How to choose a printer for home

No office institution is required without a printed device. Why there - and in everyday life, the printer will not be left without affairs. He will print anything: training abstracts, photos on glossy paper, posters, work documents with color charts.

This guide was for those who need the need for a home printed unit, but not yet understands which criteria you need to choose from this kind of office equipment. We tried simple words to tell about the most important characteristics and give some recommendations of the general plan.

inkjet or laser

first, with which you need to decide is technology Print. In this regard, printers are divided into two types: inkjet and laser. In the inkjet cost cartridges with liquid ink. They are applied on paper and dry out for counting seconds. Laser models are based on toner. Toner is ink dust, which is quickly fixed on paper and is very economically spent.

The main share of the market is given to colored inkjet printers. They are universal, support different formats and types of paper. In terms of printing, they are often ahead of laser devices.

Laser printers are considered an optimal choice for offices, where mainly monochrome printing is activated. They are economical, fast in work, and their price holds at a low level. In maintaining a laser printer with a black and white mode costs cheaper than color inkjet, but do not rush to refuse color printing: At any time you may need a document in color or photography.

Laser printers won on the flow rate of the printing agent. Toner cartridge usually grabs 3-20 thousand pages with text. The ink cartridge resource for inkjet devices, as a rule, is 2-2.5 thousand pages. If you buy a house printer, print rarely and in small volumes, then these numbers do not play a significant role. But in the office environment, where printed documents are required every day in a huge amount, the capacity of the cartridges and the ink flow rate will have to be considered.

Multifunctional devices (MFP)

The multifunction device combines the capabilities of the printer, scanner and a copy machine (and sometimes a fax). MFP is also divided into inkjet and laser.

Many buyers stop the choice on MFP for the sake of money saving: budget multifunctional home printing devices stand within 3 thousand rubles, and the purchase of a separate printer and scanner will cost much more expensive. Not the latter role plays overallity: to highlight the place in the apartment under one MFP is easier than for two or three appliances.

Printers for printing photos

If the photo printing is more relevant in your realities than School abstracts, consider purchasing a narrow-directed photo printer. It is not as flexible as universal printers and the more MFP, but it has an advantage that is the graphics displayed on paper: it is often higher than in printing salons.

Many printers intended for printing images on the photo paper have a compact form. As for the paper itself, depending on the model are supported by popular formats 100 x 150 mm, 210 x 297 mm, as well as larger. Consumables for such specialized devices are, of course, more expensive than consumables for ordinary home MFP.

Popular brands among color photo printer manufacturers are Canon and Epson. They offer models with high accuracy of shades that use ink five or six colors for image output.

speed, resolution and color

Previously, manufacturers allowed It yourself incredible and clearly untrue applications regarding the speed of printing and ink consumption. Today, there is no chance for cheating: all companies are required to use a generic test suite issued and licensed by the International Organization for Standardization. Devices fall into equal conditions, go through the same procedures with the same set of documents. Based on the results, the following important indicators are determined.

PPM

This is the speed of the printer in pages per minute. In color and black-and-white modes, PPM can be very different, so for color-oriented models, two values ​​\u200b\u200bare usually present in the specifications at once. A high PPM only matters if you have strict deadlines and print volume requirements.

The average monochrome print speed is 15-20 pages per minute. When using color cartridges - 10-15 pages.

DPI

DPI (dots per inch) is the number of ink dots the printer can produce per square inch of paper. Printing of images in high resolution with good detailing directly depends on this parameter. However, focusing only on DPI is not recommended: modern printing and software tools increase the resolution of the output image regardless of the DPI of the printer.

Duty Cycle

This is the allowable duty cycle and is expressed as the number of printed pages per month. During operation, it is advisable not to exceed the parameter specified by the manufacturer, otherwise the wear of the device will accelerate. Particular attention to the duty cycle should be paid to office workers with a heavy print load.

Communication

three types of communication. Basic features are Wi-Fi and a wired connection. In addition to them, there are specific options for special working conditions.

