Hate Expensive, Unreliable Printers? Here are 5 of the Best Printers We Tested.
CR has evaluated thousands of models for text quality, graphics quality, and ink usage. These models from Brother, Canon, and Epson rise to the top.
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Two things to know about printers: First, most people buy inkjet models, and second, most people hate their printers.
See the correlation? So we generally advise folks to avoid buying printers that use ink cartridges. They’re not very reliable—unlike almost any other device you purchase in an electronics store, they have moving parts. And the cartridges can be wildly expensive, with replacement ink costs for a $100 printer running as much as $100 annually.
Best Basic Home Printer If You Print a Lot
Best Laser Printer That Faxes and Scans Too
Best Inkjet Printer for Long-Term Savings
Best Inkjet Printer for a Super-Tight Budget
Best Color Printer for a Graphics Pro
Inkjets vs. Laser Printers
If you’re like most shoppers, you’re probably used to buying a very inexpensive inkjet model that uses ink cartridges. And while we understand that impulse—cheap is good—our consumer research and laboratory testing have found that for most consumers, laser printers are a better alternative.
According to our expert evaluations, inkjet printers have three fundamental problems.
- They often don’t do a great job printing text, the primary job people want them to do.
- While frequently cheap to buy, they saddle you with high ink costs for expensive replacement cartridges and wasteful ink maintenance cycles required just to keep the machine working. The typical person might spend $70 a year or more on ink cartridges, which can double the cost of ownership for a printer in as little as two years.
- And finally, data from our surveys of CR members suggests that inkjet printers are not as reliable as laser printers.
Add all that up and it’s no surprise that consumer satisfaction with inkjet printers, as measured in those same surveys, is quite low.
That’s why we find that for typical home use, the best option is generally a black-and-white laser. Our research shows that people rarely print graphics and almost never print photos, but they print lots and lots of text in black and white.
And that’s where monochrome laser printers excel. They print crisp text, and they print it fast and economically. Our survey data says they’re generally more reliable than inkjets in the long term, which is why many of the survey respondents who bought laser printers really love them.
What about those times when you need to print in color? Most office supply stores can do a beautiful job of printing that one-off presentation, your kids’ school project, or those precious family photos on a professional-quality printer for relatively little money.
Some people, however, do need to print in color quite frequently, and if that’s you, there’s still a way to do so that’s economical. With tank printers, which use refillable ink reservoirs instead of disposable ink cartridges, you can spend less than $10 a year on bottled ink as opposed to $70 or more for ink cartridges. Color laser printers are also an option, though their relatively high purchase price and toner costs make them better suited to a small business or a graphics pro.
How CR Tests Printers
We buy all of our test samples through regular retail channels. No freebies for us. We then rigorously test every printer we evaluate on more than 250 data points, churning out hundreds of pages of text and images and running the models out of ink again and again. We combine those test results from our labs with brand reliability and owner satisfaction ratings derived from our member surveys to arrive at an Overall Score that lets you compare every model on the same scale.
The printers in this roundup of top models (available to CR members) print text with dependable quality and speed. Some models include document feeder and scan and copy features, and those models get extra credit for that. A few excel at graphics. And nearly all carry a low purchase price and low ongoing ink or toner costs.
@consumerreports Our tests reveal that laser or tank-style inkjet printers can be cheaper in the long run. See the cheapest printers for ink costs through the link in our bio. #homeoffice #printer #techtok #techtoktips
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