Best Inkjet Printers

If you want to buy a printer, you'll have to ask yourself what are going to be your printing needs. If you need to print a lot, you would lean in the direction of a laser printer. But laser printers are expensive, and use expensive toner cartridges. But if your needs are small, the inkjet printer is probably best for you. They print good-quality color and black-and-white images, and are suitable for school reports, advertisements, or light office work. But there are still some details that you should look for. Here is a guide to some of the best inkjet printers on the market.  

Disposable head: These are the most common inkjet printers. The printer (and the computer) will display the ink levels, and tell you when to replace the cartridge. When you'll replace the head, the computer will tell you to align the cartridges.

Fixed head: These are printers whose print head is hardwired into the printer. This saves on having to replace the print head all the time. Also, since you aren't replacing the cartridge, just refilling it, you don't have to align it all the time. But there is a down-side: if the cartridge breaks, it means the entire printer needs to be serviced. 

• Printhead resolution: The inkjet printer shoots ink through tiny nozzles. The number and density of these nozzles determines the resolution. The printing resolution is given in dots per inch (=dpi). The more dots per inch, the more faithful the picture will be to the original. There will be a horizontal and vertical number for the dpi—the horizontal number tells how many nozzles your printer has, whereas the vertical number tells you in what increments the paper advances through the printer. A resolution of 600 x 1200 dpi is adequate for regular text. If the print is very small, or if you are printing graphics, you should look for a resolution of 2400 x 1200 dpi.

• Cost per page: The big drawback with inkjet printers is the cost of the ink. The cost of the ink will determine the cost per page. The printer manufacturers sell the printers at a very affordable price, but make most of the money on the ink cartridges. Very often it is possible to buy an extra-large black ink original cartridge for an inkjet printer, in order to cut down costs. There also are third-party ink manufacturers, who make ink cartridges that are compatible with the original brand name cartridge. However, the printer manufacturer doesn't guarantee that these third-party cartridges will necessarily work. Refilling your own cartridge might be a way to save money on ink. But the refill may leak, or the printer may be programmed to track ink life of this particular cartridge. If that is the case, it won't let you use the same cartridge after refilling it.

• Speed: The speed of the printer is usually given in pages per minute (= ppm). But the number that the manufacturer advertises may not be what you'll see in practice. This is because the advertiser's test page might have been a very no-frills page of text, whereas you might want to print something more fancy. Be wary of this.

• Versatility: Printers will print on the standard A4 paper (8.27 x 11.69 inches/21 x 29.7 cm). But maybe you want to print on envelopes, or on both sides of the paper. Check to see if the printer supports these things as well.

• Cleaning Mechanism: If you don't print that often, the inkjet cartridge may get clogged. Some printers automatically clean the print head after every printing. But this automatic cleaning uses up ink. And if the ink has dried on the print head, the “automatic cleaning” will not help anymore, and just waste ink. In that case, there are ways of cleaning the print heads yourself with alcohol or other solvents—if you're technically inclined.

• Connectivity: Inkjet printers hook up to your computer with the standard USB printer cable. But maybe you want several computers to be able to print from the same printer. For that, there is a WiFi connection to many brands of printers.

• All-in-one printers: Many inkjet printers also work as a copier-scanner-fax too. That's certainly handy, instead of having to buy each item separately. But remember that inkjet ink is more expensive than toner—if you have a lot to copy, you should try to use a copying machine, or all-in-one laser printer. If you will be using the printer as a fax or scanner, you might want to consider a printer with a document feed—this way, you can load several pages at once to be scanned or faxed, instead of feeding them in manually one-by-one.

Brother: Formed in 1954, Brother opened its American branch and moved into the fields of knitting machines and home electric appliances. Over the years they have built up their portfolio to include electronics and printers.

Canon: Canon's founding mission was to build a company that created high-quality cameras. Canon realized this dream in 1936 when it released the Hansa Canon, Japan's first 35mm focal-plane shutter camera and have expanded over the years into producing an array of electronics, including printers.

Epson: The history of Epson America and their parent company Seiko Epson Corporation began in 1942 with a heritage watchmaking that led to the invention of the world's first quartz watch. From there the company expanded into electronics and its printed are now rated among the best.

HP: Bill Hewlett and Dave Packard became friends at Stanford University, 75 years ago, before forming a two-person company in a rented garage—the original Silicon Valley startup and are now a renowned name in computers and printers.