Buying a Printer

Choosing the best Printer for your needs

At Ink Depot we want to help you make the right decision in buying a printer. Selecting a printer can be overwhelming. The best idea is to break down your needs into a manageable checklist and make sure your printer meets those needs. 

As a leading supplier of printers and printer ink cartridges we receive questions from customers on how to make the best decision when it comes to choosing a printer. You have many printer brands to choose from. The popular brands customers like to choose include Canon, Epson, Lexmark, Brother, Kyocera to name a few. To help you make the right purchase decision you need to consider some of the factors identified below.

Cost:

There are two main factors to consider when it comes to the cost of your new printer. Firstly, the initial purchase cost of your printer can be an indicator of your longer term costs. With so many low cost printers on the market customers can purchase a seemingly cheap printer only to find it costs them more to replace the ink cartridges then it did to buy the printer. Buyer Beware! The cost of the replacement cartridges is the second and most important cost factor to consider when buying your new printer. We often have customers coming to us for replacement ink cartridges and hear their disappointment when their cheap printer is no longer the bargain they first thought. Please make sure you look at how much the replacement ink cartridges are before you buy your new printer.

Printer function:

Consider the types of jobs you need your printer to perform. Do you need a standard black and white printer for basic text printing? Or perhaps a multi function printer with many add ons such as fax, scanner, memory, networking potential etc.  The other factors to consider are the size, speed of printing, colour, printer cartridge yield, print cartridge configuration (i.e. combined cartridges or individual ink tanks for each colour which can be more economical) and the print quality and resolution. Other features you may need to consider are the paper tray capacity, page feeder functionality, double sided printing (also known as duplex printing), computer connections available, memory capacity for large printing jobs or multi-users, slots for memory/camera cards, and auto document feeders.

Usage patterns:

Consider your likely volume of printing?  Many printers are able use high capacity print cartridges for high volume printing which means you will get more pages for your money. Some printers only use black printer cartridges which is great for text only printing. If you produce documents with lots of graphics and photos then you will need to find a printer that has colour ink cartridges. You will want to consider the speed of printing or pages per minute (PPM) for your printer if you are printing high volumes to ensure your printer is cost and time efficient.

Quality of output:

If you are planning on printing a lot of photos or high quality printing, another factor to consider when buying your printer is the Resolution. The resolution is often referred to as dots per inch (DPI). Resolution is important if you are printing photos so it may be worthwhile selecting a printer designed just for photo production. Many printers now come with specially configured photo printer cartridges. In these cases your photo printer will often need specifically formulated photo ink (e.g. Photo Black) as well as the standard ink cartridge colours.

You can check out our range of printers from leading brands at Ink Depot.  You can read the reviews on potential printers at the many of the independent review websites such as CNET.  

Please contact us at Ink Depot for more information about printers and their ink and toner cartridges or check out our informative blog articles.