Which printer should you buy?

Choosing a printer a few years ago was generally easy, as printers printed in black and were relatively cheap dot matrix printers or more expensive laser printers. Inkjets are now part of the printer range and together with the wide range of features and models within all three printer types, it is much harder to work out which printer to buy.

Inkjet printers have one or more replaceable ink cartridges that store the colour and/or black ink. The ink is sprayed onto the paper by tiny nozzles.

Inkjets can produce high-quality documents, including text, graphics, and photographs in colour or black and white. If you do not do much colour printing, then it is best to buy a printer that has a separate black ink cartridge as they are cheaper to replace than colour cartridges.

Running costs can be reduced by printing in black and using ‘draft mode’ as often as possible.

Inkjets are the most popular printers for home use because of their relatively low cost. You can buy one for as little as $100. If you do a reasonable amount of printing, then make sure you check out the cost of replacing cartridges as they vary enormously in price.

Some cheaper printers can take minutes to produce a page full of graphics.

Laser printers are generally more expensive to purchase than inkjets, however, they are ideal if you do lots of printing as they are faster and have cheaper running costs.

They use a toner cartridge, drum and heater (similar to an office copier) to place the ink on the paper. The toner cartridges are rather expensive, but they last much longer than an ink cartridge.

Laser printers have come down in price in the past few months and start at around $250 for monochrome (black) printing and start at around $650 for a colour laser. The price goes up for extra features such as high resolution, fast printing, double sided printing and large capacity paper trays.

Colour printing is much slower than printing in black.

Dot matrix printers use old-fashioned ribbons and print heads to place the ink onto the paper. These printers now tend to be only used in offices for printing on continuous forms, such as invoices.

The cost of dot matrix printers is somewhere between inkjets and lasers. However, the ribbons are fairly inexpensive but they tend to last a long time.

These printers have come onto the market in the past few years and are a good cost-effective solution for home offices and small businesses. MFPs can print, scan, copy and fax and they are available in both inkjet and laser. Inkjet MFPs start at about $250 and lasers from $400. It is worth noting that not all multi-function printers perform all these functions.

Want to know more?

Come in and see Andrew or Bruce at Dingley Computers, shop 9, PethyBridge Close, Dingley Village (next to Post Office). If you can’t get to the shop, please call us on (03) 9558 2456 or e-mail: manager@dingley.net.