Printer

What to look for when buying a Computer Printer

So you're looking at buying a new printer. Buying the right printer depends on the intended purpose, whether it's for office, home office or personal. Chances are that you are facing a straight choice between two competing technologies, laser and inkjet. Both technologies are capable of producing high quality results in black-and-white or colour, but you should also consider the type and volume of printing. These factors may influence the speed of printing, accuracy of colour rendition and longevity. One of the other important factors to consider would be the cost of replacement ink or toner cartridges.

Printers can cost anywhere from $100 to $10,000. The average inkjet printer for home use will cost below $300. Some of the most common brands for printers are HP, Lexmark, Canon, Brother and Epson.

Some of the key factors to consider are output type, printing technology and printer type. Output types can be either colour or monochrome (black-and-white). Printing technologies include inkjet, laser, direct thermal / thermal transfer or other. There are many different printer types available these days such as all-in-one printers, workgroup printers, label printers, digital photo printers, personal printers, point of sale (POS) printers, large-format printers and card printers.

Other considerations would be connectivity technology such as USB 2.0, USB, parallel or wireless. Media types like plain paper, envelopes, labels and transparencies, platform support such as PC, Mac or Unix/Linux and resolution ranging from less than 600 dpi to more than 5760 dpi.