Printers are essential devices, which performs an essential role because they make electronic information in the files released to persons or property. You are simply not using your computer to its full potential if you are not able to print reports, presentations, letters, photos, or anything you need for production . Choosing a printer can be confusing, however, from those of the competition, the landscape is ever-changing. This buying guide some of the most important sets criteria to be considered before making that all-important decision.
Printing Technologies
This is the most important decision to be made before anything else. Your choice should be based on how you work and the output will look to the printer.
• Inkjet: inkjets can deliver amazing color, so this is the way to go if you are mostly concerned with printing photos. These printers can be used to print text, but the print speed is too slow, if the main aim of the printer is printing the document. For more realistic picture, choose inkjet printers with a wider range of colors that includes the light cyan and magenta in addition to the standard four-color CMYK (cyan, magenta, yellow and black). Other colors deliver more subtle color gradations in the blue sky and skin tones. And if you print a lot of black and white photos, photo printers discuss with more than one variation of black ink with or gray inks. Many photo printers use colored inks to produce a composite black, resulting in a muddy hue. A second black ink cartridge and different gray levels help maintain a neutral tone, gray ink for subtle shading and thus improve the quality of black and white photos.
• Dye-sublimation: Dye-sub printers can print sounds and a color range that exceeds laser printers are incapable of making them ideal for more demanding graphics applications or color printing. Thermal dye transfer prints are also less prone to fading and distortion over time to dye-based ink prints. In addition, many consumers based on dye-sublimation printers can print directly from digital cameras and also accept memory cards. However, they are more limited in scope and the size of the impression that the media can be used, usually letter-size paper or smaller.
• Laser: Laser printers are the ideal solution if you need to print large quantities of textual. They print faster than inkjet printers, and have a lower cost of the operation in the long term-even though it may be more expensive to purchase initially. There are trade-offs, however. Monochrome laser printers produce black and white text, but can not be used for color printing. Color lasers to provide excellent text and graphics, but are much more expensive and can be costly to maintain.
Printer Usage
Some printers are good for the overall impression, while others are more specialized tasks or combining several functions in one unit.
• Photo: If you take a lot of pictures, consider getting a photo printer. Photo printers can take the form of photo - inkjet printers that can print both photos and text; instant-photo 
printers for output of small 4x6-inch prints; or professional photo-printers for large, tabloid size photos and often including network connections to enable sharing printer. Most consumers and professionals photo printers use ink-jet technology, while most of the snapshot photo printers which print 4x6-inch prints based on dye sublimation technology. Regardless of the type or technology that is used, the most important thing to look for in a photo printer is photorealistic quality. Everything else is secondary.
• General objective: As its name indicates, general purpose printers can be used to print almost anything, including text and photos. Choose a large-format printer using a laser if you print more pictures than text, and choose a format inkjet, if you print more pictures than text. • Multifunction: multifunction printers (MFPs) into one unit several functions such as printing, scanning, faxing and copying. MFPs cost less than buying separate stand-alone devices, and reduce the desire to set up individual machines. If you are strapped budget or space, consider these all-in-one devices. Take note, however, that a malfunction of a single component captures the entire unit, and individual components can be extensible. MFPs are supplied with laser printers to emphasize fast printing of text and graphics on the occasion of output, or they are available with inkjet printers for photo printing dynamic.
Printer Specifications and features keys
Printers according to individual specifications, so navigating required by the spec sheet intelligently familiarity with what each specification comprises according printing technology involved or the type of use for the printer.
• Resolution: For laser printers, 300 dpi is sufficient if all you need is to print black and white text, but choose at least 1200 dpi for photorealistic grayscale or color printing. For inkjets, choose one star of 1200 dpi or higher resolution with a size of 4 picoliter droplets for smaller or large, clean production. With photo printers, the resolution varies depending on the technology: the output at 300 dpi for photo printers using dye sublimation technology is comparable to that of photo printers inkjet technology using output by 1200 dpi or more.
• Speed: Speed ratings vary greatly, and print speeds cited by the manufacturers usually refer to the printing in draft mode or at the lowest resolution. For laser printers, with more precision of the measurement of the actual print speed is both just how long it takes from the moment you click on "Print" - the time it takes the 'printer to warm up, the body of work in the print queue, and for the printed output to pull out. For inkjet printers, printing speed is not one of his strongest suits, therefore we must not be too concerned with this specification.
• Memory: More memory will be useful for laser printers to allow them to process images and documents more easily. Check the maximum allowable memory expandable your printer, if it has a hard disk with the same memory expandable, and if the printer can use generic needs of the memory or the manufacturer's mark. In the case of inkjet printers, memory is not integrated and extensible, but it is not a problem to the extent that the processing occurs on the side of the computer, so there's no require large amounts of RAM installed on the first inkjet printers.
• Connectivity: Most printers today no longer support the older parallel connection, but instead feature USB 1.1 or Hi-Speed USB (USB 2.0), either of which should work well with computers USB. For printers to be used on a network, you must have an Ethernet port to enable printer sharing. For more flexible printing options, you can look for printers with infrared input / output ports that allow wireless printing from laptops or other devices with infrared ports. And if high-speed and long-distance, the impression is what you need, consider printers with a FireWire port.
Consumables and the cost per page
The purchase price of the printer is just the beginning of its overall cost, because over time, the hidden costs of ink or toner, paper and coins will be added. Such "hidden costs" are consumables; dividing the total cost of consumables by the number of pages that can be produced from the consumables gives you the cost per page. Laser printers offer the lowest cost per page, using relatively inexpensive toner and normal weight, uncoated paper. By contrast, the cost per page of inkjet printers can be four or five times more, depending on the amount of ink used and the cost of paper, usually more expensive, coatings, paper quality color output. The tank configuration for inkjet printers should also be taken into consideration. Inkjet printers with a single cartridge for color inks will incur higher costs because replacement of the cartridge must be replaced as soon as one of the color is exhausted, even if the cartridge contains much ink for other colors. To help reduce costs, obtain an inkjet with separate cartridges for black and each color.
