Tips on Buying a Printer
Buying a printer can be a challenging process, there are more styles, types and sizes of printers available to the home and small business user than ever before. It’s very easy to browse for printers online or even go to retail stores such as Best Buy and Staples and take a look at a few. But it’s impossible to know from just walking around and looking at them or reading a PC magazine off the shelf just how well they perform. Usually people purchasing a new printer are unclear about whether to buy a laser printer or an inkjet printer. The short answer is, it all depends on what you’ll be using it for, and how much you will be using it.
Inkjets are fantastic for home use and for photo printing. Lasers are great for high-volume environments, such as in offices, or for businesses that need high print quality. There are other factors to look at as well, particularly look at print speed, print quality, and more importantly running costs.
If you plan on visiting a retail stores, make sure the printer is hooked up to a computer with internet access. You want to test the printer and check for the most important things you care about.
1.) Print quality – print out different types of documents, web pages with a combination of text and graphics, and mono color text, so you can really see the difference between a good and bad printer. You should be able to notice from a poor print that the text might be slightly ragged or that the color prints might not show smooth transitions of color ie) it might show banding or lines and the color doesn’t smoothly travel from one color tone to the next. Also look at skin tones on people. You don’t want your photos of friends or family coming out looking ill or pasty, so look for the realistic skin tones. For background objects such as leave and trees for look good bright color reproduction.
2.) Printing costs – More importantly consider the running costs for the printer. Some people buy a low cost printer or a printer on sale not realizing the long term cost and effect of running this printer. Because you are going to have to buy ink cartridges, factor in the cost of buying ink or toner. Research or ask the sales person to show you the number of pages the ink or toner cartridges are able to print and divide the price by the number of pages to get an average ink cost per page.
Using the guidelines above you will be able to decide on which type of printer is most suitable for you at the time. When it’s time to buy ink or toner cartridges, consider InkCloners.com. Shop for some cheap printer ink at our store online, with free shipping for purchases over $50 and our special Buy 2 Get 1 Free deals, there is no question your printer running costs will be low.
