In terms of printer categories, you’re
probably aware of the three basic options by now: inkjet, MFP and laser. We’ll
first explain where you might want to use those, and then go over the features
you should look for in them.
First, inkjets. Cheap inkjets are useful if
you’re just after something that can print out the occasional form or document.
They’re low-priced, low-maintenance and will almost certainly cost more in ink
cartridges during the first year than you spent on the printer itself.
Cheap
inkjets are useful if you’re just after something that can print out the
occasional form or document.
They’re also sold as very basic devices,
which means if you’re planning anything even vaguely fancy (double-sided
printing or multiple paper sizes, for example), you can expect a lot of
fiddling and failed attempts before chancing on the correct procedure.
MFPs are printers with scanning,
stand-alone photocopying and sometimes even fax capabilities built into them.
They tend to be slightly more capable as a result of being a bit more
expensive, but the cheapest still contain poor printers, so be careful.
MFPs
are printers with scanning, stand-alone photocopying and sometimes even fax
capabilities built into them.
Laser printers offer the best quality and
speed of all consumer printers, but they’re also large and hard to maintain.
Ideal for small offices, but not normally necessary for casual home use. Unlike
the inkjet market, where colour units are simple and cheap enough that
monochrome printers have been priced out of existence, there’s still a
substantial difference in price, performance and complexity between colour and
monochrome laser printers. Check which you’re buying before you get the credit
card out!
Laser
printers offer the best quality and speed of all consumer printers, but they’re
also large and hard to maintain
Whichever type of printer you buy, look out
for networking support. This won’t be available in the cheapest models, but the
ability to share a printer on a network is a real time and convenience saver
for households with multiple computers. In some cases, this is Ethernet-only,
but higher-end devices will have wireless support.
Some network-enabled printers come with
their own email account, meaning you can email documents to them, which is
useful if you’re using a web-enabled device that lacks printer support. Many
printers are compatible with Apple’s ‘AirPrint’ standard, which allows you to
print documents direct from your iPhones and iPad, which is incredibly useful
if you have those devices. Android phones don’t have a similar feature, but
most printer manufacturers provide an app that adds the required support for
their hardware. Check in advance if you’re not sure!
As for the specification jargon, don’t
worry too much about the numbers. Unless you’re a designer or printing photos,
any printer you buy will be capable of creating work of high enough quality
that you won’t notice any flaws.
To illustrate, printer resolutions are
given in DPI (which stands for ‘dots-per-inch’). In practical terms, this
describes the level of detail that a printer can reproduce. The higher the DPI,
the better the image will look (and the more ink it requires). DPI values
higher than 600 are more than enough for photograph reproduction in a home
setting (magazines, for example, are usually printed at 300dpi) and even the
cheapest inkjets can reach about 900-1200dpi.
“In these eco-friendly times, do look for
duplex capabilities”
In any case, if you want to print at
resolutions any higher than that, you need high-quality paper that stops the
ink bleeding. So if you can’t imagine yourself buying expensive paper to print
on, that’s reassurance enough that DPI isn’t really an issue worth worrying about.
However, in these eco-friendly times, do
look for duplex capabilities. Duplex means the ability to print on both sides
of a page without human intervention -a real time (and planet!) saver.
Is Now The Right Time To Buy?
At the moment, there’s little to suggest
that printers will come down any further in price. Indeed, some are already
sold at a loss just because the profit margins on ink cartridges are much
better! There’s also no suggestion of any particularly relevant advances in
printer technology on the horizon, so don’t think that might bring down prices
either. If anything, as printing becomes less and less necessary and
manufacturers struggle with a disappearing market, you can expect printers to
actually get more expensive in the long term, rather than cheaper. They’re
already as cheap as they can possibly be!
If
anything, as printing becomes less and less necessary and manufacturers
struggle with a disappearing market, you can expect printers to actually get
more expensive in the long term, rather than cheaper.
With that in mind, we can safely recommend
you buy a printer now if you need one. Although given the time of year, it
might not be an awful idea to wait until the sales if you can hold out until
January!
What Are The Technical Constraints?
Printers need only two things: a power
supply, and a connection to your computer. Whether the latter is a USB cable,
an Ethernet cable, a wireless network connection or an email account accessed
over the web doesn’t necessarily matter. If you can provide those two things,
your printer should work. Cheap printers need to be connected to a PC, while
stand-alone MFPs and laser printers just need a network connection (so make
sure you have the space near your network hub).
However, bear in mind that printers also
need drivers (in most cases, at least). If you’re running a particularly old
version of Windows (or, indeed, a particularly new version) there’s a chance
that the drives might not be available. Check for compatibility or workarounds
if you’re not sure! mm
What’sThe Alternative?
If you don’t have (or don’t want) a
printer, you have two choices: try to live without one (difficult) or use
someone else’s (inconvenient). And that’s more or less it. Admittedly,
innovations like the iPhone’s ‘PassBook’ are trying to turn printing into a
thing of the past, by offering a digital interface for things like tickets and
vouchers that you might otherwise have to print, but we’re a long way off that.
3D
Printer
However, there is something else that’s
like a printer but not: the 3D printer. They’re not used for exactly the same
purpose, but far from trying to make everything digital, 3D printers mean you
can create all manner of three-dimensional physical objects using nothing more
than your computer and printer. The magic happens through a process of additive
manufacture: layers of material (for example, plastic dust) are laid down on
top of one another, and fused together by heat at each stage, resulting in a
solid physical object at the end.
3D printing isn’t quite ready to come into
the home, although hobbyists and enthusiasts have demonstrated that it can be
used to create simple items like coathooks, backscratchers, replacement parts
for home tools and ornaments, as well as more complex items like torches and
motors, which use conductive inks to form circuits. Slightly worryingly,
someone has even produced a design for a working, 3D-printed gun.
The
Solidoodle 2
Today, the price of the hardware and
materials is far from cheap, but it’s likely that they’ll come down if demand
is sufficient. The Solidoodle 2, for example, is a simple 6 x 6 x 6 inch
printer which can be bought fully assembled for $499, while the larger and more
versatile Fab@Home 2.0 costs as much as $2,000. So while you may be using less paper
in the future, it’s possible that you’ll still have a printer in your home -
just a 3D one instead.
