What is the best Laser Printer for me?

Choosing the best Printer

Printers are an essential peripheral for many of us. Whether we're using them for printing reports and other documents, publishing newsletters or just printing photos, they've become a standard part of a home computer system. However, not all printers perform equally well with every task. Here, we'll provide you with a few basic tips to help you avoid the hassle and expense of buying a printer or multifunction device that doesn't live up to your expectations.

Printer Resolution and Speed

The first and most critical aspect of printers that you'll need to be familiar with is one of the more obscure; print resolution. Print resolution may sound a little complex with the talk of DPI or "dots per inch". Simply speaking this is a measure of how many pixels or "dots" the printer can place in one square-inch. The higher the DPI, the better the print quality. Generally speaking, you want a DPI of at least 300 for text printing, and 1200 DPI if you plan to print your own photos.

Print Speed

This one's pretty much straightforward, but still important to keep in mind. Print speed is generally given in PPM (pages per minute). For most consumer printers, this one's going to be a trade off with resolution. The faster printers that can give you 25 PPM or higher do so with a decreased resolution. Therefore most color printers available give two numbers for print speed. The first number refers to black & white print speed, while the lower number is the speed for full color prints.

Number of Colors

You probably won't care a whole lot about this one unless you plan on printing your own photos. Most general-use printers only use two cartridges; a black toner cartridge, and a combination cartridge of red, cyan and yellow colors. However, if image quality if critical to you, photo printers are available with up to eight separate color cartridges which will greatly enhance the image contrast and quality.

Extra Features and Options

Make sure you know what features you'd use or would like before you shop. If you'd like a printer that's capable of printing directly from your digital media cards, you're able to confine your search to models offering only that feature. Similarly, if you can live without the additional "extras" such as CD and DVD label printing, knowing what you need in advance can save the extra premium costs that the additional unnecessary features tack on to the price.

Find a cheap compatible Printer Cartridge!