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- Canon PIXMA IP3600
  Rated 4 out of 5
- from $58
- Available from 7 retailers
- from $58
  
  Connectivity technology: USB • Max Color Printing Speed: 26ppm
  - $89.92
  - $90.05
  - $79.95
  View all 7 offers
- Canon PIXMA IP 100
- from $214
- Available from 2 retailers
- from $214
  
  Connectivity technology: USB • Max Color Printing Speed: 20 ppm
  - PC Connection... $214.99
  - Provantage... $229.59
  View all 2 offers
- HP LaserJet P2055DN
  Rated 4.5 out of 5
- from $406
- Available from 2 retailers
- from $406
  
  Horizontal B&W printing resolution: 1200dpi
  - $509.99
  - $406.97
  View all 2 offers
- Epson R2880
  Rated 4 out of 5
- from $599
- Available from 4 retailers
- from $599
  
  Connectivity technology: USB 2.0 • Horizontal colour printing resolution: 5760dpi
  View all 4 offers
- Hp LaserJet CP5225N
  Rated 3 out of 5
- from $1,419
- Available from 4 retailers
- from $1,419
  
  Connectivity technology: Ethernet • Max Color Printing Speed: 20 ppm • Horizontal B&W printing resolution: 600dpi • Horizontal colour printing resolution: 600dpi
  View all 4 offers
- Dymo Letratag
- from $26
- Available from 10 retailers
- from $26
  - $39.94
  - $29.24
  - $37.43
  View all 12 offers
- Epson Stylus Pro 3880
  Rated 4.5 out of 5
- from $1,080
- Available from 10 retailers
- from $1,080
  
  Connectivity technology: USB 2.0, Ethernet 10/100Base-TX • Horizontal B&W printing resolution: 2880dpi • Horizontal colour printing resolution: 2880dpi
  View all 11 offers
- Canon Pixma iP2702
  Rated 4 out of 5
- from $28
- Available from 7 retailers
- from $28
  
  Connectivity technology: USB 2.0 • Max Color Printing Speed: 4.8 ppm • Horizontal B&W printing resolution: 600dpi • Horizontal colour printing resolution: 4800dpi
  View all 7 offers
- HP LaserJet P1102
  Rated 4 out of 5
- from $96
- Available from 14 retailers
- from $96
  
  Connectivity technology: USB 2.0 • Horizontal B&W printing resolution: 600dpi
  - $159.99
  - $159.99
  - $109.99
  View all 14 offers
- HP Color LaserJet CP2025
  Rated 3.5 out of 5
- from $412
- Available from 7 retailers
- from $412
  
  Connectivity technology: USB • Max Color Printing Speed: 20ppm • Horizontal B&W printing resolution: 600dpi • Horizontal colour printing resolution: 600dpi
  - $499.99
  - $597.95
  - $602.75
  View all 10 offers
- Brother HL2240D
  Rated 4 out of 5
- from $89
- Available from 8 retailers
- from $89
  
  Connectivity technology: Ethernet 10/100Base-TX • Max Color Printing Speed: 24 ppm
  - $129.99
  - $89.99
  - $140.34
  View all 9 offers
- Dymo LabelMANAGER 260P
- from $47
- Available from 8 retailers
- from $47
  - $59.99
  - $72.33
  - $59.96
  View all 8 offers
- Lexmark E260dn
  Rated 3.5 out of 5
- from $158
- Available from 13 retailers
- from $158
  
  Connectivity technology: Ethernet • Horizontal B&W printing resolution: 1200dpi
  - $187.32
  - $169.99
  - $163.79
  View all 20 offers
- Xerox Phaser 6280
  Rated 3.5 out of 5
- from $234
- Available from 9 retailers
- from $234
  
  Connectivity technology: Ethernet 10/100Base-TX • Max Color Printing Speed: 25ppm • Horizontal B&W printing resolution: 600dpi • Horizontal colour printing resolution: 600dpi
  - $487.01
  - $549.99
  - $322
  View all 17 offers
- Lexmark C543DN
  Rated 3.5 out of 5
- from $272
- Available from 13 retailers
- from $272
  
  Connectivity technology: Ethernet • Max Color Printing Speed: 13 ppm • Horizontal colour printing resolution: 1200dpi
  - $326.51
  - $287.98
  - $349.95
  View all 16 offers
- Brother QL 570
  Rated 4.5 out of 5
- from $76
- Available from 10 retailers
- from $76
  - $262.88
  - $99.99
  - $222.98
  View all 14 offers
- Lexmark 2581
- from $493
- Available from 7 retailers
- from $493
  
