Choosing the right printer

Printers vary enormously in price from £50 for a simple piece of equipment designed to do a few fairly basic jobs at home- school projects, printing maps and directions or recipes from the internet, and maybe a little light photo printing now and again, to massive industrial models worth thousands or tens of thousands. When choosing one for your home or the office, here are a few things to consider:

Print speed is not really important for home use, but it is key in the office. Many larger businesses have a super-fast printer that only takes black ink cartridges to use for most text printing jobs, and a slower colour one for the really high quality work. This approach is a good way to save money on replacement ink cartridges too.

Regardless of speed, modern laser and high-end inkjet printers are far more expensive to run. The ink cartridges may be a long way from cheap, and indeed some premium printers that look well priced are not such a bargain when you factor in the cost of the ink. Using compatible ink cartridges can bring that cost way back down, but it is always worth considering how cheaply you can source replacement ink cartridges for any printer you might think of buying. Remember to take into account the number of pages you get per cartridge too.

Print quality is usually measured in DPI or Dots Per Inch. Anything over 600 or so will print photos at a decent quality. 300 is about what most daily newspapers use, and a 1200 DPI printer will produce outstanding results. These days a high DPI doesn’t necessarily mean a high price, but do keep the ink cartridge cost in mind.

For the office, look for a printer that will do double sided work. That will save paper and therefore both trees and money on draft print jobs. Some modern printers can even staple copies together or fold letters, but you will pay more for features like that.