All In One Printers Buyers Guide

The Modern Mantra of Multifunction

While looking up the printer options available in the market, when it comes to buying printers, you will find that you are spoilt for choice. The variety that the market offers you is nothing less than staggering. In order to zero in on the right kind of printer you need to understand your needs, your budget and several other factors.

Your requirements

These days the market offers you all-in-one printers, which are multifunctional in nature. There are quite a few reasons whose existence could make you decide on purchasing these all-in-one printers. Firstly, you should be in need of a scanner, a copier, a fax machine along with a printer. Accommodating all these units in your house or office may be difficult due to space constraints. Also, buying all these units could weigh heavy on your budget and hence, make you compromise on the quality of one or more units. All these problems can be avoided if you opt for all-in-one printers.

Inkjet or laser?

Once you have decided that you wish to opt for an all-in-one printer, you will be faced with two more options - inkjet and laser. This will again depend on your printing requirement. If you need colored printing you might wish to go for the inkjet version. However, if you think you will use the printer for black and white printing only it is better to go for laser technology, as the quality is better and most laser printers offer only black and white printing. The color versions are quite costly.

Features

The standard all-in-one printers have the four features of printing, scanning, copying and faxing. The quality of each feature will again be determined by your need. For instance, if the copier is very important for you may wish to opt for one an all-in-one printer that has a glass top arrangement for copying. Again, if the faxing feature is more important you might like one that has a good memory support.

There is a wide variety available in case of all-in-one printers too. There are some that come without the faxing unit. Some others come with the OCR or the Optical Character Recognition technology that allows you to scan a document and save it in your system for editing at a later date. You might find some others, which are available with automatic document feeder. Slightly advanced units will give you excellent quality printing and therefore allows you to print photographs. All-in-one printers that are PictBridge enabled are also in vogue.

Certain features that you would wish your all-in-one printer to possess could be speed dial for the faxing system, high resolution, different printing modes, facilities for different media types like CDs and DVDs, Ethernet or Parallel links connection, duplex mode that allow double-sided printing, etc.

Other important factors

There are a few things that you need to keep in mind while buying an all-in-one printer. Check the running cost of the unit to estimate the effective cost. Also check how independently you can use any of the four available functions in the all-in-one. The all-in-one printer often is a slow unit and so you need to check the speed before you buy one. Choose a printer that has high quality scanning, adequate printer memory, high speed printing and low power usage. Research well, before you buy your all-in-one printer. Compare costs and finally buy a printer that is worth every penny you spend on it. There may be a few disadvantages that you will encounter while using your all-in-one printer but all the conveniences that you get from it will outdo the demerits and keep you from regretting your investment in the all-in-one.

Key Features

Key Features   Black Print Speed   Max Resolution (BW)   Color Print Speed		With over 200 all in one printers on the market, key features such as Black Print Speed, Max Resolution (BW) & Color Print Speed are important factors when buying. These features not only effect the performane and quality of the all in one printer you choose, but also the price. Shown below are price guides for a selection of all in one printers focusing on the key features: Black Print Speed, Max Resolution (BW) & Color Print Speed.

Black Print Speed 60 sec/page £59.00 22 ppm £64.00 29 ppm £100.00 20 ppm £180.00 * 20 ppm £180.00

Max Resolution (BW) 300 x 300 dpi £63.00 600 x 600 dpi £84.00 2400 x 600 dpi £116.00 1200 x 600 dpi £427.00 * 600 x 600 dpi £84.00

Color Print Speed 18 ppm £59.00 31 sec/print £66.00 15 ppm £83.00 12 ppm £668.00 * 19 ppm £132.00

* Taking into account all current all in one printers on the market the most desirable would be a all in one printer with 20 ppm Black Print Speed, 600 x 600 dpi Max Resolution (BW) and 19 ppm Color Print Speed.

Price Guide

Min    £49.90 Avg    £126.80 Max    £668.00		All In One Printers cost anywhere from £49.90 for a basic all in one printer with few features to around £668.00 for a fully featured all in one printer.