£183 - £402
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2 - The Science
The really important aspects of the spec
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- Printing technology :
ink-jet models can be used for all tasks. They can be used to print both text and photos. Laser printers are perfect for documents and are twice as cheap to use but you can’t use them for anything more than a rough photo print (to illustrate a report for example).
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- Type of prints :
with ink-jets, you only get colour models so you don’t need to decide between colour and black and white. With lasers however, you do need to work out which to go for. Contrary to popular opinion, colour cartridges cost more or less the same as black and white. Colour gives better legibility and truly enriches your documents. However, colour laser printers are still more expensive
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- Maximum print speed :
print speeds given for laser printers are reliable, regulated by standards. Those given for ink jets are grosly over-inflated: you need to divide the figure given by the manufacturer by at least three to get a realistic idea of output.
What you’ll need to go a bit further
3 - Accessories
USB cable
Printers are delivered with a power cable but without the cable needed to link to a computer. Make sure you pick this cable up if you’re going to link via the USB. Or use the one you used with your old printer.
Memory cards
Most ink-jet printers have a card reader for printing images straight from your camera. Once the card has been detected, the printer usually gives the option of printing an index of photos or the photo in a format of your choice (10x15, A4 etc.).
Paper loader
All printers have a paper loader. On entry-level models the loader will take up to 100 sheets with mid-range models taking up to 250. If several people are using the printer you might want to extend this with the optional addition of extra loaders. With laser printers, the loader often stacks paper under the printer.
Cartridges
Whether you have a laser or an ink-jet, you’ll now often find that two types of cartridge are on offer. ''Standard'' or ''XL''. Standard cartridges are cheaper but contain less ink. You’ll often need to replace them and they’re really only for low-volume users. XL cartridges last longer and cost less per page.
Paper
It is often safer to use the manufacturer’s own paper on a given printer. There are two types of ink, coloured or pigment; the photo paper is different for each. If you use the manufacturer’s own ink and paper you won’t mess up. This rule is only for photo paper however (you can try different options but some will come out wrong). Don’t miss out on using creative paper however: T-shirt transfers, tatoos and so on.
4 - Aller plus loin
