Before deciding what type of printer to buy,
it’s best to think about what you’re going to use it for. Do you intend
to print your own digital photos, or will you be printing mostly black
and white letters?
Inkjet vs laser printers
Inkjet printers are much more popular than lasers with home users,
and for good reason. Even a £60 inkjet will have a fair stab at
photographs, given the right paper, and will do an good job on text and
other non-photo work. They are more flexible than lasers, enabling you
to print on transparencies, banners or iron-on T-shirt transfers.
However, if you are interested only in printing black and white text,
such as letters, reports and so on, you should pick a black and white
laser because they are faster, cheaper to run and produce clearer text.
Colour laser printers have traditionally been expensive, but are also
coming down in price and can now be had for around £500. They are not
very good for printing photos but other types of more basic colour
printing, such as business graphics, can come out very well. If you
need to print a lot of pages quickly and photo quality isn’t a big
issue then a colour laser may be worth considering, but for most people
a colour inkjet will cover all the bases.
Our tests
The speed and quality of printing are the most important when deciding on
a printer. We give the printers we test a rating for both speed and quality
when printing text and colour graphics.
Costs
Printing with an inkjet can be pricey: an A4 page of high-quality colour photographs costs around 40p to
80p, depending on the printer, so costs can soon add up. We calculate the
cost of printing black and white only pages and colour pages, taking into
account the cost of ink, but not paper.
Noise
Inkjet printers vary from very quiet to quite intrusive – our
ratings show which models to avoid if noise is an issue for you. While
in operation, laser printers are noisier than inkjets.
Convenience features
We also rate printers for ease of use and versatility: how easy they
are the printers to set up, how well they handle paper feeding and
whether you can print from a digital camera’s memory card. Also, we
consider whether you can print on things other than A4 paper such as
T-shirt transfers or envelopes.
Print quality and speed are the real issues when it comes to comparing printers.
But there are a few other features to consider, too.
Print quality
We test print quality with a mix of technically demanding test sheets and
real-life documents and photographs. These are designed to find out how well the printers:
• print black text quickly on to plain paper
• print colour graphics, such as graphs and charts, and text on to specialised
paper
• print high-quality photographs on to glossy paper.
On the text print-outs, we look at the clarity of the letters.
Printers with low or average marks on this test still produce
readable output but the characters are slightly furry around the edges.
You wouldn’t want to use them for business letters, for example. The
best printers produce sharper letters, though only laser printers score
full marks.
On the colour graphics and photograph print-outs, we look at the realism
of colour and the level of detail captured.
For example, we look at whether large areas of the same colour have been printed consistently. To judge the level
of detail, we examine particular parts of the print-out, such as the weave
on a cotton shirt. Inkjets do much better than lasers at printing photographs.
Speed
If you want high-speed printing, go for a laser printer.
• Laser printers produce five pages of black and white text in about 30 seconds.
• The fastest inkjets take about 40 seconds.
• The slowest inkjets take about two minutes and 40 seconds.
If you want to print photographs, choose carefully because there are big differences in print times.
• Laser printers produce A4 photographs in about 45 seconds (though quality
is poor compared with inkjets).
• The fastest inkjets take about two minutes.
• The slowest printers take about 30 minutes (yes, 30!).
Compatability
Check that the printer you want to buy is going to work with your computer.
Some models won't work with early versions of Windows, such as Windows 95.
And some – notably ones from Lexmark and Dell – won’t work with Macs.
Another consideration is that some printers will plug into only USB sockets,
which old PCs don’t have. If you don’t have a USB socket on your computer, buy a printer that plus into a parallel
socket.
Cable-free printing
Some printers have Bluetooth technology built-in. This allows you to connect them to a computer without
using a cable.
You can also buy Bluetooth adapters that plug into some non-Bluetooth printers
for around £100 (though these aren’t always very easy to use).
However, you will need a Bluetooth adapter if your computer doesn't have Bluetooth built-in.
Bluetooth adapters are available for around £30.
The nice thing about Bluetooth is that you don’t have to line up the printer with the computer, as you did with old infrared
connections. In fact, it doesn't even have to be in the same room, as long as the
printer and computer are within ten metres of each other.
HP recently announced the first printer with WiFi, the Deskjet 5850
(£200). WiFi is a similar proposition to Bluetooth, but can be used
over larger distances. It’s also more common than Bluetooth in
computers – in particular, a lot of new laptops have WiFi built-in.
If your computer doesn’t have WiFi, you can buy an adapter for around £50.
A3 prints
Some printers can handle A3 paper (twice the size of a normal A4
letter). If you’ve got a good enough digital camera or scanner, you can
knock out some impressively large photographs.
Direct printing
Models with direct printing allow you to print from a digital camera's memory card without using a computer.
These printers have a built-in control panel and small screen for choosing
options and controlling the output. Different printers allow different levels
of control – for example, some will let you crop the picture, others won’t.
Direct printing is quicker and more convenient than using a computer and
gives perfectly good prints. However, you do have less control over the finished
print. For example, even if a direct printer allows you to make quite subtle
adjustments to the colour balance, you won’t be able to see the effect of the change accurately on the small screen.
Some printers also allow you connect your digital camera directly to the
printer. Canon, for example, is pretty keen on building this into some of
its printers. There is a new standard, PictBridge, which should allow the
connection of printers and cameras regardless of brand. If you want to try this, look for printers and cameras
with the PictBridge logo.
Size
Models which print on to A3 paper or offer direct printing from memory cards
are likely to be relatively large.
