How to Find the Most Affordable Printers for Different Uses

How to Pick an Affordable Printer that Best Fits Your Needs

Visit any electronics retailer and it’s easy to lose yourself in a sea of printers. There are inkjet printers, laser printers, tiny photo printers, industrial-sized printers to all-in-one multifunction printers.

And let’s not forget about the wide price ranges of printers — from slightly over a hundred to over a thousand dollars (or more).

Where do you begin to hunt for the right printer for your home, office or retail outlet?

In this article, we break down the different features and functions of a printer to help you find the best printer at the right price that suits your unique needs.

Why You Need an Affordable Printer

Getting a printer isn’t just a one-off cost. Over time, there are additional costs involved as you need to constantly “feed” your printer with different consumables like paper, ink or toner, as well as electricity. Thus, you should consider your total lifetime cost when computing how much you need to spend on printing.

Here are some pointers to consider when searching for an affordable printer.

Cost of Printer — Long Term Considerations

It’s prudent to consider the running costs of operating a printer, especially when your printing needs increase for work or for school.

Here are two ways costs can add up over the lifespan of a printer.

1. Printer Ink or Toner Price

Printer ink or toner is likely to be the highest running cost throughout your printer’s life cycle. Most of us would assume that ink cartridges are reasonably priced for cheap inkjet printers, but this may not always be the case.

The first thing to consider is what type of printing you need—primarily black and white (monochrome) or colour printing? Colour ink or toner cartridges cost more than black ink or toner cartridges.

2. Printing Paper Costs

Different types of printing paper have different costs. Printing regular documents does not factor much into the overall cost, but if you need to print on special paper, like photos or art pieces, the cost of paper might go up.

What Types of Printing Do You Need

Students and working professionals have varied printing needs. Understanding your printing needs would help you to decide which is the best printer for students, the office or home.

Laser or Inkjet Printer

Printers now offer many different features and functions.

First, you have to decide if you need an inkjet or laser printer. Inkjet printers are compact and versatile, capable of printing documents, great for colour image printing and producing high-quality photos. They often feature all-in-one capabilities with print, scan and fax functions.

Laser printers produce crisp and clean text, perfect if you need to print mostly documents with text. Laser printers are also better equipped to handle high volumes of printing.

Single Function or Multifunction Printers

Do you only need to print or would you also need to make copies, scan and fax? Regular or basic printers only have one function, which is to print. All-in-One printers further provide scanning, faxing and copying capabilities. If you need these additional features, the multi-function printers are cheaper than getting separate devices.

Choosing a Printer for Students

If you are a student or you have school-going children in your household, your printing needs are pretty straightforward—school assignments, projects, and reports, with mostly text and occasional colour graphics, charts, or photographs.

Tertiary students preparing for lengthy case studies, theses, or essays may need a sturdy printer to deliver heavy-duty printing.

Choosing a Printer for an Office

While we are moving towards a more paperless work environment, there are inevitably situations where printed materials are still needed. It could be sales reports or analytics reports, which may involve colour charts on statistics, or in some cases, presentation decks when clients are concerned.

After a sales pitch, you may wish to leave copies of your proposals in potential clients’ hands. These printouts likely require high-quality colour printing to deliver crisp and sharp images.

Beyond that, photocopying and scanning are two well-used functions in the office, and having a one-stop machine that caters to a range of needs is an asset to any office.

Choosing a Printer for Your Home

Printing needs at home may differ from those in school or the office, unless you are studying or working from home.

Home printing can get a lot more enjoyable, like printing photos of your recent staycation to producing a fun family vacation photo album. Or you may wish to embark on a scrapbook project, where you’d need to print out images to decorate your scrapbook.

Suffice to say, if you are a student purely looking for printing large amounts of black and white text, laser printers might be the way to go.

If you require a printer for work and need heavy graphics for presentations, both colour laser and inkjet printers work for you.

