There are many different printers on the market today, finding the right one for you can be very difficult and overwhelming for the average user. Let’s explore the different types of printers available and find out which one best suits your needs and more importantly, budget.

Types of printers

Printers can be sorted into two main categories, laser and inkjet. Each of these can be further split into colour or black and white. Whether you need a colour printer or not depends on if you will be printing pictures or need colour in your documents. If you don’t need colour at all, then getting a black and white printer will save you buying expensive colour ink cartridges.

If you really do need colour, then we suggest looking at inkjet printers with separate ink cartridges so you don’t need to replace half used cartridges. Most printers on the market are like this nowadays. Colour laser printers are still a little too costly for the average user at this time.

Cartridges

When buying a printer, look at how much replacement cartridges cost and factor this in the cost of the printer. Most printer manufacturers make their money on selling cartridges rather than on the printer themselves.

Also beware of buying non manufacturers cartridges, or refills, as they can damage the printers or end up using more ink because of the need to clean the heads more often. The initial savings usually don’t add up to a total savings in the end.

Use

How much do you think you will use the printer – are you going to print a small amount, or will it be a high volume printer, printing many pages each day? How often you are going to use it will also affect whether you should buy and inkjet or a laser printer, and how much you are going to spend.

The more you use it, the more you should think about buying a laser printer, and increasing your budget.

What quality do I want?

When thinking about the quality of print you want, you need to think about a few different things:

An inkjet printer operates by spraying ink onto a page. A Laser printer works a lot like a photocopier – having toner burned onto the page. The benefits of a laser printer is that it usually looks more professional, and consumerables are cheaper, but the printer itself can often be more expensive, and usually affordable only in black and white. An inkjet printer is economic to purchase, but consumerables can be expensive (as they are used quickly), when the paper gets wet, the ink runs, and may not be ideal for large volume printing.

What is my Budget?

The final question to ask is deciding what is your budget to buy a printer. As you increase in price, you will find better quality printing, with consumerables often less expensive.