PC World: A buyer’s guide to printing and printers

Printers – the four main options

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Inkjet

Inkjet printers are a favourite for home computing as they offer relatively high quality at low prices. They work by spattering the page with thousands of small dots of ink. The more dots there are per inch, commonly expressed as dpi, the higher the quality.

An inkjet printer would be a good option for someone wanting to print out documents and photographs at home, but they can be a little slow.

Laser printers

Perfect for high-volume printing, laser printers are often favoured by businesses who deal with lots of paperwork. Although they can be more costly than inkjets to buy, laser printers create high-quality copies quickly – and smudged pages will be a thing of the past. They work by drawing toner to the page using a laser beam and are very cheap to run. They perform best when printing text, but don’t expect the best results with images.

All-in-one

Bringing together a printer with a scanner and a photocopier, these compact and multi-functional devices are perfect for small businesses and home offices. Some also incorporate a fax machine. Although relatively expensive, their flexibility makes them great value for money. Many of the latest all-in-one models embrace cutting-edge web technology which allows you to print web-pages directly from the printer.

Photo printers

These are perfect for digital camera users who want to print their images at home. Many photo-specific models allow you to plug your camera straight in and print from there, without the need to go via your computer or laptop. To work out if your printer and camera are compatible, look for the PictBridge logo. Some top-end photo printers feature multiple memory card slots – just take your memory card out and stick it straight in to print the images you want. Printers with card slots will also have an LCD screen on which you will be able to select and edit your images without firing up your computer.

Features and functions

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Resolution

Resolution refers to the level of detail a printer can create. Depending on price, this can range from average to outstanding, so knowing a model’s resolution will help you understand just how good its results will be. Manufacturers tell you this by giving you a dots-per-inch (dpi) figure for all printers. A dpi of 300 x 300 is perfectly acceptable for text documents, while people wanting to print good-quality photos shouldn’t go below 1440 x 720.

Speed

A printer’s speed is given in pages-per-minute (ppm). This represents your printer’s top speed when printing a simple, black and white page of text. Expect any printer to take a little longer than this in everyday use and even more so when it comes to photos.

Connectivity

There are two ways of connecting your printer and computer – via USB (Universal Serial Bus) or an old-fashioned parallel cable. Most printers these days utilise the USB method, which helps print your documents faster by transferring data between the computer and printer at a greater speed. If you’ve already got lots of USB devices hooked up to your computer, make sure you have a spare USB port or invest in an external USB hub.

Set me free – go wireless

Buy a wireless printer and configure it to your existing wireless network to see it work in harmony with your computer and broadband router. Once up and running you will be able to print from anywhere in your home, with no annoying wires trailing across your living room floor and tripping people up. Wireless printing will also allow you to put your printer out of sight – say in the cupboard or under the stairs – letting you decide where your printer will go rather than its cable length making the choice. And with wireless, one printer will cover the entire household whether you have one PC or 10.

Wireless printing – what you’ll need

Before you print wirelessly at home or in the office, you will need to get your network set up. For this you will need a broadband internet connection, a wireless router and a wireless printer. The router is the hub of the network – the device which enables the computer and printer to communicate with the internet. Also, remember to connect your PC to your router before you plug your printer into the network.

E-printing

E printers follow on from wireless models, taking the technology even further. One of the main benefits of one of these is that it comes with its own email address, allowing you to email your documents direct to the printer and doing away with the need for an attached computer. This is great for gadget lovers who are using a number of different web-enabled devices such as smartphones, laptops and netbooks.

Fax it

Anyone who runs a business will tell you that the humble fax machine is still a vital tool. Luckily quite a few all-in-one printers still offer a fax function – and many offer back-up memory for those times when the paper runs out just as that crucial document comes through.

Scan it

Printers with scanning capabilities will generally allow you to scan directly to email or to a PDF file – great for emailing invoices to clients. You will also be able to scan in your old, dog-eared family photos and print them off on glossy new photo paper for a home-based restoration project.

Negative scanner

Really keen photographers who still dabble with 35mm film photography have not been left out in the cold, as some top-of-the-range printers come with a function to scan negatives.

Feed me – documents

If you are running a business from home or looking for a printer for the work office, an auto-document feeder (ADF) could be useful. These are great for when you’ve got reams of photocopying or faxing to do but little time to do it - the ADF allows you to load your documents into the feeder and leave it to get on with the job.

