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Inkjet Overview

Inkjet printers are favored mostly by home users, photographers and the graphics industry. Although quite expensive to run, inkjets are unrivalled for photo realistic printing.

For day to day use it may be worth considering a laser printer as the quality for other types of document will at least be on a par but with much lower running costs however, the initial purchase price needs to be considered for the total cost of ownership.

Laser Overview

A laser (or LED) printer is a very versatile machine that is suitable for both home and office use. Text is always razor sharp and images are clean. Photo's can be a problem at the lower end of the price bracket although even the most expensive laser can not compete with a decent inkjet for photo quality printing.

Laser printers enjoy the lowest running costs although it may be worth considering an inkjet for light use.

Solid Ink Overview

Solid ink is a unique printing method from Xerox. It takes solid blocks of a wax-like material and melts it down before it's applied to a drum and then the paper. The result is vibrant and glossy on any paper type and is fantastic for point of sale material or anything else where colour matters.

Although photo's can look great, they can also look a little speckled on light shades and skin tones. A little more expensive to run than some of the larger lasers but far more eco friendly.

See our Resources Section for a more detailed look at technologies.

Print Speed

Pages per minute (ppm)

Manufacturers measure the print speed based on how fast the printer can print a simple document at the lowest quality. In reality print speeds are generally lower than stated because we tend to print more complex files and/or use a higher quality setting.

Laser printers are less affected by quality settings due to the printing process. It is inkjets that will suffer more when changing the quality level from draft to say, normal or best mode.

Quoted print speeds should be used a guideline only.

Connectivity

USB (Universal Serial Bus) is the most common type of cable for connecting your printer directly to a computer. The majority of PC's will have a USB port.

Parallel is a rather old type of cable and has much slower data speeds than USB which means that it can take longer for the printer to process the job, before printing starts. It is becoming less common for a printer or computer to have a parallel port.

Serial connections are very old and will not be used unless you have a specific requirement. If you don't know what a serial connection is then you don't need one!

Network Cards are used to connect the printer to a wired network which allows other users on the same network access to the printer at any time.

Firewire is primarily used for Apple Macintosh computers although Window's PC's can sometimes have this connection. As with Serial connections, if you don't know what Firewire is then you don't need it!

Wi-Fi is becoming the preferred method of transmitting data wirelessly. Your computer or laptop will need to be equipped with its own Wi-Fi module in order to connect to these printers.

Trays

Many actually have both of these types. We refer to a multi-purpose tray as the type that flips down from one of the sides. It is generally used for feeding specialist media into the printer and/or envelopes. However, some people will opt to use the MPT as a permanent input source although you are generally limited to 50 - 100 sheets at a time.

Multifunction Features

Scanner: Scan documents directly to your computer as you would with a standard scanner. Some models will include OCR (Optical Character Recognition) software which converts scanned text into an editable format.

Standalone copier: Photocopy feature that is not dependant on being connected to a computer.

Automatic Document Feeder (ADF): An easily accessible input tray that allows you to copy or fax multiple page documents.

Fax: Send and receive faxes directly to/from the printer without the need for a computer. A number pad will be located on the control panel. You will need to connect the machine to a phone line in most cases just as you would a standard fax machine.

Answer machine: Built-in telephone answering machine.

Telephone handset: Built-in telephone handset.

Photo Printing

Separate colour cartridges: Separate colour cartridges can save money on replacement inks compared to tri colour cartridges as you only replace the colour that has run out.

Direct camera printing: The ability to print directly from your digital camera without the need for a computer. This is achieved by either a memory card slot or PictBridge connection. You will need to check the specs of the printer to ensure that your preferred connection method is supported.

Borderless photo printing: In most cases this will be achieved by printing all the way up to the long edges of the photo paper and then removing a perforated tab on the short sides. Some inkjet printers can print right up to the edge without the need for removable tabs.

Preview monitor: An LCD display that lets you see the image before you print. A useful feature if you want to print directly from memory cards as it should avoid accidental printing of unwanted images.

Postscript

The data is transferred in precise mathematical detail and is far more reliable when trying to produce a true representation of what you have on your screen than that of a GDI (non-PostScript) printer.

Unlike GDI printers which use the computers processor, a PostScript printer uses its own on-board memory to process print jobs. The only downside is that you may need extra memory installed in the printer for printing more complex jobs.

PostScript rarely features on anything other than laser printers. If you are printing graphics/design work or using a Mac then PostScript is of the utmost importance.