Key Features

Speed: The marketing war among printer vendors has escalated so much that it has yielded utterly meaningless print-speed ratings. Vendors frequently cite ratings based on printing only the simplest text documents, or printing in draft mode, and some don't include the time it takes for the PC to send a job to the printer. In any case, claimed speeds are frequently two, three, or more times faster than the speeds you'll see in real-world printing.

Though you'll get similarly misleading promises from monochrome and color laser vendors, you will find faster speeds. In the most recent tests, monochrome lasers printed text at 15.0 to 25.1 ppm; color lasers printed text somewhat slower, at 6.8 to 18.7 ppm. For graphics, color lasers' printing speeds ranged from 1.1 to 5.6 ppm--much slower than advertised.

Print quality: Most monochrome and color lasers print razor-sharp text. Color lasers print color charts and other two-dimensional graphics well, but they can't match inkjets in handling photographs. On the other hand, while inkjet photos can be beautiful, especially on glossy paper, most inkjet printers produce somewhat fuzzy, jagged text and can't reproduce fine detail in line art or graphics.

Resolution: Inkjet printers generally have a maximum color resolution of 4800 by 1200 dots per inch (dpi). Many printers also use software to interpolate an image and to smooth out patches of color, fill in gaps, and sharpen more-detailed sections. Such enhancements can affect print quality as much as the printer's resolution. The best way to determine print quality is not to look at the resolution specs but to print out a sample and judge for yourself.

Monochrome lasers usually have a maximum resolution of either 1200 by 1200 or 600 by 600 dpi, and color lasers usually offer a maximum color resolution of either 2400 by 1200 dpi or 2400 by 600 dpi. Even these fairly modest resolutions for lasers suffice for printing sharp text and simple graphics.
Cost per page: For inkjets, the cost of ink has the biggest impact on the overall cost of the printer over time. Vendors generally charge $20 to $40 for a three-color cartridge and $10 to $35 for a separate black cartridge. Usually, the cheaper a cartridge is, the less ink it holds; yields range from about 300 to 800 pages per cartridge.

Many vendors offer higher-capacity cartridges; though more expensive, they contain more ink, so they cost less per page. Most vendors also sell printers with individual cartridges for each color instead of one cartridge for all three colors.

Features: In the past, almost all inkjets offered the same features: one paper tray for 100 or 150 sheets and 10 envelopes, minimal buffer memory, and no networking option. However, these days vendors are increasingly using features such as increased paper management options and 802.11b/g wireless networking to differentiate their products. Makers of business-oriented inkjets are also offering higher capacities, optional paper trays, ethernet network connectivity, and more memory.

Laser printers generally have more features and options than inkjets do. Monochrome lasers hold from 150 to 850 sheets, with corporate models frequently holding at least 600 sheets as standard; color lasers hold from 200 to 1200 sheets. You can also add trays that hold as much as 5000 sheets. Most high-end lasers include at least 16MB of RAM, with expansion options permitting a few hundred megabytes of memory for queuing multiple print jobs at once and some offer optional hard drives that you can use to save complex forms and other preprocessed images or to store passwords for confidential print jobs, and they all have standard or optional ethernet adapters. Some more-recent lasers also have new features such as the ability to print directly from a USB flash drive.

Photo printing: Many mainstream photo-oriented inkjets include a feature called PictBridge, which is a dedicated USB port for connecting your digital camera directly to the printer. Most also have built-in media card slots that let you plug in a storage card and press a button for instant prints, as well as an LCD menu for selecting prints; each of these options means you don't have to go through a PC to output images. These printers can produce beautiful color photographs. If you change the settings in the driver to "Best" or "Photo" mode and use premium photo paper, many inexpensive, sub-$100 printers can generate high-quality photo prints.


RESOURCES:
WWW.PCWORLD.COM
WWW.PCMAG.COM
WWW.CTV.CONSUMERREPORTS.ORG
WWW.COMPUTERWORLD.COM
WWW.GEEK.COM