Choosing the Right Printer for Back to School
By Joseph Alacchi, Product Development

Looking for a new household printer or for the perfect student printer? With such a wide variety available on the market, it is essential that you understand how your choice of printer will impact both the quality of your prints and your bottom line. In this article, we will take a quick look at each segment of the printer market before presenting InkOwl's picks for 2012.

In brief, there are three key technologies for printing sold today: inkjet, monochrome laser, and color laser. I split the laser category in two because color laser stands apart from black-and-white when we consider the cost per page and the ease of refilling.

Inkjet printers are generally the top choice for any household that prints a significant volume of color prints, especially pictures. In fact, for printing quality photos, I would even go so far as saying that an inkjet printer is absolutely essential. The other advantage to inkjet is the miniscule cost per page (using our products, of course), provided you choose the right model. Some printers by design are very conducive to easy refilling (by making possible refillable cartridges) or cheap compatible cartridges (as opposed to expensive remans). Basically, a printer that uses an ink tank design will be best. Here's a list of our inkjet picks:

• Any Brother printer (lowest cost per page)
• Any Canon using PGI-225 and CLI-226 cartridges (check the box)
• Any Epson printer (#1 for printing fade resistant pictures)
• The Epson WP (Workforce Pro) series (for top speed as well as excellent photo quality)

There is a drawback to inkjet printers, that they do waste some ink doing self-maintenance if you don't print often, although if you refill, it doesn't matter since your ink costs will be so low anyways.

However, if you plan on printing less than a page or two per week, you may want to consider laser, especially if you only need black and white. For plain text documents, the speed and crispness of a laser printed page is unbeatable. Laser cartridges are huge! If you print minimal quantities, the cartridge that comes with the printer might last you a year or more. Afterwards, use our affordable compatible laser cartridges or our laser toner refill kits.

As for color laser, the cost per page is quite high even with our low-cost products and the refill procedure is generally much more involved. If you need color, I'd say to stick to inkjet due to the much lower cost per page and superior output quality.

A final note on inkjet/laser, laser printers are generally more expensive than inkjets, especially if you're looking for an all-in-one machine. Students love scanning and photocopying, and a laser all-in-one can set you back quite a bit compared to an inkjet.

If you're looking for a household black-and-white laser, here are some cost-per-page stats:

• Brother (0.4¢/pg with refills, 1.5¢/pg with compatible cartridges)
• Canon (0.5¢/pg with refills, 1.8¢/pg with compatible cartridges)
• HP (0.5¢/pg with refills, 2.1¢/pg with compatible cartridges)
• Samsung (1.1¢/pg with refills, 3.7¢/pg with compatible cartridges)

As you can see, the choice of model again affects costs. These statistics are based on the Brother TN-450, Canon 128, HP 85A, and SAMSUNG 104 engines. The best way to check the cost per page when comparing printer choices is, of course, to check out our kit and cartridge prices for yourself, which is always a good idea before making any printer purchase.