For most consumers, a
printer is an essential add-on for your
computer. You're not using your PC to its
full potential if you can't print reports,
letters, presentations, photos, and the rest
of your creations.
Currently, there are affordable inkjet
printers that deliver top-notch color print
quality and a new breed of personal laser
models priced right for small / home office
office users. Now high-quality printing is
within reach of most computer users.
Recommendations: See the printers page.
Inkjet Printers
Inkjet printers can
produce black and white or color images and
in some cases photo quality images. However,
inkjets can have trouble with sharp lines so
text can vary from adequate to good
depending on how fast the printer runs.
Therefore, they are great for personal use
since they can be very inexpensive, but
won't necessarily make the best impression
for business printing.
The most basic inkjets will have only three
colors cyan, magenta and yellow (CMY) which
are combined to produce a composite black.
This eats up a lot of ink, and more often
than not, composite black looks bluish or
greenish which is less than ideal for text.
For true black, you need an inkjet that
holds at least two cartridges: one for the
CMY cartridge and another for just black
(K). The best configuration is a printer
with a separate cartridge for each color,
that way you only replace the color you
need.
Decent color photo printing requires a true
CMYK printer, and for professional quality
photos you'll want a six color printer which
adds a light cyan and a light magenta. These
dedicated photo inkjets are great for photos
but lousy for text. Keep in mind that to get
those high quality images, inkjets go
through a lot of ink and often print best on
special stock so cartridge and paper cost
are important factors to consider.
Inkjets aren't the roadrunners of the
printer world either. Speed is 2-6 pages per
minute (PPM) for text and about one page
every 2 to 3 minutes for graphics.
Naturally, speed increases with price.
Overall, inkjets will fit a reasonable
budget.
Laser Printers
Laser printers
operate using the same concept as
photocopiers which accounts for one of their
main strengths -- speed. A monochrome laser
printer produces sharp text at roughly 6-8
PPM (pages per minute) as well as black &
white graphics at around 2 PPM. Laser
printers are best at reproducing text,
especially if you need to print fonts that
are larger or smaller than the usual 10 to
12 point sizes.
A monochrome laser printer offers a lower
cost per page since monochrome toner is
comparatively cheap and regular paper does
the job. Laser printers also tend to have
better paper handling options. For example,
they can hold more paper or make it easier
to attach an extra tray for different paper
sizes. These features make monochrome lasers
a great choice for a home office.
There are also laser printers for color
printing which use CMYK toner to produce
images. They create high quality color
graphics and photos, as well as sharp text,
all at significantly faster rates: 6-8 PPM
for text and 1 PPM for graphics. That
efficiency will come with a sizeable
increase in the price of the printer. In the
long term, colored toner is less expensive
per page than inkjets, but this will only
offset the higher printer price if you're in
need of very high volume, color printing.
