How to find a printer for your needs

To determine what kind of printer you need depends on what you need the printer for. Your best idea is to decide ahead of time what you will need the printer for and then choosing a printer that fits your needs. There are four different types of printers: inject, laser, photo, and all-in-one. Each printer has different features, knowing those differences will help you to find a printer for your needs.

Inkjet printers:
This type of printer is really popular because it is cheap, quiet and it can print in color. The prices for an inkjet printer vary greatly and are usually based on speed, print quality, and special features. Your basic inkjets can print about thirteen pages per minute in black and white, but slow down when printing in color. While faster inkjets can print between twenty-five and thirty pages per minute in black and white and eighteen to twenty pages per minute in color. But this can change depending on your computers configuration and the documents size and content. Another added bonus for inkjet printers is that they can print both documents and photos. Many inkjets can also be networked, which is an advantage for small businesses because you can have more than one computer printing from the same printer. Inkjets can also be set up to work wirelessly so that you can print from a laptop or a computer in another room.

Laser printers:
These printers are great for continuous printing. They are faster than inkjet printers and also print efficiently and quietly. Laser printers are usually found in offices, both large and small. Another advantage to laser printers is that rather than using ink cartridges they use toner, photocopy machines also use toner, which tends to last a lot longer than ink cartridges. The main drawback to laser printers is how expensive they can be, but if you are going to be doing a lot of printing you should invest in a laser printer because in the long it can save you money.

Photo printers:
These printers do exactly what they are called, they are used to print photos and many of them have the ability to print photos directly from your digital camera. These can save you a lot of money because you will not have to buy film or pay to have your film processed. If your business uses photos in advertising, such as realtors, this type of printer will work great because you will be able to print your own marketing materials. Another great feature of some photo printers are that you can view, edit and choose images before you even print with the built in LCD screen.

All-in-one Multifunction printers:
These printers are a good idea for businesses as well because they can print, copy, scan and sometimes even fax. If you are a small business with a limited budget you can get an all-in-one printer to serve as your fax machine and printer. You can use this for copies, but as the printer uses ink cartridges rather than toner it might be a better idea to use a copy machine for large copy jobs. Scanners on their own can get quite costly so by purchasing an all-in-one you are only spending a certain amount to obtain a fax, scanner, and printer at one time. All-in-ones can also print photos and tend to come with a slot for your digital camera memory card or a direct hook up for your digital camera. If you plan on using an inkjet printer and a photo printer you should consider buying an all-in-one rather than having two separate printers.

One thing that all printers have in common is how their print quality is measured; this is done in dots per inch or dpi. The higher the dpi the better the print quality, if you are going to print pictures you will be wanting to have a printer with at least 600 x 600 dpi, but the higher the dpi the better the results.

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