  Connectivity technology: Parallel, USB 2.0 • Horizontal colour printing resolution: 240dpi
  View all 9 offers
- Samsung CLP 325
  Rated 4 out of 5
- from $165
- Available from 7 retailers
- from $165
  
  Connectivity technology: Wireless IEEE-802.11b, Wireless IEEE-802.11g • Max Color Printing Speed: 4 ppm • Horizontal B&W printing resolution: 1200dpi • Horizontal colour printing resolution: 1200dpi
  - $165.51
  - $182.98
  - $165.51
  View all 7 offers
- Dell 3130cn
  Rated 3 out of 5
- from $259
- Available from 2 retailers
- from $259
  
  Connectivity technology: USB 2.0, Ethernet 10/100Base-TX • Horizontal colour printing resolution: 600dpi
  - Computers4SURE $386.61
  - Provantage... $259.59
  View all 2 offers
- Hp Color Laser Jet CP1515N
- from $350
- Available from 1 retailers
- from $350
  
  Connectivity technology: Ethernet 10/100Base-TX, USB
  - $350
  View all 1 offers
- HP LaserJet P3015
  Rated 4 out of 5
- from $537
- Available from 18 retailers
- from $537
  
  Connectivity technology: Ethernet 10/100Base-TX • Horizontal B&W printing resolution: 1200dpi
  - $599.98
  - $699.99
  - $695.39
  View all 36 offers
- Lexmark C544dn
  Rated 3.5 out of 5
- from $325
- Available from 14 retailers
- from $325
  
  Connectivity technology: Ethernet • Max Color Printing Speed: 23 ppm • Horizontal B&W printing resolution: 1200dpi • Horizontal colour printing resolution: 1200dpi
  - $376.19
  - $349.99
  - $325.63
  View all 21 offers
- Dymo LabelMANAGER 210 D
- from $36
- Available from 10 retailers
- from $36
  - $59.94
  - $36.98
  - $64.20
  View all 11 offers
- Lexmark C540N
  Rated 3 out of 5
- from $213
- Available from 11 retailers
- from $213
  
  Connectivity technology: Ethernet • Max Color Printing Speed: 20 ppm • Horizontal B&W printing resolution: 1200dpi • Horizontal colour printing resolution: 1200dpi
  - $249.99
  - $249.99
  - $213
  View all 11 offers

Printers Buying Guide

Introduction to Printers

A printer is an electromechanical device that delivers text or graphics in electronic documents on physical print media like paper or transparencies. Electronic circuits control the mechanical parts of the printer and they’re collectively known as printer electronics. They perfectly guide the printer to achieve the desired results.

With this basic framework in place, printers take various forms serving different purposes in a wide range of fields. So, if you’re planning to get one, you need to get some basic facts in place to make a suitable purchase. Our printers buying guide will give you a lot of information regarding the types, features, and popular brands of printers to make your selection process a little easy.

More often than not the printer is linked to a PC via an interface through which data and commands are exchanged. The printer sends its status to the PC, while the PC sends the commands and the data to be processed. Some circuits of the printer electronics help in the decoding of the commands, generating control signals, and activating the print mechanism to carry out the printing process. To get into more specific things, it is enabled by the mechanical assemblies, including print head assembly, print carriage motor, ribbon assembly, paper movement assembly, and sensor assemblies.

In the field of computing, printers may be used as local peripherals that are connected to a computer via a printer cable, like a USB cable. Then there are also network printers, which serve the purpose of a network of computers and are based on both the wired and the wireless connectivity technology. Both these types of printers come with built-in network interfaces appropriate to their kinds and help produce hardcopy documents for a group of users. But wired printers are more the norm in a small location, while wireless or Wi-Fi printers are good for a wider area.

Technology, as in case of other gadgets, has brought about quite a lot of improvements and upgrades to printers. Now, you even have the facility of directly interfacing printers to memory cards, digital cameras, and scanners, thereby eliminating the need for a computer. With the advent of all-in-one printers, you’ve a single machine that supports the functions of several others, such as the photocopier, scanner, fax, and even telephone. In addition, there are also desktop printers that perform these non-printing functions of copying and scanning and they are called multi-function printers or MFPs.

Modern Printing Technology

The modern printing technology has come a long way since the old times. There are many printing techniques that are suitable to different applications. We’ve explained them below in a simple way in this section of our printers buying guide to help you understand and choose the right printer that will serve your purpose:

- Flexography: It is the most widely used printing technique and is also known as surface printing. It is used to print on packaging materials that include labels, tapes, bags, boxes, banners, and more. With the use of a flexible relief plate, this technique is able to print on almost any kind of substrate including plastic, metallic films, cellophane, and paper. It definitely outperforms lithographic printing, because it allows the use of a wide range of inks to print on different materials.

