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You can tell it was built on a budget, but as far as budget printers go, this one's pretty good. If you work from home but need all the advantages of an office printer, the OfficeJet Pro is an excellent choice. In terms of sheer printing speed, the HP is ahead of most others in its price range. It printed the 10 pages in just 32 seconds and scanned and printed them in 1 minute, 12 seconds.
The Canon Pixma TR150 works as a wired USB Type-C printer and as a portable wireless printer . The printer measures 12.7 x 7.3 x 2.6 inches and weighs just 4.5 pounds, making it easily transportable in a briefcase or carry-on so you can use it wherever your work takes you. We also considered the build quality, design, and dimensions of the printers and included both, compact and large printers in our list. The HP Deskjet is a smart-looking small-in-one with an even smaller price tag. It can print, copy and scan in color and accept any size media from envelopes up to A4.
Best Home Office Printer
Sometimes all you need is a device that prints, and paying extra for a bigger device with imaging features you don't need doesn't make sense. That said, most home offices will benefit from at least occasional copying and scanning, and therefore choose an AIO. Even if you don't make a lot of copies, if one of the reasons for buying a printer is reducing your family's need to run local errands, spending a little extra for a part-time copier makes sense. We’re less than enamored with HP’s dinky slide-and-fold output tray, which extends out of the front of the printer. If your print jobs consist mainly of text documents and occasional colorized homework, the Pixma iX6820 is overkill. It is also very slow, and, because you'd need to replace each ink tank, it can be costly to maintain over time; you only need to replace the ink that runs out, rather than the whole set, however.
Our top choice, the Canon PIXMA MG3620 Wireless All-In-One Color Inkjet Printer, can print, scan, and copy through Alexa, an app on your smartphone, or from your computer. Forbes/Jason R. RichIf you use an inkjet printer only occasionally, preserve your ink cartridges longer by removing them from the printer and storing them upright within a sealed plastic bag. Anytime you purchase new ink, leave it within its original packaging until you’re ready to use it. Owing to the high price of Canon's black ink cartridge, this printer isn't ideal for those who only want to print plain text documents.
What To Look For When Buying A Printer
Unfortunately, this printer tends to push printed sheets off the output tray, which can be inconvenient as you'll have to rearrange your prints into the right order. This issue can also cause misaligned prints, wasting more time and paper. It doesn't happen all the time, but it's an inconvenience nonetheless. If you want to save yourself the hassle, the Brother is a better choice. This model can get the job done; just be aware that you might run into some problems occasionally. Printer ink can be most of the biggest monthly expenses a small business has if it prints a lot of copies.
Canon's higher-end Pixma Pro models can produce even better quality than the iX6820, but those units cost much more and are bigger and heavier. For the price, we think the Pixma iX6820 delivers results that, for most people, are just as good. Like most low-cost printers, the TR4520 uses two ink cartridges — one black and one tri-color. It can print photos, but don't expect the vibrancy you'd get from a photo printer and we wouldn't print anything larger than 4 x 6. It's not fast nor are inks cheap, but if you print occasionally, the TR4520 is a good value. The quality of prints from the SC-P900 will not disappoint, in both color and black and white.
Create Lab-Quality Photo Prints At Home
Monochrome laser printers are a good choice for inexpensive, high-volume document printing if you don't need color. It’s very easy to set up and use and is suitable for running off homework, letters, boarding passes and the like. Despite its low price, the Canon Pixma TS205 can even print photos on glossy photo paper. Print quality is generally very good, and in fact a lot better than you might expect from such a cheap printer. In addition to speed, you'll want a printer that spits out high-quality documents.

This is a workhorse though, designed for high-volume text, not imagery. In fact, the Pixma scored better in color reproduction when placed against other, more expensive all-in-one printers when printing on glossy paper. Some printers suffer from dimpling when printing images but the Pixma didn't and the skin tones were far better on the Canon image than on other brands.
Epson Expression Home XP-2100 printer
When printing photos, look for printers with higher print resolution, borderless printing or that can print on tabloid-size paper. The best photo printers use six colors to do a better job at producing lab-quality photo prints. A low-priced printer won't be as fast as, or rated for as high a volume of pages per month as, an enterprise business model.

The drawback is that it's a print-only unit, so you have to be sure you won't need to scan anything. Laser isn't for everyone, but if you make a lot of prints that occasionally need to be in color, the HL-L3230CDW is a good option. With that said, laser printers do not support printing on photo paper and replacement toners are very costly.
The Mini 3 Retro is also offered in three colors and its $156.99 starter kit comes with enough media for 68 prints (30-, 60-, and 90-pack refills are available). Brother's MFC-J4335DW is such an appealing all-in-one printer that it's hard to find for its $159.99 list price. The ADF doesn't handle double-sided pages, but you have to sacrifice something in this price range.

If you find our budget pick too expensive still, check out the Canon PIXMA MG3620, the best cheap printer we've tested. It's a simple all-in-one inkjet printer designed for people who only print occasionally. We say 'occasionally' because this model uses a two-cartridge system, meaning it only has a black and a tri-color cartridge. It still produces high-quality black and color prints, but it runs out of ink quickly, so you'll have to replace the cartridges often. Also, you'll have to replace the tri-color cartridge even if only a single color runs out. It isn't so much a cost issue, as the ink cartridges are fairly cheap; it's just a lot of maintenance, and you might end up with lots of faded or incomplete prints.
This means you can have your standard office paper in one and use the rear feed for photo paper. There are printers with better print speed, from Canon and others. If you find yourself eating through cartridges and your bank balance, the Canon PIXMA G620 MegaTank should be near the top of your list. This reduces printing costs to roughly 10% of equivalent cartridge printers. If you print a lot, the money you save on ink will cover the upfront cost of the printer.
Mark Mayne has been writing about and reviewing technology for going on two decades, but still loves a good app and setup manual. To the best of our knowledge, all content is accurate as of the date posted, though offers contained herein may no longer be available. The opinions expressed are the author’s alone and have not been provided, approved, or otherwise endorsed by our partners. Our ratings take into account a product's cost, features, ease of use, customer service and other category-specific attributes. Shop your favorite products and we’ll find the best deal with a single click. Into a PDF -- I needed to keep the ads the same on every test so the live article wouldn't do.
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