Hardware > Buying & Owning Hardware, Printers, Scanners, etc.

Buying a Printer

By Lasa Information Systems Team

Every organisation needs at least one printer. However, with massive choice spanning a wide range of options, how do you find your way to the right printer for the job?

You may not spend as much on a printer as you do on a computer, but it is just as important a decision and one that is often harder to make. There are many different printers to choose from and the results of your decision will be very visible.

As for any important purchase, selecting a printer is a process of assessing what your organisation’s needs are, then looking at the options available to you and drawing up a shortlist of options that seem to best meet these needs, then picking the best compromise from that short list.

I say compromise because ultimately you won’t find the perfect product.  A single printer is unlikely to meet all your needs, and you might find that two choices are strong contenders in different ways.  If this happens, you need to decide which of your needs are more important.  Hopefully, by whittling down in this way your choice will be clear, and you can spend the money in confidence.

Working out what you need

There are a lot of printers available.  All of them will try to wow you with their features.  Try to avoid being wowed, and think carefully about what you really need.

To help define your requirements, ask yourself some questions:

What will you be printing?

Will you mainly be printing letters?  Internal documents?  Newsletters?  You probably want to do all of these things, but what are the most critical ones?

The answer to this question will dictate whether you need a colour printer or not, and what level of print quality you need.

Remember that some material for public consumption is best produced by a professional printing firm.

How much will you be printing?

Estimate the number of pages you will print in a month.  Remember that some days you might print off hundreds of form letters from a mail merge.  Other days you won’t print much at all.

This will help you work out how much a particular printer will cost to run, and how robust it needs to be.

Who will be printing?

How many members of staff will the printer be shared between?

If the number is more than one or two then you will be looking for a fast printer, otherwise staff will get frustrated waiting for their printouts.

How much can you afford to spend?

Look beyond the initial purchase cost of the printer.  How much do you want to spend on printing over a year?

You know why you need to know this already!

Having answered these questions you now know the bottom line that a printer must meet for you to consider it.

Draw up a shortlist

Armed with your requirements it is time to go shopping.  Magazines and computer websites are a good place to find out what is available.  Many sites regularly give a round up of printers currently available in a particular category or price range.

Good sites to start with are PC Pro magazine and Tom’s Hardware, but a search on Google will bring up others.

These round ups will review each printer, and often give a table showing each printer’s vital statistics, helping you compare.  This is a great way to draw up a shortlist.

Also, look at printer manufacturer websites.  These usually split their printers up into Home/Small Office, and Business printers, and then show you printers ordered by cost, with the cheaper printers appearing at the top of the list.  Home/Small Office printers are suited for very small organisations, while for organisations with more than three or four members of staff, a Business grade printer should be considered.  Manufacturers websites are great places to find detailed specifications, but remember that they are primarily marketing sites and some claims should be taken with a pinch of salt.

Cutting through the jargon, and getting to specifics

As with most computer related information, there are plenty of new words to get your head around.  Your requirements map against certain terms.

Inkjet Printers

Inkjet printers spray ink onto the page from a tiny print head. This produces very good quality print - though not as good as that of lasers. Cheap inkjets often print slowly - it can take them over a minute to print a single page if it includes a photograph.

Running costs for inkjets are high - their ink cartridges typically cost around £25 each. The big attraction of inkjet printers is that they are cheap to buy, and in particular they can produce colour cheaply. Almost all inkjet printers will print in colour, and produce output of excellent quality. Some are even advertised as capable of photographic quality, using special paper. However, colour printing can be expensive. If glossy paper is used the cost can be as much as £1.80 a sheet. Printing on normal paper costs from 2p a sheet, rising to 12-15p a sheet for coated paper. Your own colour printer will be cost effective up to about 50 copies, but longer print runs require a colour photocopier or professional printing. Office inkjet prices range from around £60 to around £200. More expensive machines can print around twice as fast as cheap ones - particularly important if more than one computer is sharing the printer.

