When purchasing a printer for home or office, you should remember that it is impossible to expand or update the functionality for this device - therefore, you should clearly understand in advance what type of printer is needed in order to fully satisfy all your needs.
For example, if you assume that in the future you will have to print A3 documents, you should not buy a standard A4 printer - otherwise, sooner or later, you will have to buy a second one. Even before buying a printer, you need to decide on the amount that you are willing to spend on servicing this device and consumables for it. Well, and, of course, before buying a printer, it is important to clearly formulate future tasks - that is, to understand what exactly and how often you will print.
Of course, printers of the standard A4 format (297 by 210mm) are bought for home much more often. For offices, both A4 printers and A3 printers are purchased - taking into account the possible need to print drawings or posters. To choose the right printer, pay attention to its resolution. Printers for conventional printing range from 300 to 600 dpi (dots per square inch horizontally and vertically). To print high quality photos, you must select a printer with a resolution of at least 1200 dpi.
You also need to decide in advance on the type of printer that you plan to purchase. Inkjet printers are relatively inexpensive, the simplest of which involve a three-color ink tank, but more often you can see inkjet printers with four ink tanks (they are filled with yellow, cyan, magenta and black ink). Unfortunately, inkjet printers are quite uneconomical - their ink tanks will need frequent refills.
Laser printers are more expensive than their inkjet counterparts, but their maintenance costs are much lower. Laser printers work on a different principle - in them the coloring matter adheres tightly to the paper in the place of heating. Therefore, purchasing a laser printer cartridge for almost the same price as a refilled inkjet printer cartridge, you will be able to print ten times more sheets with it. And the print quality of the laser printer is higher. In addition, a laser printer prints text much faster than an inkjet printer. Usually, if there is no urgent need to print material in color, they purchase a black-and-white laser printer - it costs much less than a color one.
In some offices, dot matrix printers are still considered obsolete. Their capabilities are extremely limited - the printout can only be black and white. The print quality is not very high, and such a printer is slow and noisy. At the same time, it is the cheapest printer option in terms of both purchase and maintenance. If you buy a printer primarily in order to print photographs on it, pay attention to special photo printers. They are quite expensive to maintain, as they involve the use of special paper, which is relatively expensive.
In any case, when buying a printer, you should pay attention to both its characteristics and the reputation of the manufacturer. Most often, printers of popular brands Epson, Cannon or HP are purchased for both home and office. For offices, MFPs are often purchased - multifunctional devices that are a combination of a printer with a copier and a scanner. This can sometimes save space and money, but in most cases it is better to purchase these devices separately.