Borderless printing

Borderless printing does exactly that: prints without borders. This allows you to fill a whole page with an image rather than being presented with annoying white space around the edge of the page.

Scanners

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A scanner is a quick, easy and high-quality way to get words and pictures into your computer. From digitising old photos to carrying out a range of vital office functions, you’re never stuck when you have a scanner. They come in two main types: flatbed and film. A flatbed scanner offers more options and uses whereas a film scanner is great for detail. Also, many modern models now include a whole raft of extra features to keep you busy such as image-editing software and optical recognition.

Which type?

Flatbed: Choose a more versatile flatbed model and you will be able to scan in both photos and documents. However, quality could be an issue here as the resolution on these models differs greatly. Flatbeds use a CFC (Cold Cathode Fluorescent) lamp to scan, which are known to produce relatively stable colour accuracy. LED light sources are also being used in some of the latest scanners – these are quicker to heat up than CFC but achieve the same quality.

Film: With a film scanner you will be able to scan in negatives, slides and camera film. But if you want to scan APS film you may need to buy a separate adaptor. Film scanners can offer excellent resolution and quality depending on how much you are willing to spend. But remember – they can only scan negatives.

The best of both worlds: Some flatbed scanners come with accessories that allow you to turn them into a film scanner. This is done by fitting a photo lid to the top of the scanner. Although these will scan film and negatives, the results will only be as good as with the flatbed.

Things to look out for

Resolution: Resolution is measured in dots-per-inch (dpi) which indicates how detailed a reproduction of the original document a scanner can make. As with printers, the higher the dpi, the better quality the scanned image will be. Generally speaking, 1,200 dpi is fine for everyday tasks. But if you’re scanning film then 2,400 dpi will be more like what you’re looking for.

Optical Character Recognition (OCR): This software allows a scanner to ‘read’ text and turn it into an editable word-processing document without losing the formatting of the original. If you have a stack of old letters or documents that you want to convert into digital files, this is the way to do it.

Image-editing software: The image-editing software provided with many scanners is often based on expensive, established programs which have long been used across the design industry. You will be able to use the software to carry out editing tasks such as altering the colour of a poster or carrying out basic restoration on an old photo.

Bit-depth

Bit-depth is a good indicator of how detailed and colourful your scans will be. For instance, a scanner with a high bit-depth will be capable of picking up more colours and detail than one with a low depth. Each pixel needs 24-bit to create true colour. Most scanners are now 48-bit which is easily good enough to meet most people’s needs. Bit is short for binary digit. It has a single binary value of 0 or 1.

Interface me

Before buying your scanner, ensure you know what interface system it operates for plugging other devices in. So, if your computer has a USB port, it’s no good buying a scanner with a Small Computer System Interface (SCSI) and so on. The SCSI connects your computer to other devices and is factory fitted with most PCs.

Awaken the senses

Scanners use three types of sensors: Contact Image Sensor (CIS); Complementary Metal-Oxide Semiconductor (CMOS) or Charged Coupling Device (CCD). A popular choice for flatbed scanners is CCD, which is similar to the sensor used in digital cameras. Scanners using this type of sensor are fast, but can be expensive. The CIS option sees the sensor sit close to whatever is being scanned for a good quality finish; whereas CMOS is known for being affordable.

Ink

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Whether your printer is stationed in the spare room of a busy home or in the corner of an office, it’s going to need ink to keep it working. Sounds simple, but there are many options available and prices vary greatly. Here are a few tips to help you make the right choice.

First, if you think you’ve saved money by buying a cheap printer think again as replacement ink cartridges for these models are generally among the most expensive. Although initially more expensive, a higher-end model may well be cheaper to operate in the long-run.

Cartridges

These are either the official replacement cartridges made by your printer’s manufacturer, unofficial cartridges made by third-party companies or recycled cartridges – basically old cartridges refilled with more ink. Not only do the recycled cartridges save you money, they’re also better for the environment.

Print heads

This part of the printer filters the ink through to the paper. Part of the print head can be attached to the ink cartridge. When these heads get blocked your printing can become streaky.

Continuous ink system

Under this system various colours of ink are fed into the printer cartridge continuously. This is a relatively cheap option and reduces the chance of you running out of ink without realising.

Toner

This is the powdered ink used by laser printers to print words and images on documents. The substance sticks to the paper and comes in a cartridge much like that which carries your replacement ink. When this is empty it can either be replaced or refilled. Toner is mostly used in laser printers and is suited to high-volume, black and white printing.