- Relief Print: It belongs to the family of traditional printing technique and involves an initial process of the creation of an image out of a flat surface that will ultimately be printed. The image thus created has protruding surface faces corresponding to the areas that are to be printed. Those areas that are to be left blank are recessed or removed and therefore do not receive ink. This image is brought in contact with the paper for printing. This method doesn’t require a printing-press as the paper’s back can be rubbed or pressed by hand with a simple tool.

- Rotogravure: Best suited for printing magazines and packaging, it makes use of rotary printing press and engraving the image on to a copper cylinder. It is very fast, and can help you print anything from narrow labels to 12-feet-wide rolls of vinyl flooring.

- Inkjet: This printing technique is quite popular for desktop printing and is therefore incorporated in inkjet printers. The process involves propelling of tiny droplets of liquid ink onto the paper. It can prove helpful to print a small number of books or packaging materials.

- Laser Printing: This is the technique is used in laser printers that find application mostly at business and large organizations. It is capable of delivering high-quality prints that are demanded for transactional processes like printing bills, bank documents, and other such articles. The process involves a laser beam that is directly scanned across the printer’s photoreceptor to produce the image of the text or graphic that is to be printed.

- Dye Transfer: It is a continuous-tone color photographic printing process that creates three matrices for each color. The dye is absorbed by the matrices in proportion to the density of the relief. The dyed film is then brought in physical contact with a mordanted dye receiver paper to get a color print. It offers the largest color gamut and tonal scale amongst all of the other printing processes.

- Pad Printing: This printing technique involves the transfer of a 2-D image onto a 3-D object. Also called Tampo Printing, this technique lets you apply a flat image on a curved surface. You can use this process for decorating various products in different fields, such as medical, automotive, promotional, apparel, and electronics or for depositing materials like conductive inks, adhesives, dyes, and lubricants that may be used by other processes.

Printer Types Explained

Our printers buying guide lists out the various types of printers in this section and explains their purposes for you to make the right decision. You can buy the printer that suits your needs the best.

Inkjet or Bubble-jet Printers: They’re also known as deskjet/desktop printers and are attached to computers for printing out hard copies of electronic documents. The printing process involves directing liquid or molten ink droplets on to a paper in a particular pattern depending on what is to be printed. These printers are capable of handling variable types and sizes of printing materials. At low cost printing per page, inkjet printers can produce high-quality prints, both in monochrome as well as color.

Laser Printers: With the help of a laser beam, an image of the page to be printed is projected onto a rotating drum that is electrically charged. The areas of drum that are exposed to light, lose their charge, and the charged area pick up ink particles electrostatically. This ink is then transferred onto a print media with the help of heat and pressure. Laser printers are quite fast and their cartridges also last a long time. For color printing, they use a combination of four different toner colors.

LED/LCD Printers: They work on the same basic principle of image projection as laser printers, and hence they may be thought to fall under the category of electro photographic printers. But instead of a laser beam, they use a light source for image projection onto the drum. Light emitting diodes and liquid crystals are the light source for LED and LCD printers respectively.

Impact Printers: They’re also known as dot-matrix printers and they use a set of closely spaced pins and a ribbon for impact printing onto a sheet. The more the number of pins, the better the quality you can expect, and their speed is calculated in characters per second, which is variable between a range of 50 and 500 CPS. They can help you handle purchase orders, shipping forms, printing invoices, labels, and other multi-part forms quite easily.

Solid Ink Printers: They use a wax ink stick, which is liquefied for use by a transfer drum. With the help of a cold-fusion process the ink is transferred onto a paper for great results both in terms of better color consistency and non-variability due to other factors. They’ve fewer components within themselves, therefore the chances of their going out of order are also much less.

Dye Sublimation Printers: They’re ideal for printing graphic arts and for other photographic applications, especially on hard surfaces like license plates and mugs. They use heat to turn the ink from the solid state to the gaseous form, and use temperature variation to control the application at any point.

Portable Printers: As the name suggests, these printers can be easily carried to different locations as per the needs. They’re powered by batteries rather than a computer, which is the usual case. Thermal printers, thermal transfer printers, and ink-jet printers are the different types of portable printer available in the market.

Plotters: Also known as designjets, these large-scale printers are ideal for technical printings that may include engineering drawings, architectural blueprints, and other such images. Their hallmark is their capability of accurate reproduction of line drawings. There’re two types of plotters in use, namely flatbed plotters and drum plotters. The former type is more silent and involves the printer pens moving on a stationary paper to get the desired results. In the latter type, in contrast, the paper rolls onto a drum and the drum plotters do the job producing a lot of noise. However drum plotters, also called upright plotters, are more compact.

