Beginner’s Guide to Buying a Colour Printer
//Beginner's Guide // Buyer's Guides // Computer Hardware
You can buy two basic kinds of printers: inkjet and laser. Inkjets are available as standard units and dedicated photo units (A photo inkjet gives you a better-quality photo print). Laserjets are divided into monochrome and colour–but there’s so little difference in price these days, there’s little reason not to get the colour.
There are also multifunction printers, in both inkjet and laser units. The multifunction unit, in addition to computer printing, can handle faxing, scanning and copying.
Your budget will largely determine whether you buy an inkjet or laser printer, as will the question of what you plan to use the printer for. Those who print mostly text without graphics will do best with a laser printer. They produce higher-quality text than an inkjet, and they do fine at printing grayscale graphics, including photos. They also print pages faster than inkjets.
However, for those who must have the ability to print crisp photos and graphs and the like, an inkjet printer is a must-have. Keep in mind, though, that an inkjet prints much slower than the laser printer.
And here’s a great idea if you can afford it: a colour laser printer! Although these were once priced so high as to be impractical for the average person, today, you can get some models for considerably less than £250–sometimes as low as £99. However, remember that the replacement costs for an ink cartridge can be quite expensive, so it’s worth looking into the replacement ink prices before buying a cheap printer, as it might cost more than those consumables for a slightly pricier printer.