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With so much choice on the market, choosing the right printer for your requirements becomes a bit, well, confusing. There are so many features a printer can offer as well as different companies and models offering different quality, price, reliability and service. Many people are surprised when they learn cost does not necessarily equate to quality. Just because a printer costs £200 does not automatically mean it will out perform the £50 printer. Quality is based on many factors, but as you will soon learn, price is not one of those factors.
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One type of printer popular today is a specialised photo printing printer. The number one type of image today is digital. Does digital offer a better, higher quality image? No, but digital photography is easy to use, easy to share, and easy to customise. A photo sharing printer enables the user to print off the digital image at home with hopefully the same high quality you would get from a photo processing company.
Not surprisingly, almost all photo printers on the market today claim to offer true photo quality. What does this mean? True photo quality means you would not be able to tell the difference between the photo printed on the printer in your home or office and the photo processed in a tradition manner.
There are three main categories of photo printers - ink jet photo printer, dedicated photo printer, and professional photo printers. The ink jet photo printer is usually an all-purpose printer, but also enables near true quality photo printing and only comes as an ink jet printer. The dedicated photo printer usually only allows printing directly onto special-purpose paper designed for photo printing and comes in both thermal-dye and ink jet options. Finally, the professional photo printer is an advanced dedicated photo printer enabling the user to print tabloid-size photos or even larger.
Which type of photo printer do you need? You choose an ink jet photo printer if you want an all-purpose printer capable of providing near true photo finishes such as the HP Desktop Photo Printer, Canon Desktop All-Purpose Printer, or the Kodak All-In-One Printer; you should choose a dedicated photo printer if you print a lot of photos and demand excellence in the finish such as the Lexmark, the HP Photosmart, or the Canon PXMA; and finally, you should choose a professional photo printer if you demand the best the industry has to offer, and/or you need to print large photos.
Finding a high quality laser printer is no easier than finding a high quality photo printer. Industry leaders such as Xerox, IBM, and HP all offer laser printers. This type of printer is different than ink jet because it utilises different technology - a laser beam to be exact - to produce the desired image on a specialised drum. The light emitted by the laser actually alters the charge on the drum when it hits; the drum then rolls through a toner reservoir which is then transmitted by the already charged portions of the drum. Then, through a combination of pressure and heat, the toner is transferred and bound to the paper.
Higher speed, quality and cost meant that these page printers were more popular in business than for the home, but drops in prices mean that many home users are now choosing to utilise this technology. The HP OfficeJet 7310 All-In-One Laser Printer is a good example of a home laser printer for approximately £240. Of course, a more cost effective laser printer is the Samsung ML-2010 Laser Printer at approximately £45. As you can see, laser printers are not only for professionals as once was the case.
Another interested idea is the wireless printer. Anyone who has a home network knows the hassle and clutter all of those wires and cords can cause. More and more industrial leaders are finding people appreciate the benefits of going wireless - even with printers. Brother, HP, Epson, Kodak, and many of the other industrial printer leaders are offering the opportunity for consumers to go wireless. The HP DeskJet 460C Wireless Inkjet Printer is a popular wireless printer for home users at costs approximately £80.
Finding a good printer does not have to be difficult. All the consumer has to know is what they want, and somewhere, there is a company offering a printer to fit your needs whether the printer is specialised for printing photos or being wireless or being inkjet, laser jet, or a combination of it all. Make the huge choice an advantage, rather than a confusing problem.
Staff editor, Electronics Section, March 2007 |
