Buying A New Printer

Printer purchases boil down to usage.  Chances are when you went shopping for a computer the sales person spent all kinds of time on all the benefits and features of the computer.  Then a major emphasis was given to the fancy bells and whistles that were on it.  A lot of consumers ended up buying based on all those fancy features, rather than their actual use.

Printers are the same way.  Today a printer can be as simple as a single cartridge unit, printing black only and taking up a small space on the desk.  Higher end printers can print multi colors, use different kinds of paper, are capable of printing photographs, scan, copy, and can also be set up as a fax machine. 

There are some ground rules one must follow when shopping for a printer.  The first is to make a list of the functions you wish to use and any that might be used in the future.  It is one thing to be able to print greeting cards and plan on scanning in your own pictures to use with them later.  It may not be the best purchase to buy one with multiple capabilities and only use it to print and scan. 

Try to match your usage with the printer’s features.  I am not saying don’t buy a printer with more features then you need.  But I am saying that you do not need to spend a lot of extra money for features you will not use. 

The next thing that people tend to overlook is consumables.  All printers have consumables that have to be replenished when they are empty.  The most obvious is paper.  But you want to be sure the printer you plan to purchase will take the paper you will use.  This includes sticky labels.  If a sticky label gets caught on your rollers, etc it will be a mess that you may never be able to get completely cleaned up. 

Along the line of paper turn the demonstrator model around.  Try to take it apart.  There will be doors or inserts that can be removed to allow access to the paper path.  These are the same openings you will need access to for clearing paper jams.  There will never be a better time to open them then while you are looking at the demonstrator model in the store.

Another consumable that people often do not research is ink.  How many ink cartridges are there?  At one time color printers only had one cartridge.  Most of the printing is done in black and when the black ran out the rest of the colors were thrown away as the cartridge was changed.  More current printers have multiple cartridges.  As a minimum there should be two: one for black ink and the second for color.  In that configuration, when the black runs out you just replace it.  These models tend to be more cost efficient.

Take a hard look at the total number of pages you will be printing for a job.  If you are going to do your own brochures and print them out the ink charges will be very high.  Of course you can lower them, using refillable cartridges but compared to a copy machine’s toner the costs will still be expensive.  Or, printing large multiple colored jobs it will be best to compare prices with a local printer business.

When comparing ink costs one has to estimate.  It is very hard to put a usage number on pages before ink has to be replaced as different people print different things.  Ink usage between each job varies.  When you do see comparisons most companies make a statement such as “based on 60% coverage”.  What they are trying to do is give you an idea of how much printing was done on each page used in their projections.  As you might suspect these are only estimates.  But they still give you a general idea for planning purposes.

The last area I will mention is envelopes.  Most of us like to print envelopes.  What needs to be considered is the paper path.  Some models require you to clear paper jams a certain way.  One just cannot pull the stuck envelope back out the front and start over.  All kinds of things are involved such as paper sensors, rollers, etc.  If you do pull it back out the front, against the normal motion of the paper, you may do more harm than good.  If you plan on doing envelopes be sure you are able to take it apart and clear jams the correct way.     

Buying a printer is easy.  Just spend the money and take it home.  But buying a printer based on your needs and anticipated usage requires some research.  What I tried to do in this article is give you ideas that can make you a better shopper.