Laser Printers

Laser printers use the same technology as photocopiers: a light source, usually a laser, generates an electric charge on a rotating drum, the charge attracts toner, which is then transferred to paper to produce the printed page. Laser printers are generally more expensive than inkjets, but they are generally faster, produce better quality text output, and are cheaper to run. The cheapest laser printers now cost less than £200 - but remember that a cheap laser printer may not meet your needs. Colour laser printers are available, but prices start at around £500.

Inkjet vs. Laser

Inkjet printers squirt ink onto the page, while laser printers work more like a photocopier, using toner powder.

Inkjet printers tend to be cheaper to purchase initially, but the ink cartridges do not last as long as laser printer toner cartridges – this can mean inkjets are more expensive in the long run.

Quality is often comparable, although prints from inkjets may smudge if you don’t allow the ink to dry before moving the sheets.

Inkjets tend to be slower printers than lasers.

Quality – DPI

Print quality is generally measured in Dots per Inch (DPI).  The higher the DPI then the better the print will look.  In general, this isn’t much of an issue when it comes to text – but with images, you can quickly tell the difference between 600 and 1200 DPI.

600 DPI should be considered the minimum.

Robustness – pages per month

Many print manufacturers rate their printers by the number of pages per month.  This gives an idea of how robust the printer is.  A printer rated at 3,000 pages per month would probably wear out fairly quickly in an office of ten busy people.  A printer rated with a higher “pages per month” will probably also be cheaper to run.

Speed – pages per minute

In a busy office environment, no one needs a bottleneck around the printer.  Pages per minute (ppm) gives an idea of how fast a printer is.  Cheap laser printers tend to be around 8 pages per minute.  Inkjets may be even slower.  The fastest laser printers come in at 55 pages per minute.

Working out the costs

As ever, the real bottom line is cost.  The easiest way to compare print costs is to calculate the cost per page, and the total cost of ownership over the first year.  Cost per page is simply the number of pages per print cartridge divided by the cost of the cartridge.  PC Pro magaizine’s article Ink Costs Exposed (registration required) is a brilliant expose of the true cost of printing.  Remember that cost per page will be higher for colour than black and white.  Cost per page gives you an idea of the ongoing cost of printing.

The total cost of ownership over the first year takes into account the cost per page, plus the price of the printer.  To calculate this, estimate how many pages you will print per year, multiply this by the cost per page, and then add the cost of the printer.  Doing this gives a figure that can be compared with others.  You may find that the cheap inkjet works out as more expensive over a year than a heavy-duty laser printer that cost more up front.

Extra considerations

Print servers

If you can print from more than one computer, then you are using a print server, whether you realise it or not.  For many small offices, the computer the printer is directly connected to will act as the print server.  It is also possible to buy a dedicated print server – a small box which connects to the printer (or several) and to the network and manages all print jobs for the printer.  Some (more expensive) printers come with a built in print server.

If you have a large office, a print server (or a printer with a built in one) is a good investment.  With a print server, you don’t tie up a computer with handling print jobs, and you don’t need a computer switched on all the time for printing.

Duplex printing

Duplex printing means printing on both sides of a page.  Some printers are able to do this, others can have a duplex unit added on, while others require you to manually flip the sheets over (and orient them the correct way – a truly frustrating trial and error task).  Duplex printing is useful for short print run materials, such as newsletters, and can also be used to cut down the amount of paper used.

Multifunction printers

It is possible to buy printers that include other functions such as scanning, photocopying and faxing.  This can be tempting, and a multifunction printer is worth considering – but only if you know you need these extra functions.  If you only really need a printer, note that a multifunction printer is likely to sacrifice quality in order to accommodate the other functions.  A dedicated printer will print better.  Given that, a small organisation with one or two staff might benefit from a multifunction printer.

Once you have cut through the various bits of jargon, your choice may be clear or at least narrowed down.  Do some final searches on Google for reviews of your top three printers to help you make the final decision.

A good printer will last your organisation for a few years, and should be considered as an important investment.  Spending the time choosing, we hope you’ll agree, is well worthwhile.