Digital Photo Printers: They can help you print photo quality images. These photo printers have an expanded color gamut with extra ink colors and also high-resolution print heads for improved image quality.

Network Printers: They’re the best bet for networked computers as they offer printing capabilities to all the users with a single printer and help save both space and money.

Wireless Printers: As they make use of the wireless network, you can print from any location within a large area having this facility, be it your office or home. In addition to space and money, they also save you the mess of unsightly cords running around the area.

Multifunction Printers: Besides printing, they combine the functions of other gadgets, like PC faxing, color scanning, and telephone as well. They’re also known as all-in-one printers.

POS Receipt and Banking Printers: They’re a category of specialized printers widely used in banks and departmental stores to increase the productivity and lower costs.

Label Printers: They can help you print a wide range of labels in different sizes and are predominantly used in supermarkets for printing barcodes and normal texts.

3D Printers: Ideal for engineers and educationists, these printers can create physical models with instructions from computer aided design systems. These amazing gadgets are quite fast and at the same time cheap and effective.

How to Choose a Printer

Once you’ve all the information regarding the working and categorization of printers, you’d have zeroed in on a type of printer that will best serve your purpose. Now, let us look at the points and other important factors you need to keep in mind while you’re out shopping for a printer.

- Type of Printer: Based on the application, you may either opt for a black and white or a color printer. “Home use or office use?” This question helps you choose the right printer. If you need the scanning, faxing, copying, and calling functions as well, you may do well to get an all-in-one printer.

- Resolution: Resolution determines the quality of the output, and it is usually measured in terms of the number of dots a printer can print in a square inch of area. Depending on your quality requirement, you may go for a low, medium, or high-resolution printer.

- Operating Costs: They include the cost of replacement ink cartridges and toner. Sometimes, the operating costs might exceed the original cost of the printer within a year. So, ensure you do your research well to find an efficient printer that consumes less ink.

- Speed: The speed of a printer is vital, especially where high volumes are involved. It is calculated as the number of pages the printer can print in a minute. When choosing an office printer, make sure you consider this factor is on the higher side. Laser printers are relatively faster as well as deliver great quality.

- Compatibility: Computer printers are the most widely used printers both at the workplace and in home environments. It is very essential that the printer is compatible with the system. So, if you are getting a home printer or an office printer, check for the compatibility.

- Media Size: Size of the printout is also an important factor to be considered. There are printers that can print variable-sized documents. The standard size of a paper used for printing is 8.5 by 11. If you need to print envelops or tabloid-sized documents then choose your printer accordingly.

The aforementioned points cover most of the factors you need to pay attention to in the printer of your choice, so as to expect your printer to perform to your expectations.

Popular Brands

There are many popular brands in the market that offer high-quality printers. Our printers buying guide briefly lists out some of them.

Canon Printers: Canon is one of the most popular brands in the market that produce top-quality printers. Well-known for excellent print performance and advanced technologies, Canon printers are perfect for home as well as office use. Ranging from single function color and single function monochrome to all-in-one color and all-in-one monochrome, you can satisfy almost all your printing needs with Canon printers.

Epson Printers: Epson is a well-known manufacturer of input and output imaging devices, including inkjet printers, dot matrix printers, lasers, and scanners. Epson printers meet the needs of both home and office users.

HP: When it comes to technology, HP is one of the world’s popular brands. HP printers cater to almost everyone’s needs from individual users to business professionals. Color printers, multifunction printers, photo printers, large-format printers, you name and HP has them all!

Lexmark Printers: Lexmark caters to the needs of businesses of all sizes. Their wide range of products includes printing and imaging products, software, solutions, and services. Copying, faxing, or scanning, Lexmark Printers and MultiFunctions offer you the best performance you deserve and desire.

Panasonic Printers: Are you looking for highly reliable and cost-effective multi-functional units? Panasonic printers are the ideal choice. Panasonic is known to offer the industry’s fastest flatbed production scanner. This brand integrates various functions like scanning, printing, copying, faxing and document management seamlessly. Get Panasonic printers and they’ll make your ideal business partners

Samsung Printers: For business and home printing needs, you can rely on Samsung. Without comprising on quality, speed, accuracy, and performance, Samsung offers industry’s best printers. This brand offers you a huge variety of color laser printers, mono laser printers, color laser MFPs, mono laser MFPs, and inkjet fax machines to choose from.

In this printers buying guide, we’ve tried and covered all the information you may require to choose the ideal printer for your requirements. Hope it’ll prove useful to you in your search for a workhorse.

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