Require a bit of both for your home? Then you’d need to get a printer that delivers the best of both worlds.

How to Share Printer with Multiple Users

Sharing a printer with multiple users is commonly seen at home or at your workplace. It’s also one of the best ways to lower costs while still allowing everyone to access printing facilities. Printer sharing with different computers and laptops used to be a complicated process—thanks to wireless and remote access printers, the days of connecting unwieldy and ugly printer cables are mostly over.

For Windows users, go to the Control Panel and select Devices and Printers. Then select “Add a printer”, where you will be asked to choose whether it’s a wireless, networked or Bluetooth printer. Follow the instructions on your screen, and you will be on your way. Alternatively, download and install the driver for optimal printing performance.

For Mac users, it’s equally simple. Download and install the driver, and go to System Preferences, then Print and Scan, and you’ll be able to add the printer to your network.

Some printer models can be wirelessly connected with other electronic devices, such as your mobile phones or tablets. If you have images in your camera to print, transfer your pictures to your mobile device and send them to print, as long as you connect your printer to your mobile device. (Certain digital camera models even offer direct wireless connections to printers.)

The Best Affordable Printers for Students

If you are a student, teacher, or educational professional looking for the most affordable student-friendly printer for your needs, Brother has a handful of both laser and inkjet printers that tick the boxes on your requirements list.

Brother Laser Printers for Students

Monochrome Laser Printer

DCP-L2550DW (Multi-Function)

Print, Scan & Copy
Monochrome Laser Printer
Automatic 2-sided Printing
Wireless Networking
Print Quality: Up to 600 x 600 dpi, HQ1200 (Up to 2400 x 600 dpi), Up to 1200 x 1200 dpi
Size: 410 mm x 398.5 mm x 318.5 mm

HL-2385DW (Single Function)

Monochrome Laser Printer
Automatic 2-sided Printing
Wireless Networking and NFC Connectivity
Print Quality: Up to 600 x 600 dpi, HQ1200 (Up to 2400 x 600 dpi), Up to 1200 x 1200 dpi
Size: 356 mm x 388 mm x 183 mm

Brother Inkjet Printers for Students

DCP-T420W

Print, Scan & Copy
Colour Inkjet Printer
Wireless and mobile printing
Print Quality: Up to 1,200 x 6,000 dpi
Size: 435 mm x 359 mm x 159 mm

The Best Affordable Printers for Offices

For working professionals in the office, factory, retail outlet or other workplaces, you’ll need a printer that has multiple functions as well as colour printing capabilities to impress your clients with. Consider these recommendations from Brother.

Brother Inkjet Printer for Offices

MFC-T920DW

Print, Scan, Copy & Fax
Colour Inkjet Printer
Automatic 2-sided Printing
Wired and Wireless Networking
Print Quality: Up to 1,200 x 6000 dpi

The Best Affordable Printers for Homes

Finally, for your homes, you’ll need either laser or inkjet printers that have a good balance between functions, speed, and flexibility. Do also consider the ability to print in colour—a must for those fun family projects!

Brother Laser Printer for Home

MFC-L3750CDW

Print, Scan, Copy & Fax
Colour LED Printer
Automatic 2-sided Printing, Scanning, Copying and Faxing
Wireless Networking
Print Quality: Up to 600 x 600 dpi, 2,400 dpi (600 x 2400)
Size: 410 mm x 475 mm x 414 mm

Brother Inkjet Printer for Home

DCP-T520W

Print, Scan & Copy
Colour Inkjet Printer
Wireless and mobile printing
Print Quality: Windows: Up to 1,200 x 6,000 dpi
Size: 435 mm x 380 mm x 159 mm

With a clearer picture of your needs and what’s available, you’re now ready to find the best affordable printer for your unique uses!

September 3, 2021July 15, 2022

What to Consider When Buying a Color Printer

Not Sure Which Color Printer Suits You Best? Here is Your Printer Buying Guide

Decided to take the leap and invest in a colour printer for your home or small office?