USB

A rare printer or MFP does without a USB interface, namely USB-A. Through it, external storage media are connected and communication with a PC is established. Using USB, you can print files from cameras and other devices that support the PictBridge standard (in 2003 this was considered a very convenient feature, but now it has been replaced by other features).

Ethernet

The Ethernet connector is for wired internet connection. It is found not only in PCs and laptops, but also in printing devices, however, at home, it rarely arises, as USB and Wi-Fi is much more convenient. In office MFP, the presence of a port for a network cable on the contrary may be a plus.

Wi-Fi

Wi-Fi module for connecting to a wireless network is present even in the cheapest printers and MFPs. To configure the connection, you need software for a PC or a mobile device, it comes with the printer or downloaded from the manufacturer's website.

Wireless communication with the printer is much saving time, as it allows you to send files to the air from any device connected to the home network.

Through the Internet, you can configure the remote print in the office from the house.

Wi-Fi Direct

Wi-Fi Direct is not related to a wireless home network. This is a peer connection with a decent radius of action like a Bluetooth, a safe type of communication directly between the printer and the mobile device. As an example, you can bring Apple AirPrint. Other manufacturers have similar technologies.

NFC

Communication on a short distance NFC is far from all printers. It is necessary for pairing with a mobile device with one touch.

Cloud Printing

Modern MFPs can not work not only with local, but also with remote file repository, such as Facebook, Flickr, Dropbox and Google Drive, And also launch the print remotely. This feature works only with the current Internet connection.

SD cards

reading slot SD cards memory - large help for digital cameers, as Before printing, you do not have to spend time moving photos to a computer. It is enough to pull the card from the camera, insert it into the printer and run the seal of the desired pictures. With the storage navigation, the printer display and control buttons will help.

Ink costs

A typical error that printer buyers perform is that people are often not interested in the cost of consumables.

How often do new cartridges have to buy, depends on the printer model and printing technology (well, of course, the load). Knowing the price of one cartridge and how many pages it is enough, you can calculate the cost of one printed page.

The expensive device may be very economical in maintenance and print a page in monochrome for 3-4 rubles or 5-6 rubles in color, which is much cheaper than the services of printing salons. On budget printers with cheap cartridges, the price of the page on the contrary comes out more than a couple of rubles. Consider this information makes sense only if you are typing hundreds of pages per week.

Some manufacturers provide direct information about the cost of printing. If you did not find it, you can count on your own: divide the cost of the cartridge with toner or ink on the number of pages to which it is designed. You will receive an approximate price for one page.

Duplex

The duplex function is a double-sided print or two-sided scanning. Page Processing In such printers passes in three stages: Scanning / copying one side, pulling the page through the coup mechanism, scanning / copying the reverse side.

Many MFPs with an automatic document feeder for scanning also support duplex. MFP without an automatic feeder can not perform a bilateral scan, on such devices the page has to turn over the glass manually.

Duplex saves time when copying magazine pages, brochures and similar objects.

Paper Loading

In each printer, a thick stack of A4 paper is placed in each printer. But what about the carriers of a different format and density - envelopes, catalog cards, glossy photobumago, etc.? Is it possible to put them with a stack? And if so, then in what quantity?

Look at the feed tray: there are pictograms for the correct placement of paper of different sizes and density on it. It depends on his depth, how often the paper will have to add. You do not need to put one sheet, all media are loaded with a stack. The main thing is to ensure that the boot tray is blocked freely.

Printer for Eco-house

Many spheres of our lives are exposed to digitization. Books, paper documents have disappeared from the shelves. The current generation consciously relates to the environment and is trying to reduce the amount of waste - including paper. Of course, paper is still widely used: sometimes it becomes necessary to print the document and assure it with the signature, and the printed photos become a highlight of the interior.

It turns out that not all buyers will be happy to have a house powerful printed unit, and even with a bunch of expensive consumables.

Printer manufacturers responded to changes in society with the release of portable models for infrequent use: Canon Pixma iP110, HP Tango X. These printers have a built-in battery, easily connect to phones and laptops, and you can put them in almost any corner of the apartment - thanks to their compact size.