| Which is the Best Printer Type to Buy? |
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| Friday, 10 April 2009 15:03 | |||
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You may think buying a printer for home is easy, make sure you get the right one or it could cost you in the long run... Which Printer is the Best?It may be best to talk about the printer technology rather than which particular printer is the best one to buy. We will only discuss what we call domestic printers. These are printers that are used infrequently as a home printer for printing homework projects and particularly photographs. The printer that you and I would buy for home use will probably be an inkjet type printer. An inkjet printer is any printer that places extremely small droplets of ink onto paper to create an image. If you ever look at a piece of paper that has come out of an inkjet printer, you know that:
There are generally only two types of inkjet printers that we would purchase for home use. Bubblejet Printer
Standard Inkjet Printer
In general, the price of inkjet printers is lower than that of laser printers. However, they are also considerably slower. Another drawback of inkjet printers is that they require a special type of ink that is apt to smudge on inexpensive copier paper. Because inkjet printers require smaller mechanical parts than laser printers, they are especially popular as portable printers. In addition, colour ink-jet printers provide an inexpensive way to print full-colour documents.
So Which Printer is best?Now we know that there are two types of domestic printer, the bubblejet printer and the standard inkjet, which one should we buy?. Well my thoughts are simple, I have used all makes of printer you can think of and I will try to sum it up like this: - Epson / Canon / LexmarkAll these are wonderful printers, I have listed them above in the order of my preferred choice. The photo images that some of these little baby's can produce are second to none. They are cheap and cheerful as well. They are mechanically sound and will carry on working for a very long time. They are generally gravity fed paper feed which works very well only pulling one sheet of paper at a time. What we mean by gravity fed is you put the paper upright in the top of the printer. You can get cheap ink refills for these printers, but be warned, if you use inks other than the manufactures ink your printer will have its life much reduced. Buying other inks can seriously damage the print heads because the ink can dry up and clog up the jet nozzles if not used regularly. If your printer heads get all messed up your printer is a pile of plastic scrap. Why? I hear you shouting! Well in printers, other than HP, the printer heads are built into the printer. If the heads get damaged or blocked up you cannot rush out to your nearest computer shop and get new heads, you just cannot get them. Even if you could get them it would cost more than the printer is worth to get them fitted. If your printer heads get damaged you will have no alternative but to buy a new printer! I used Epson for years until the last one I bought for some £80 packed up within 3 months, yes I wrecked the printer heads with cheap Ink, this is what prompted this article really. After Much ResearchAfter much research into how printers worked I ended up at one conclusion. Buy a printer where the printer heads are not part of the printer!. Hewlett Packed are the only printers I know of that do this. Hewlett Packard?, I can hear you shouting now, " but aren't the ink cartridges really expensive for these printers!" Yes the ink cartridges are expensive and for one very good reason that is not really published much. THE PRINTER HEADS ARE INCLUDED IN THE INK CARTRIDGES! If your printer heads get damaged or dry up and gets all blocked you just go out and buy new ink cartridges. Your printer is safe, no need to buy a new one! Hewlett Packard Printers
The paper feeds on HP are mostly from the bottom so on occasion gets stuck, can be annoying sometimes, just keep the amount of paper in the tray to a minimum and make sure it is the tray the right way. I bet you didn't know that most paper has a right way up did you! Check the packaging and see if it specifies which way up the printing surface is. You get what you pay for with HP. It is worth buying a more expensive model now that you know that your printer will last a little longer than your previous Epson or Canon does. Invest in an all in one printer/scanner/copier like the one shown above. Make sure the printer uses a commonly available ink cartridge as well and not a special cartridge only produced for that model, because they can be really expensive. Make sure you buy only the recommended brand of ink as well. Although, now that you know you won't bugger up your printer heads in your HP printer that shouldn't matter anymore. You may get funny looking colour tones though. You get perfect prints every time with the right ink cartridges. Advice on Buying your PrinterBuying a Hewlett PackardTake my advice as an experienced printer buyer over the years and buy a good Hewlett Packard all in one printer/scanner/copier. Buying an Epson or CanonIf you use your printer regularly then buy an Epson or a Canon, but only buy the proper inks, definitely do not use cheap alternatives or the printer heads WILL get damaged! Printer Cable USBBetter the mention the cables thing. These days you often if not always find a missing cable in your printer box. Its the USB cable I'm talking about. All domestic inkjet printers use a USB connection now so make sure you order/buy a new USB cable, make sure the cable is USB 2.0 compliant as well, I know this may not mean much to you but take my word for it make sure it is a USB 2.0 cable! I won't go into why a USB 2.0 cable just now, I'm sure this is enough to get you browsing the internet to find out what this is. Power LeadOne last thing, make sure the power cable is the right power lead, sometimes, in the UK, you may find an American 2 pin power lead in the box, and I suspect some Americans may find a 3 pin power cable in their box. It has happened more than once to me. I always check my customers printers before I hand them over, I keep USB and power cables in stock, for some reason power cables seem to multiply in my storage boxes anyway. If you know of any other Inkjet manufacturer that puts the printer heads in the inkjet cartridge please let me know. Useful printer Links:Buy printers OnlineOnline Ink SuppliersWell, I hope you found this article about 'Which is the best printer for you' useful. Good luck with your choice of domestic printer!
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Different types of inkjet printers form their droplets of ink in different ways. There are several technologies used by printer manufacturers, but by far the most popular technique is the bubble jet. In a bubble jet printer, tiny resistors create heat, and this heat vaporizes ink to create a bubble. The expansion that creates the bubble causes a droplet to form and eject from the print head. A typical bubble jet print head has 64 or 128 tiny nozzles, and all of them can fire a droplet simultaneously.
An inkjet printer that works by spraying ionized ink at a sheet of paper. Magnetized plates in the ink's path direct the ink onto the paper in the desired shapes. Inkjet printers are capable of producing high quality print approaching that produced by laser printers. A typical inkjet printer provides a resolution of 300 dots per inch, although some newer models offer higher resolutions.
While inkjet printers used to lack the quality and speed of laser printers, they have become almost as fast as laser printers and some can even produce higher-quality images. Even low-budget inkjet printers can now print high-resolution photos. The amazing thing is, as the quality of inkjet printers has improved, the prices have continued to drop. However, for most people, refilling the inkjet cartridges a few times will often cost more than the printer.
Whilst HP printers are used far and wide, the photo images they produce with the cheap printers are not as good as the same priced Epson or Canon, I will leave out Lexmark as I think they are just not in the same league as Epson and Canon.