Printer buying guide

Which Printer Is Right For You?

The type of printer you purchase will depend on your budget and where you are using it. For an office environment, you may wish to spend a little more money to ensure your printed documents are smudge-free and look professional. However, if your requirements at home are less demanding, there are plenty of cheaper options that will be adequate for your needs.

Laser Printer

Uses static electricity to attract and hold toner to the page. More expensive than most printers, they nevertheless produce high-quality prints with no smudges. Perfect for an office environment. Laser printers are great at document printing. They won’t give you the vibrant colours of an inkjet printer, but they also use less ink, are cheaper to run and can handle sitting idle for longer.

Inkjet Printers

Popular for home use, inkjet printers squirt tiny dots of ink onto the page to produce the end result. Slower than laser printers, they are cheaper but still offer excellent quality. They are great for school projects with pictures, business flyers with logos and other things that require more detail.

Multifunction Printers

These devices combine various devices into one, such as a printer, a scanner, a photocopier and even a fax. These are more expensive, but are great if you want to save on space. Multifunction printers are ideal for digitising the family photo album, scanning receipts for expense reports and photocopying hand-drawn flyers for a lemonade stand.

Photo Printers

Increasingly popular since digital camera growth, photo printers often plug straight into cameras to offer instant prints. They are great to have at weddings or big parties, so guests can take photos and then instantly print them out for a memories wall or keepsake, like a photobooth.

“There is a lot to consider when buying a printer. Don’t just think about how you plan to use the device in the short-term, but how your family or business might need it in the long-term.” - Jason Tavoletti, The Good Guys Buyer - Tech

More Tips For Choosing A Printer

What You Need In Your Printer

Ink

Inkjet printers, unsurprisingly, need ink. How they get that ink depends on which model you choose. The more affordable ones, designed for less use, will use replaceable ink cartridges, with separate cartridges for black and colour (though beware that some printers use the more expensive coloured ink even when just printing black and white, so check the software and settings). Once you move up the line to printers with refillable tanks, the cost of buying the printer is a little higher, but the ongoing ink costs are much, much cheaper. It all depends on how much you print.

Toner

If you’ve got a laser printer, you’ll need toner instead of ink, which is more of a powder than a liquid. The toner comes in replaceable cartridges and you should make sure to always buy compatible cartridges from a reputable brand.

Printer Features To Look For

Printers can do so much these days. The question is what do you need them to do?

Scanner

Having a built-in scanner can be really useful if you need to scan things like receipts, family photos and drawings made by the kids. It’s certainly quicker and easier than trying to line up a document scanner phone app perfectly to get a clean scan.

Print speed

Page speed is something that will matter a lot to people who have to print in large volumes – like manuscripts, menus or flyers. The fancier the printer, the faster the print, but it’s not going to be a concern for people who just want to print the occasional single-page document.

Page resolution

Most printers have a draft function so you can print word documents at lower quality to save on time and ink, while photo printers and inkjets that specialise in detailed printing can produce high-resolution, high-quality images. If that’s important to you, make sure to check the specifications of the models you’re considering

Sheet capacity

If you print a lot and don’t want to spend much time reloading the machine, there are home printers that can hold entire reams of paper. But if you don’t print as much and space is limited, you might want to go for a smaller printer and just load it up when you need it.

Wi-Fi direct

Wi-Fi direct means you don’t have to have the printer connected to an external Wi-Fi network to still be able to print wirelessly. This isn’t a must-have if you have steady Wi-Fi at home, but it’s perfect if you need to take your printer with you to jobs or parties as part of a photobooth, because it creates its own Wi-Fi network that you can connect to. It’s also Wi-Fi without the internet, so if you don’t want your printer on the internet for whatever reason, the option is there.

Mobile printing

Not all computing happens on computers anymore. Some printers will let you print directly from a mobile phone or tablet using an app. This is great for mini mobile photo printers, and also for when you get an email with a document you need to print while you’re out and can have it ready for you when you get home.

Printer Glossary

We’ll break down all the tech talk and acronyms that you need to know. These days printers come packed with intuitive technology and extras designed to help you get the most out of your device, including:

Resolution

The resolution is the maximum number of dots per inch (expressed as dpi) that can be printed, with measurements going horizontally and vertically. The higher the resolution, the more detailed the final print results usually are.

Print Speed

Speed may be a factor if you intend to get a lot of use out of your printer, particularly in office environments. This is typically measured by the number of pages printed per minute, although other factors may affect the speed – such as how long it takes the printer to warm up

USB or Wireless

Being able to connect your printer to your computer is vital, with most models using a USB port. Alternatively, you can connect over a wireless network. You may also want to purchase a printer that has a memory card slot, so that you can print photos or documents directly from that.

Processor and Memory

Processor and memory considerations are only likely to be important if your printer is going to be dealing with large workloads, most commonly in the workplace. Opting for a more powerful processor and increased memory means your printer will be able to queue more documents and adequately handle tasks sent by numerous computers.

Paper Handling

An important consideration when wondering how to buy a printer is what kind of paper formats can it handle? You may need to print off large spreadsheets or envelopes, so make sure your device has A3 functionality and other formats to tackle these tasks.

Running costs

Ink and toner can be expensive. In fact, they will quickly overtake the cost of your printer. It is important to find a printer where replacement ink cartridges and toner can be found easily and at a reasonable price.