What’s more, the dimensions given by manufacturers are usually with
all paper trays folded in, so they won’t tell you how much space the
printer will take up when it’s running.
If you want to know how much space the printer will really take up, check out our measurements.
There are big differences between printers –
and not just in the quality of the prints they churn out. Some produce
excellent photographs in a couple of minutes, while others chug along
at a snail’s pace. Some cost a fortune in ink, while others are
positively frugal.
And that’s not to mention the differences in build quality, the amount of noise they
make, and the number of features. The features determine how versatile the
printer is – for example, whether in can print on envelopes.
We weigh up all of these factors to name our Best Buy inkjet and laser printers.
Inkjets
If
you want the absolute best model for printing colour photos, check out
the Epson R800, £288 from Jessops or £250 from Amazon. It takes eight
cartridges of ink, including a clear ‘gloss’ cartridge, and a full set
will cost nearly £90, which isn’t cheap. We estimate that it will use
£333 in ink over three years (based on printing one page of black and
white text, two colour documents and one photo every week). That’s
twice as much as the most frugal models we looked at.
The
Canon i990 is the new top dog taking over from the i965 (still
available, see below) in being the best all-rounder. It costs £288 from
Jessops or £260 from Digital First. It has a slight weakness with black
and white text, printing with average quality and slow speed. However,
for colour graphics and photographs it’s a winner, delivering nice
looking prints quickly and for a reasonable sum. It prints an A4 image
in around two minutes – some other printers take more than 12 minutes.
The
Canon i965 is a cheaper alternative to the i990, it doesn’t have quite
the same abilities, being slightly worse in terms of colour graphics
and photo quality but can be picked up for just £200 online from
Digital First or £230 from Jessops.
If
you want to spend less, with just a little loss of print quality, pick
the Canon i560 – £99 from branches of Jessops or £94 from Dabs. Its
high-quality photos are slightly less impressive than those from the
i965, but it knocks out plain text more quickly. It’s cheaper to run
that the other printers we’ve tested – we reckon it’ll use about
£110-worth of ink over three years (based on printing one page of black
and white text, two colour documents and one photo every week).
Sitting
just below the Canon i560 in the Canon range the i455 did well in all
our tests and economical to run. However, at £70 from Jessops or £60
from Amazon, it’s probably worth saving a few bob and getting the i250
(below), or spending a bit more to secure an i560 (above).
Completing
the clean sweep for Canon is the i250, the best budget choice. Just £50
from Argos and £40 from Ebuyer gets you a printer that produces
surprisingly good prints, if a little slowly. Photo quality isn’t as
good as the other Best Buys, but it still outdoes other more expensive
printers.
There are other good printers priced at around £50 but they’re all
more expensive to run that the Canon, which costs around £220 in ink
over three years. The HP Deskjet 3550, for example, is a good printer,
but costs closer to £280 in ink over three years.
Colour lasers
Lasers print black text more clearly than inkjets, but cope less well with
photo printing. However, they’re excellent at printing colour graphics, such as charts and tables.
So, if you don’t want to print photos, but do want to quickly produce large numbers of colour
documents, go for a colour laser printer.
All
of the models we’ve tested did similarly well, but the HP 2500L – £509
from Staples stores or its website – just inches into the lead. Its
photo print quality is the best of all the lasers and it’s marginally
the cheapest to run, costing an estimated £86 over three years.
The
Epson AcuLaser C900, £299 from PC World, or £295 from Comet has same
test results as the HP 2500L for both quality and speed in black and
white, colour and photo printing. It costs around £94 to run over three
years, just £8 more than the HP.
If
you want great colour graphics, the Minolta QMS Magicolor 2300 is your
best bet. There is a trade-off here, though – it’s the best laser for
colour graphics but it’s also among the worst for photos. We estimate
it would cost £90 to run over three years. It’s £630 in PC World or
£320 from Simply.
Black and White Laser
If
colour printing doesn’t interest you, a black and white laser printer
such as HP’s Laserjet 1010, £130 from PC World or £124 from Amazon is
just the thing. It’ll print black and white text with greater clarity
and speed than any inkjet and is cheaper to run. But, obviously, you
can’t use it for colour photos. Why not pair it up with an inexpensive
inkjet to cover all the bases?
Should I get an inkjet or laser printer?
Which type you choose depends on what sort of work you plan to do.
If you just want an general purpose printer that will make a good job
of all tasks, then an inkjet is the best choice. If you are only doing
black and white work then a monochrome laser is the best bet. If you
need to print lots of colour documents quickly and aren’t that worried
about the quality of photo output then you should look into getting a
colour laser
Can I save money using third party cartridges or paper ?
Yes, you can save money using third party cartridges and paper, but
the quality can vary. Some are as good as the printer manufacturers’
brands, but not all, so we suggest trying some out and seeing what you
think of the results.
Should I get a dedicated photo printer?
In our tests the specialist inkjet photo printers were no better at producing
photos than some of the ordinary inkjets. In our most recent test, the Canon
i965, which is not a specialist photo printer, produced good quality photo prints. It produced good quality black and white,
and colour, pages, too.
How do inkjet printers’ photo output compare with conventionally developed photos?
Prints from inkets compared well with those online and high-street
developers in a recent study by our sister publication Computing Which?
It used a previous Best Buy, the Canon i950, and compared prints from
the i950 with those from online and high-street developers. Prints were
sharp and colours realistic, but sometimes less vibrant than the best
commercial results, the magazine found.
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