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Choosing the right printer

The only good question to ask yourself before making any investment in a printer is:

What utilization am I going to do with it?

Because after all, it is a long term purchase, and answering to this question enables to make a primary selection very selective in the infinite area of printers that you can find in the market. Of course, the price is important, but it has to happen after choosing your utilization.
Every criterion must be allowed. A printer which price does not exceed the price of a cartridge can appear as a tempting offer, but when you need to reorder new cartridges, some regrets can occur.

What are the principal criteria to observe according to the utilization?

The final destination of the printing : you must establish if you are thinking of printing office documents in majority (in general texts on white backgrounds like letters for example) or in majority pictures and photos. The quality seen on the paper would not be necessarily the same and the price of the printer will vary according to this criterion.

The speed of the performance : We do not often think about it, but 1 minute of printing for a letter containing 2 pages can very quickly become forbidding. Here again, you must allow this criterion depending if you want to print a large quantity of letters or only some pages, occasionally.

The quality of reproduction : It is the most put forward argument by printer manufacturers. Of course, you must allow the utilization you want to do, but it is evident that the more the quality of reproduction is good, the more the quality of your documents will be developed. The quality of reproduction is calculated by the number of dots per inch (dpi). The more the density of points present into an assigned surface is important, the more the quality of reproduction will be fine. This data is very important if you often use your printer for printing photos.

Attention, depending of the different resolutions et properties between your PC, your screen (pixels) and your print resolution, (*dpi), what you see on the screen won't necessarily correspond to what you want to see printed.
Also, there exists some softwares to prime your printer and thus, optimize the quality of your photos. If you want to know more about colour management, priming tools and existing softwares, Click here (link to arnaudfrichphoto.com, site in french)

* definition of dpi : measures the numbers of dots that can be reproduced on a linear space on one inch. (2.54cm)

Cartridges with or without printing heads? Cartridges possessing their own printing heads present the advantage to inevitably being changed when replacing the cartridge, avoiding by the same occasion a slow impoverishment of their quality and an additional cost related to the cleaning of the heads. Consequently, they are more expensive than simple cartridges, without printing heads.

About colours : Some printers propose only one cartridge " bloc " possessing all the colours, while others propose separated colours. Here again, define well the utilization of your printer. If you use one colour in majority (corresponding for example to a blue graphic charter) it will be much better to invest in a separated colours cartridge system, because you will only have to refill your cartridge in this precise colour. When it will be faded you will only have to buy this precise colour, and you will save money.

Diverse functionalities : Here again, according to the utilization that you reserve to your printer, some functionalities can be useful, or appear as useful in the future. It is important to know all these functionalities well to establish if they will be useful for you, but some of them are important. For example, if you don't have a scanner, a printer equipped with a scanner will allow you to photocopy all your documents, or to digitize them for your computer…

In brief, a cheap printer is not necessarily a good deal, and an expensive one is not a proof of quality. The cost of a page is not a very easy data to calculate and to obtain from the manufacturers. It is an indication entirely connected to your utilization mode. It is therefore primordial to define your needs well, before buying a printer.

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