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Office moved home during the pandemic, or have a student who needs to churn out quick report drafts? The humble desktop printer will never die—and it's handy for quick copies and scans, too. See our top printer picks under $200, backed by PC Labs' decades of hands-on reviews.
Many of the latest inkjet printers now rely on high-capacity ink tanks, as opposed to individual ink cartridges. This is definitely a more economical option and eliminates the need of constantly having to swap out cartridges, as the ink tanks typically hold enough ink to last about two years. Full duplex printers can automatically print to both sides of a page. Duplex printers are nice to have at home, but essential in an office. Using this feature, you’ll save a lot of paper, so the environment and your wallet will thank you. On the downside, when using full duplex printing with an inkjet printer, you may need to use thicker paper to eliminate ink bleed through.
Canon imagePROGRAF PRO-1000
Handily, the ET-3850 features an automatic document feeder, which we found allowed documents to be scanned and copied with relative ease, giving you access to all of this printer’s facets at once. If it’s low printing costs you’re after, the Epson EcoTank ET-1810 is going to be a great printer for you. The costs to run the PIXMA is standard for a cartridge-based printer, costing around 9p or so per page using standard cartridges. This isn’t bad going, but if your bottom line is the most important thing, then opting for the Epson ET-2720 will likely serve you better. You would expect top-class prints at this price, and this Canon will easily produce exhibition-quality prints.
While manufacturers provide cartridge yield data, the answer here varies depending on what type of content you’re printing. Most printers offer a “draft” mode that allows the printer to work faster and use less toner or ink, but the print quality will be lesser than in normal mode. This might suffice in some cases, but not if you’re sharing your output with clients or colleagues. And if you’re printing full-page, full-color photos, the printer uses more ink than usual. Your choice of printer depends on how much you routinely print—a few pages per month or dozens each day—as well as whether you want to print photos or two-sided documents. You also need to consider if you simply require black and white (often referred to as monochrome or simply “black” in the printer’s specs) output, or you want full color printing at your disposable.
HP Deskjet 2755e All-in-One Printer w/ bonus 6 months Instant Ink through HP+
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.
It prints on a variety of clear or colored labels up to 0.71 inch wide, on silver-matte or strong adhesive tape, or fluorescent tape available in five colors. For most of the Information Age, countless pundits predicted that, sooner or later, much of the world's workforce would be working from home. Fewer office skyscrapers, less drain on fossil fuels, goodbye to nasty traffic snarls—remote work would no longer be just for a select few professionals. As it happened, it took a global pandemic to bring governments and companies to their work-from-home senses—and to revitalize interest in affordable hardware, including the oft-neglected printer. If you need the speed and reliability of a laser printer and the versatility of color, the M255dw delivers. Setting up the G650 is straightforward (especially after setting up the EcoTank ET-8500 above), as the ink-filling process and system are very similar.
How to Buy a Cheap Printer
Using a printer to generate photo prints is more convenient, but the cost per print will typically be higher than what you’d pay a photo lab. Most of today’s printers have wireless connectivity, so you can send files via Wi-Fi rather than plugging directly into the printer’s USB or ethernet port. Most support wireless printing standards—including Apple AirPrint , Mopria and Wi-Fi Direct. Other than evaluating the print speed and auto duplex functionality, you’ll also want to look at the printer’s connectivity options, control panel usability, and Wi-Fi functionality. This printer is compatible with both Windows and macOS and is fairly lightweight so that it can be moved around easily. There is enough toner in the box for 700 pages, and a new standard cartridge will give you 1,000 pages.
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.
Its refillable ink tanks can print up to 6,000 black and white pages or 14,000 color pages before the tanks need to be refilled—making it more cost-effective than cartridge-based inkjet printers. At one time, laser printers were considered faster, more reliable, and less expensive to use and were lauded for better output quality than inkjet machines. A surprising number of people still spout these traditional wisdoms, but they're decidedly unwise nowadays. Lasers may still have an edge for super-sharp text on plain paper , but inkjets are superior for photo prints and have made huge strides in print quality and speed. We bust some myths and break down pros and cons in our inkjet versus laser comparison.
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.
But for small-business and photo-centric purposes, it's tough to beat. The Pixma G3560 is a three-in-one multifunction printer capable of printing, copying and scanning, created to cater for hybrid workers. Like Epson's version, this lets you fill internal tanks with ink from bottles, rather than buying cartridges. This cuts print costs and helps to prevent ink wastage, and there’s a viewing window so you can see exactly how much ink remains in the four chambers at a glance. The setup of the G3560 is relatively quick and easy thanks to the Canon app and the small but usable LCD screen, but the rear paper feed is unremarkable and takes up more space than some other models. Print quality is excellent, at up to 5760 x 1,440 dpi, and documents print as quickly as you could wish for.
If you will be printing a lot of documents, you want a printer that can keep up. Print speeds are fastest for black and white documents, slower for color documents, and slowest for photos. Check out our specifications to see the actual printing speed so you can get an idea of how long you will have to wait for your document to print. The Brother Compact Monochrome Laser Printer printed a black and white document in just 12 seconds, while some of the other printers we tested took up to a minute.
If you’re willing to spend a bit for a standalone, flatbed or sheet-fed scanner, you won’t have trouble finding one that boasts an impressive 4,800 x 4,800 dpi or up to 6,400 x 6,400 dpi resolution. Many of the more modern printers also can print directly from cloud-based services such as Microsoft OneDrive, Google Drive or Dropbox. We’ve been scouring all of the biggest retailers to help you save money. Don’t wait, however, as many of these deals are only offered for a limited time.
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