Introduction to Buying a Printer

Choice of Printer
You can start with a fairly simple choice between the two main types of printer you can buy. Do you want a colour printer or a monochrome printer, sometimes referred to as a mono printer? Its an important point to think about as buying a colour printer may add a lot of additional cost and reduce efficiency if all you need to do is produce high volume, good quality black and white sheets. Then be clear about its use, is it for home use or office use? Do you want your printer to be able to scan, copy and fax documents as well as printing? Once you have made these decisions its time to think about the various technologies available in the world of printers.

Printer Technology
The main printer technologies available today are
- Inkjet printers are a common low cost printer often used in the home for personal use. It produces tiny droplets of ink fired onto the paper from the printer head. Anything from 10 to 30 droplets can be displayed per millimetre so the quality of the printing to the human eye is very good. These printers are cheaper than Laser printers but are slower and produce lower quality printing in most cases.
- Bubble jet printers are a form of Inkjet printer and are by far the most common technology used, especially for personal printers. Small heat resisters make the ink bubble and this is dispersed through tiny nozzles in the printer head.
- Laser printers produce higher quality printing in an efficient and faster manner than Inkjet Printers. They use heat to seal tiny particles of carbon onto the page rather than using little ink dots. These printers are more expensive to buy but are the choice of most offices as they use much cheaper ink toner rather than the often more expensive ink cartridges. Using the laser technology also gives very high quality and speed.
- Thermal printers use heat resistors to expand the ink to form droplets for printing unlike the other form of inkjet where a jet of ink is pushed out to create the droplet.
- Dot matrix printers use an impact technology where the printer touches the paper to leave a dot of ink. Whilst this technology is the cheapest it produces the lowest quality and is quickly becoming redundant as prices of inkjet and laser printers continue to fall.
Other types include Micro Piezo, microfine droplet, LED, dry electrostatic transfer, single pass colour and thermal wax to name a few.

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Printer Type - Printer Function
The main printer functions are
- All-in-One printers sometimes called multipurpose printers. This can include any combination of printer functionality with copier, fax and scanner. These units are often much bigger so you should check the size of these units and where they will be stored for use. Also note that you have the advantage of everything together but if the printer breaks this could effectively stop your fax and other functions as well.
- Personal printers or home printers are found in most homes as most home computer users also buy a printer. The cost of printers has been falling in line with other computer equipment and a high quality inkjet printer or even low end laser printer is readily available for home use. The key factors that define a printer for home use is really its size, speed, cost and quality of production. Large laser printers that produce 1000s of high quality prints are not required in most homes.
- Label printers do what the description suggests. Many cheap printers specifically for label printing are now available. Again you just need to consider the volume and quality required to guide your purchase.
- Workgroup printers, network printers or office printers are by their nature larger units that will allow you stack larger amounts of paper and hold the printing once done. The more advanced office machines give you numerous printer options including the ability to automatically print on both sides of paper, produce multiple copies of documents and even bind them at the end to produce completed booklets for presentations. Network and workgroup printers are purposely built to be connected to the office LAN (local area network) and as bigger units are usually stored in a designated space rather than on your desk. They can handle large volume and easily queue jobs so serve several users at once.
- Photo or Digital Photo Printers have become one of the most popular printers in the market with the explosion of digital cameras. Many manufacturers have been quick to launch specific printers aimed at the digital photography market and some now allow you to connect directly to a digital camera and print without even switching on your PC. The other thing to look into is whether you will do more than just print 8x6 photos, most good home computers allow you to do this and provide all the other functionality you would need as well.
- Cell printers are still limited in choice and are essentially smaller units made for ease of transportation.

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Print Quality
Having made decisions on all the above will already lead you towards a decision on printer quality. You may come across the term dots per inch or DPI which gives you an indicator of quality e.g. 600dpi is lower quality than 2000dpi. The other key factor is that generally laser printers are higher quality that inkjet printers but of course the better the quality the more the price you will pay.

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Printer Speed
As before you should already be well down the path in this decision based on where you will use your printer and which technology it uses. Look for the number of pages output per minute as the key parameter for printer speed.

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Printer Ink Cartridges and Printer Toners
Many people go out and decide they need a cheap home colour printer. They do the price comparison and happily buy a bargain. The bad news is they often find out that the ink cartridges can be very expensive to purchase. What ever printer you are researching always check the price and availability of refills, whether it is ink cartridges or toners. It is also worth thinking about what type of cartridge you are happy using. Many people now use one of the many online retailers able to provide very cheap reused or recycled ink and toner cartridges. These may be fine for leisure and home use but may not deliver the highest quality you require for more professional printing. Offices should always return used toner cartridges for recycling.

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Printer Accessories
Always check what connectivity leads will come with your printer. There is nothing more frustrating than eagerly unpacking only to find you have no USB cable or other required cable to connect to your PC. Most printers dont come with connectivity leads packed so make sure you check before you buy. Also think about buying some back up ink cartridges especially if you intend to do lots of printing straight away. Check to see if you use multiple cartridges as many now allow you to buy separate black and colour cartridges for greater efficiency. If you are using the printer in an office environment you may need to consider buying a new printer feeder and tray. These can help significantly increase volume. Other accessories you may need to consider depending on use and wear and tear include printer cleaning kits, replacement printer heads, duplex units, fuser units and stands or cabinets.

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