Printers have evolved quite a bit in a short period of time. Inkjet printers used to be the low-cost and quality solution to the more sophisticated laser printer option, but that's not the case anymore. Both types of printers can print quality pages, it just depends on what kind of printing you want to do. The difference between inkjet and laser is how the ink is applied and adheres to your page. Inkjets spray millions of tiny dots onto the page, but there’s the risk the finished product might show a slight bleed or a subtle pixelated effect if the printer is a low-quality machine. Laser printers use toner, a powdered ink that heats the ink to the page to produce an image. Unlike ink, toner doesn't have the risk of wet smudging, but you lose some of the colors as toner lays down one color at a time and it isn't as deep or thick as regular ink. Text documents and monochrome graphics look great with laser, but if you're looking to print lab-quality photos, ink presents a better color palette and deeper, richer photographic images.
There’s a wide spectrum of printers suitable for every budget. Some have limited paper capacities for smaller jobs, making them better for home or personal use. Larger paper capacities are better for office environments, so you're not constantly replacing paper. Extra features like auto document feeders and duplex printing make large and complicated jobs easier to do as the machine does much of the work for you.
One of the more resourceful and popular options at the moment is the "all-in-one" printer. These printers are capable of not only printing, but scanning, faxing, and copying. These machines are one of the best options because they can do so many things in one easy-to-use unit. Plus, many of them offer the highest quality printed, scanned, and copied pages, with a resolution of up to 9600 x 2400 dpi (dots per inch) for color prints.
Wireless printers are a hot commodity now too. Printers can now print documents and photos directly from mobile devices and web-based cloud services. Many of them can also accept USB drives and memory cards to download your material directly to the printer's hard drive, eliminating the need for a PC or laptop altogether. Office environments may want a printer that multiple employees can use along with a shared network and there are quite a few that offer this type of connectivity.
You may already know exactly what type of printer you need, but if you don’t, that’s okay too. We’ve curated a list of the best printers in 2022 that can suit a wide variety of functions and budgets. Whether you’re looking for an inexpensive, simple printer for occasional print jobs or a high-end printer for professional results, there’s a printer out there for you.