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The following advises are based on many years of experience. They are provided as a free service to our customers and visitors. However, Computer Warehouse is not responsible for any damage as a result of following any of these guides.
- Home vs. Office. For home users who print documents occasionally and for various purposes such as school projects, a color ink printer would be sufficient. The entire family will enjoy the color output. For office users who print daily, the speed and the reliability of a laser printer will be appreciated. For a well-budgeted office, it’s recommended to have both types of printers to meet the requirements of different purposes.
- Black-White vs. Color. To most people laser-printing means black and white and inkjet printing means color. Color printing has come a long way. The result could be amazing. It’s great for banners, broachers, newsletters, report covers, art design, marketing materials, greeting cards, and other fun projects. However, inkjet printers are often slower, cost more per page, requires more frequent change of ink cartridge, and is more prone to reliability issues.
Laser printing is much more mature now. It’s fast, reliable, and inexpensive. It’s great for documents, simple graphics, and faxes. However, it’s mostly only black and white.
- Color laser. If you plan to print color documents often and have enough money for the initial capital investment, a color laser printer is recommended. The initial cost is obviously higher than a black/white printer and a color inkjet printer combined. However, the actual printing cost per page is lower than if you have the color page copied by a commercial copier. The printing is much faster and more reliable than an ink printer. The result is often astonishing!
- Multifunctional. A multifunctional printer/fax/copier/scanner makes sense for saving space and money. It’s often less expensive then buying a separate printer, fax machine, copier and scanner. This should however be intended for light usage of each and all functions. For instance, if you expect to receive many faxes everyday, it’s better to have a stand-alone fax machine; otherwise the faxing function would interfere with the printing and copying function. A separate fax machine often has special functions that allow you to manage the faxes better. (We recommend a software fax program in a PC to receive and print incoming faxes and a stand-alone fax machine to send faxes). Another drawback of the multifunctional is the reliability. The more functions one machine has the more chances for breaking down. If any of the functions is broken and you send the machine for repair, the other functions are affected as well.
- Dot Matrix. With the ever-falling price of color ink printers, black-and-white dot-matrix printers are virtually dinosaurs for home usage. It’s only used now in offices to print invoices and receipts that require duplicate copies. One thing that ink or laser cannot replace dot matrix is the impact printing that can result in duplicate copies in one run.
- Brands. Printer is one computer product that we recommend choosing by the brands. All printers have moving parts, which could cause reliability problems down on the road. Name brands with relatively long history of printing technology are of the choice if the prices and specs are similar.
- Price. This is somewhat contradictory to the brand choices. Printer technologies are for the most part mutual now, resulting in severe competition and a buyer market. Giving the same specs, it’s OK to choose a printer by the price, especially for budget-conscious users.
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