Which Printer Is Right For You?

In recent months, we’ve seen the release of a commercial 3D printer. But with an average price of around £1,500, it may be a while before they’re in all our homes. Nonetheless, there are still many types of printers out there. Some are very basic while some have many built-in features you might never use. So to help you stop overpaying, we’ve broken down the facts to help you decide which printer is right for you.

Choosing the Right Printer

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Student

Choosing the right printer for university is essential. Owning your own printer means you can print whenever you like – no late-night trips to the library needed. And if you have to pay 8p per sheet when using university printers, owning your own printer works out much cheaper, especially over the duration of your entire course. Most students won’t require superb quality or multiple functions if they’re just looking to print lecture notes or essays, so we suggest a standard budget inkjet printer. From around £19.99 you can pick up a model of the Epson Stylus. This is incredibly cheap for a color printer, and Epson are also known for having the cheapest ink cartridges around. Many budget Canon printers are also available on similar deals, with relatively cheap ink refills.

For students undertaking an arty subject, the Canon PIXMAR range is perfect. The cost of replacing the ink is a little high, around £40-£60, but it offers high-quality color printing and comes with a built-in scanner.

Family

When various family members want to use a printer for equally various purposes, an all-in-one printer is perfect. Also, if it’s in the family home, the size of the device should probably be small enough to keep in the corner of a room. Here is where Epson triumphs again! The Epson Artisan 730 is being billed as the perfect family printer. This printer features quality document printing – for both office- and school-related needs.  There’s great, super-fast photo printing for family photographs, and a scanner. It also has Wi-Fi capability, which is useful for letting several family members print from different rooms in the house.

Home Office Worker

Work from home? The right printer is important for achieving an office-quality standard of work, without the office-printer price tag. An important feature to look out for is speed, as you’ll want to match the fast printers of the workplace. Dual paper trays help to save time on switching between paper types. An automatic document feeder (ADF) means you don’t have to manually feed one sheet of paper at a time when faxing or scanning multiple pages in a document. Laser printers are perfect for speed, especially when printing documents containing graphs and tables, and often provide sharp results. We recommend looking through the HP range of laser printers.

Small Business Owner

If you own a small business then you’ll know how a staggeringly surplus number of documents can be printed in just a week. Therefore, the right printer is vital both for efficiency and for keeping costs down. The most acclaimed printer in this category is the Dell C3765dnf due to the fact that it provides so much. A multi-function laser printer, it can hold a total of 1250 sheets. And with the addition of a black toner capacity of an 11,000 page print yield, it can be used multiple times by multiple people without a struggle. And with a printing speed of 35 pages a minute – in both color and black – its efficiency is second to none. The Dell also features several security features to protect your documents, such as password protection.

Do you agree or disagree with our choices of different kinds of printers? Or do you have your own recommendations? Let us know in the comments section below!

Stefan Armitage is currently a radio presenter on his home island of the Isle of Wight and takes a keen gadgets and technology. He recommends Printer Basics for all your printing needs.