Buying Tips
Selecting a printer for your home and workplace is not just going out to the store and picking up the cheapest one you can find. Neither is it just buying the most expensive, most full-featured industrial printer your budget allows. There is some more homework that needs to be done first:
Knowing your environment | Additional things to look out for when buying |
3 reasons to use original inks | Secure Printing | Conclusion
Knowing your environment
It is paramount to know your printing needs and buy a printer that is not an over or under-kill with regard to your usage requirements. Other than setting a budget, do ponder these few questions first.
What Do You Print?
This is the first question that a decision maker should ask him or herself. If you are printing purely text documents on a small scale, then a basic inkjet printer may be all that is required. But if high volume and impeccable text quality are needed, a laser printer may be a better choice. Conversely, if photo printing forms a huge part of your printing, then you may want to narrow your choices to printers that have better photo printing features, such as six or eight color inks, built-in media cards readers etc. Also, if you need to print on a special type of paper, make sure that the printers you have shortlisted support it too. You should pay attention to the paper handling capability of the printer tray(s) too.
How Much And How Fast Do You Print?
Speed is a nice thing to have in a printer, but it would be such a waste to buy the latest 25ppm (page per minute) printer if you are only going to use it once a day, or just for printing document drafts. If large volume and high-speed printing are necessary, then you can safely delete slower inkjet printers or even some low-end laser printers from your shopping list. Similarly, a laser printer may be more cost effective if you need a huge duty cycle of say 80,000 pages per month.
How Many People Are Using This Printer?
The number of personnel accessing the printer would directly determine the relevant specifications (such as connectivity) to look out for in the printer. A simple standalone with just USB connection would fit the bill of a single user; however, it may not have the networking interfaces, features and software for it to be shared among a large workgroup. Network interfaces, add-ons and certain management software often come as additional costs - therefore knowing how this printer is going to be deployed is essential.
What Is Your Existing Equipment?
All-in-ones (AIOs) are gaining popularity in the corporate environment (especially in SMEs); and for good reasons too. If you are going to discard your existing office printers, check if the three-year old scanner and four-year old copier need replacement as well. Most all-in-ones merge printing, scanning, copying and even faxing in one neat unit, which is a great space and cost saver. AIOs can come in the form of inkjets or lasers, further adding more flexibility and variety to choose from. Some of them can even double up as a dedicated photo printer with print quality that matches the photos printed in a photo-lab.
Do You Need To Buy A Printer In The First Place?
Unless the machine is suffering from unrecoverable damage or extreme wear-and-tear that prevents it to function at a satisfactory level, sometimes a wholesale printer change may not be the only solution. Many business printers nowadays (especially lasers) are modular in nature, which means specific features can be added on as and when you deem fit. If the 500-page paper tray found in your existing printer is not enough, check if it allows for another 500-page tray add-on. Similarly, if you already have a network printer, check with the manufacturer if you can upgrade it to an AIO or multifunction printer via modular add-ons.
