What type printer should i buy

Some inkjets can also make borderless prints, most commonly on 4x6-inch paper. If you plan to do this often, look for a printer with a 4x6 or second paper tray, which makes it easier to feed paper this size. Learn how to choose a cheap all-in-one printer. If you print only text documents—and a lot of them—a laser printer makes the most sense. Laser printers produce sharp black-and-white text, and some do well with color type and graphics.

But laser printers generally are not well-suited for printing photos. Laser printers usually outperform inkjets in terms of speed, cranking out black-and-white text at a rate of nine to 25 pages per minute.

Another advantage: According to data from our member surveys, laser printers tend to be more reliable than inkjets. Black-and-white lasers generally cost about as much as midpriced inkjet models. Learn about the best laser printers of the year. All-in-One You can get a printer that also has scanning, copying, and sometimes faxing capabilities—often for roughly the same price.

They don't take up much more space, either. And purchasing an all-in-one printer can be less expensive than buying separate devices to perform various tasks.

Note that most all-in-one printers have fewer features than stand-alone scanners, copiers, and fax machines. For sophisticated jobs, for example, a separate scanner will have more options. And speaking of scanning, always look for a printer model with a flatbed design, as opposed to one that scans through the paper feed. This will allow you to copy not only documents but also book pages and photos with ease.

A few all-in-one printers also have built-in duplexers to automatically print on both sides of the page. Your printer can now be as connected as your other gadgets, communicating with devices across the room or across the globe. Some models allow you to print using a wireless connection or even send documents to your home printer from a remote computer.

Share without cables : Most home printers allow for wireless printing through WiFi, so you can print from a laptop or phone without having to plug in cumbersome cables. Printer ink may be one of the most expensive liquids you buy, especially when you consider that a lot of it never ends up on the page —many printers use up ink for routine maintenance.

To find out which models make the most of this precious commodity, check out the Maintenance Ink Use column of our printer ratings. In those ratings charts, Consumer Reports also combines the upfront price of a printer with the cost of supplying it with ink or toner to calculate the overall cost of ownership for two to five years.

To arrive at those numbers, we use the price of replacement cartridges, ink, or toner; data on how much consumers print from our member surveys; and measurements of ink consumption from our labs. Several computers and mobile devices can use the same printer, which can be placed in the most convenient location for you and your household.

See below for more information. WiFi Direct provides a wireless connection between a printer and device, even if no WiFi signal is present - perfect for homes and offices without a wireless network or in an office as a backup should the network go down.

View All WiFi and wireless direct printers. Look for Apple AirPrint as a highlighted feature within our range to ensure you can print from your favourite Apple device. View All Printers with Apple Airprint.

Google Cloud Print is included on all Android devices and lets you print wirelessly from your tablet or smartphone. View All Printers with Google Cloud. Near field communication NFC is a relatively new feature to printers.

Often included on tablets and smartphones, it allows two devices to connect simply by touching together, making syncing a printer with another NFC device effortless. Look for NFC as a highlighted feature on our range of wireless printers.

Email printing is a feature available on selected HP printers and provides wireless printing from any email capable device. Each printer has a unique, customisable email address and once connected to your home WiFi, prints any images or text documents it receives. Most manufacturers have their own version of email printing. DPI stands for dots per inch and is a basic measure of print quality. A printer with a higher DPI delivers clear, detailed pictures although other factors such as ink play a part in overall print quality.

View All Printers with standard quality. View All Printers with high quality. We highlight print rate on all of our printers. Measured in pages per minute PPM for text and images per minute IPM for photographs, you should consider print speed if you regularly print in large amounts.

View All Printers with fast printing. Monochrome printers exclusively print black and white documents. Monochrome laser printers feature higher print speeds over everyday inkjet printers.

View All Monochrome printers. The most commonly printed page size is A4 and the vast majority of our printers print in this format. Many printers also print smaller, so whether you want the familiar 6 x 4 developed-photo size or specialist envelope sizes, most accept a wide range of photo and document paper.

For larger prints, we stock a range of A3 printers that print in various sizes up to A3. Some are no bigger than A4 printers, making them ideal for small offices or homes where space is at a premium. View All A4 printers. View All A3 printers. Auto duplex is a handy feature that gives you the choice to automatically print on both sides of the paper, helping you look after the environment while saving money in the process.

View All Printers with double-sided printing. An automatic document feeder ADF allows you to scan or copy multiple documents simultaneously, without having to manually insert individual pages. They can be found on scanners and all-in-one printers and are usually located on top of the scanner or within the main paper tray. Many printers feature a memory card slot. This makes is possible to print directly from an SD or memory card without the need to connect to a PC. View All Printers with memory card slot.

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Below we've explained the key characteristics of the different types of printers to decide which will suit you best, whether you're looking for a simple printer to churn out black and white documents quickly, or want to print high-quality images.

We'll also highlight the types of printer that will help you keep printing costs down in the long run. Alternatively, take a shortcut straight to our expert pick of the best printers to suit a range of needs and budgets.

The more you spend, the more features you'll get from your printer. We assess their quality, speed and running costs, and go deep into their features and ease of use.

Each has its place and purpose. We help you narrow down your search so you find the right printer for you. Just need a decent printer that won't cost a fortune in ink? See all tested models in our full printer reviews. Inkjet printers are great all-rounders. However, inkjets are usually more expensive to run than laser printers, costing you more in ink per printed page than you would pay for laser toner.

Colour laser printers cost more to buy than inkjets, but printing costs are lower, which could save you money in the long run. Get a great inkjet printer with our round-up of the best inkjet printers.

Laser printers shine when it comes to printing a lot of black text, and while colour models are more expensive than colour inkjets, they also produce professional-looking business graphics. However, laser printers are usually bulkier and noisier than the equivalent inkjet printer and will take up more space on your desk. While they can produce good graphs and charts, colour laser printers aren't much good at printing photos. Stick to an inkjet if you're likely to print off your holiday snaps.

Choose a model from our round-up of the best laser printers. Tank printers do away with cartridges. Instead they have refillable tanks of ink, which you replenish with a special kit. As they're often inkjet models, you'll find colour tank printers, as well as some mono ones which just print in black and white.

They have little windows into the tank on the front of the printer, which you can easily monitor to see whether the ink is running low.

There are only a couple of tank laser printers: HP's Neverstop Laser range are the first laser models to use cartridge-free technology. Tank models tend to be more expensive to buy up front than a traditional inkjet model — but they'll make up for it with print-cost savings. Tank printers tend to be extremely economical to run and can save you hundreds over the course of a couple of years.

Find out which printers have the lowest running costs in our guide to the best cheap printers to buy and run. Most have wi-fi connectivity so that you can print from several PCs or laptops, not to mention tablets or smartphones. Some include a fax function, too. Some all-in-one printers have an automatic document feeder ADF on top, which is handy for scanning and copying multi-page reports.

See the best all in one printers, and other models, in our printer reviews. Or, get the lowdown on wireless printing in our wireless printing explained guide. Or perhaps you want an A3 specialist model with dedicated photo cartridges and high-resolution print heads for lab quality photo prints.