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Printer type |
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Three technologies dominate personal printers: inkjet, laser, and to a lesser extent, LED (light-emitting diode). Using replaceable cartridges that spray fine droplets of ink, personal inkjet printers cost the least, print slowly, and often produce impressive color output. Laser and LED printers use a process similar to that of a photocopier: a light-sensitive drum rolls charged black toner particles onto paper, thus producing crisp, fast printouts. Almost all workgroup models employ laser or LED technology due to higher print speeds and easier maintenance. |
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| Output type |
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Want to print lots of monochrome pages? Buy a laser or LED printer for its speed and low cost of consumables. Need affordable color? Get an inkjet printer. Photo-quality inkjets generally produce the best homemade color photos, but be forewarned: They usually print slower than your average inkjets (which are slow to begin with). Don't buy an inkjet just to save money, though; the price up front will be lower than that of a laser, but the cost of an inkjet's color cartridges and coated paper add up quickly. Businesses that need quick color output in high volume tend to choose color lasers or LEDs, which are reasonably fast and quite expensive. Graphics pros should also explore special-purpose color printers, which employ such alternative technologies as solid ink, dye sublimation, thermal autochrome, thermal wax, and more. |
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| Maximum resolution |
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Personal laser printers produce 600 dots per inch (dpi)--sufficient resolution to create crisp, monochrome output. Some expensive workgroup lasers deliver 1,200dpi or even 2,400dpi. Inkjet printers typically claim output resolutions of 1,200dpi or 2,400dpi, but the sharpness isn't comparable to that of lasers because inkjet print heads lay down tiny splotches of liquid ink line by line, which is a far less precise process. Generally, you should ignore inkjet dpi claims and compare actual printouts (or the image-quality results in our reviews) when possible. |
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| Installed memory |
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Personal printers typically need little memory. Inkjets require a tiny amount--just enough to hold the row of dots being printed and maybe a little more. Laser and LED printers are page printers, which means that they must render an entire page in memory before printing. However some personal models are host-based printers and cut costs by using the processing power and memory of your PC to manage print jobs. Top-of-the-line workgroup printers that plug directly into a local network may hold multiple pages, letterhead graphics, forms, special fonts, and more, so expect between 32MB and 128MB of memory out of the box (expandable to 256MB or 384MB). |
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| Maximum speed |
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Measured in pages per minute (ppm), this specification is always exaggerated. Laser printers generally print text pages only slightly slower than the manufacturers' claims. But the claims for inkjets are typically at low-quality settings using very simple text pages--in other words, a speed you'll never see in real life. Reality check: Printing a single 8x10 color photo on an inkjet may take anywhere from 2 to 15 minutes. |
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| Monthly duty cycle |
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This manufacturer specification suggests the maximum number of pages a printer should handle per month. This is primarily a concern for small-office and workgroup printers, not personal printers. Here's a rule of thumb often used by IT departments: To avoid breakdowns, buy a printer with a monthly duty cycle approximately four times the number of pages you think you'll actually print per month. |
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| Interface |
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Almost all personal printers now come with a USB port, which is much faster than the old-fashioned parallel port. Only antiquated computers lack USB support. For larger workgroups, you'll want a printer that connects directly to the network via an Ethernet port. |
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| OS support |
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This is a bigger issue than you might imagine. A few printers lack Mac support entirely, and a number of manufacturers take their time before offering drivers that are fully compatible with the latest version of Windows. Companies that shy away from producing new drivers in a timely fashion may arbitrarily shorten the useful life of your printer. |
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| Warranty and support |
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Printers typically come with warranties of one or, at most, two years. For workgroup models, some manufacturers also offer extended warranties at extra cost. |
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