Advice on Buying a New Inkjet Printer

One of the most regular questions I get asked at UNeedink is what type of InkJet printers are best? There are loads of different makes and models on the market! So what are the differences between them? What gives the best performance? For home use? For office use? What about associated running costs?

As a retailer selling ALL makes of inkjet cartridges we believe that we are in a good and independent position to advise people of the relative benefits of each make.

Broadly speaking there are 2 separate types of InkJet printer:

1. Inkjet Printers with the print head built into the printer. Popular makes of these are Canon, Epson & Brother.
2. Inkjet printers with the print head built into the ink cartridge. Popular makes of these are HP, Lexmark, Dell & Samsung

Okay so you are thinking why does this matter? It becomes significant when you consider the ongoing cost of ink cartridges!

• Option 1 - each time you buy a replacement ink cartridge you are only paying for the ink itself.
• Option 2 - each time you buy an replacement ink cartridge, you also buy a new print head, therefore adding an additional cost to the cartridge. Take this difference in price over the lifetime of the printer, then running this type of printer becomes very expensive!!

Furthermore, some printers have just 2 cartridges in them, one for black and one for “tri-colour” (blue, yellow, red) others have 1 cartridge per colour so will have 4 or 6 cartridges (black, cyan, magenta, yellow). Generally speaking, printers that have one cartridge per colour are more efficient. As the ink runs out, you only have to replace that 1 colour cartridge, whereas in a “tricolour” cartridge you might have to throw away ink just because 1 out of the 3 colours has run out. Again, this adds to the overall running costs of you printer. To find out more on this subject, read this interesting article on the efficiency of both types of cartridge

Another consideration is how recently the printer was manufactured? What cartridges does it use? How readily available are the required cartridges? You might want to consider the following:
1. Cartridges may not be widely available- online OR offline.
2. Cost effective compatible type ink cartridges may not be available

So now we know a bit about the types of printers out there and the ink cartridges that go in them! The next steps to consider are speed and print quality.

SPEED: If you are buying for home then perhaps speed isn’t a priority, but if you are buying for a business then this might be a consideration, if so then I suggest that you also consider a laser printer as they are not only faster but the cost per page is less also.

PRINT QUALITY: The best quality inkjet printers for printing photos will be models with four or more colours of ink as they generally produce the best quality- also when loaded with special photo inks and paper.

Finally, what do professionals and other customers think of the printer you are buying? Try sites like PC World, or Amazon for reviews on any potential purchase. The only note of caution on this would be that these reviews focus on the hardware- not necessarily the ongoing costs of ink etc.

That’s it! We hope you found this article useful. When you have bought you new printer, visit www.uneedink.co.uk for ink cartridges, we stock both compatible and original branded cartridges for all makes of printer.