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| Hot PC Deals > Printer Buying
Guide |
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| Printer type |
| My first printer is an Epson dot-matrix printer. This type
of printer is not common in homes any more. Now three
technologies dominate the personal printer market:
inkjet, laser and LED (light-emitting diode). Inkjet
printers cost the least, print slower, but often produce
impressive color output. Laser and LED printers use a process
similar to that of a photo-copier, and they are capable of
producing crisp and fast printouts.
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| Output type |
| If you want to print a lot of monochrome pages, but a laser
or LED printer for its speed and low cost maintenance.
If you need affordable color output, then buy an inkjet
printer. Photo-quality inkjets generally produce the
best homemade color photos and they are slower than regular
inkjets. The initial investment in a inkjet printer
might be low, but the cost of the inkjet's color cartridge and
coated paper can add up quickly. Businesses that need
high volume, fast printouts should consider laser or LED
printers. As alternatives to inkjet, laser or LED
printers, there are special-purpose color printers which
employ technologies such as solid ink, dye sublimation,
thermal autochrome, thermal wax and others.
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| Resolution |
| Inkjet printers typically
claim output resolution of 1,200dpi to 2,400dpi, but the
sharpness isn't comparable to that of laser printers.
Laser printers have far more better control of how the ink
is impressed on paper. A personal laser printer produces
600 dots per inch (dpi) which is sufficient to produce a
crisp, monochrome output. Some expensive laser printers
can deliver 1,200dpi or even 2,400dpi.
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| Speed |
| Printer speed is measured in pagers per minute (ppm).
Generally speaking, the speed of laser printers are
pretty much closer to what manufacturers claimed. But
the speed of inkjet printers are not exactly what
manufacturers claim to be. It is usually much slower
especially when you print color graphics.
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| Installed memory |
| Personal printers require little memory. Inkjet
printers requires a small amount, just enough to hold the row
of dots being printed. On the other hand, laser and LED
printers are page printers. They must render an entire
page in memory before printing. Some workgroup printers used
on a local network may hold multiple pages, graphics, fonts
and more, so expect to have at least 32mb of memory out of the
box and should be expandable to 256mb or more.
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| Monthly duty cycle |
| This manufacturer specification primary applies to
small-office and workgroup printers, not personal printers.
It suggests the maximum number of pages a printer should
handle per month. To avoid breakdowns, buy a printer with a
monthly duty cycle approximately four times the number of
pages you think you might print each month.
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| Interface |
| Most of personal printers now come with an USB port, which
is a much faster interface than the old parallel port.
For a networked printer, you need an Ethernet port.
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| OS support |
| Obviously the more OS support the better. However, a
few printers lack Mac support entirely. You also want to make
sure the driver is fully compatible with the latest version of
Windows.
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| Warranty and support |
Printers typically come
with at least one year of warranty, at most two years.
Some manufacturers offer extended warranties at extra
cost. The repairs are expensive for all type of printers.
Unless it's a high end laser printer, most the time you
might as well buy a brand new one if the printer is out of
warranty. It's especially true for low end inkjets.
To save your money,
consider these printing tips:
- Here is a wonderful print utility to
save your ink and paper. You can do booklet printing,
double side printing and multi-pages on one sheet...etc.
Download the
trial
version here.
- New printers are cheap these days,
but the inks are not. Some ink replacements cost
more than the printer itself. To save you money,
you should consider buying
OEM, compatible or
remanufactured cartridges instead.
For examples,
PrintPal.com, Mr Ink Man
 and
4inkjets.com
are great places to get inexpensive inks.
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