Perhaps you’ve created a gorgeous work of digital art and wish to share it with the world by displaying your art in your home. Or maybe you feel that having the right colour images can help to improve the impact of your work documents or presentations.

But how do you choose the best colour printer to meet both your professional and personal needs? After all, there are literally thousands of different colour printers out there.

The good news? Colour printers have evolved over the past few years—many models now offer superior photo-quality print results and convenient state-of-the-art features—so you are totally spoilt for choice. You will also be glad to know that most colour printers today include multiple functions like copying, faxing and scanning.

Types of colour printers

When searching for a colour printer, it’s generally a toss-up between an inkjet printer or a laser printer. This decision largely hinges upon what you print and how often you print.

Let’s consider inkjet printers first.

Qualities of an inkjet colour printer

An inkjet printer is a type of printer that works by expelling ink droplets onto paper. Such printers use liquid ink from individual color ink cartridges or internal ink reservoir tank, which are then expelled through separate nozzles—each one spraying a different colour of ink.

Pros of an inkjet colour printer:

Affordability

Cost is one of the biggest advantages of colour inkjet printers. Even the least expensive inkjet printers are able to produce images with great quality.

If price is a top-of-mind concern for you, then an inkjet printer would be your best bet for low-priced colour printing in a home/small office setting.

Excellent Print Quality

As we have alluded to above, the advancement of ink technology has enabled inkjet printers to provide high-quality output for both images and text. Due to their finer and smoother colours and detailing, inkjet printers are built for high-resolution photo printing.

With the level of quality of most colour inkjet printers today, it can be difficult to differentiate between a professionally-printed photograph and one that’s been printed using your inkjet printer – especially when printing on photo paper!

Smaller Footprint

Inkjet colour printers also tend to be more compact in size compared to laser colour printers. Even inkjet printers that are multi-functional do not have a large footprint. This makes them suitable for homes or workplaces that have tight spaces.

Cons of an inkjet colour printer:

Slower Speed

Most inkjet printers are designed for low-volume printing. Thus they may take longer to churn out large print jobs.

The slower print speed of inkjet printers, however, is slightly mitigated by the fact that an inkjet printer can start printing as soon as the printer is turned on, without needing any warm-up time.

Qualities of a colour laser printer

Colour laser printers combine the speed of traditional monochrome laser printers with the ability to print in colour. In laser printers, colour is added to the page by melting toner powder onto paper.

The initial cost of laser printers may be higher than inkjet printers. Likewise, the toner cartridges used in laser printers are also pricier than the inks used in inkjet printers. However, colour laser printers could still be an economical option in the long run due to their lower cost per page and faster print speeds.

Here is a breakdown of the main advantages and disadvantages of colour laser printers.

Pros of a colour laser printer:

Faster print speeds

Laser printers are traditionally built for speed (around 50 pages per minute!) while inkjet printers print slower at about 16-20 pages per minute.

When comparing your printer’s pages per minute (ppm) rating, do bear in mind that such ratings usually depict printing under optimal conditions—usually with documents consisting of unformatted black text sent to the printer. Once factors such as document formatting, colour, and images are thrown in, print speeds will tend to slow down.

Cheaper printing cost per page

Everyone knows that the higher upfront costs of laser printers and toner cartridges are partially offset by their lower cost per page. This is because laser toner cartridges can print significantly more pages than inkjet cartridges—even in colour.

How do we calculate the cost per page?

Cost per page is the most accurate way of measuring your printer’s cost-efficiency. To calculate your printer cartridge’s cost per page, simply take the price of the cartridge and divide it by the expected page yield of one cartridge:

For black and white printing:

cost per page = cartridge price / cartridge page yield

For colour printing:

cost per page =(black cartridge price / black page yield) +( 3x colour cartridge price / colour composite page yield) + (drum price / total composite page yield)

High-volume print jobs

Colour laser printers are known to be workhorses—they simply come built with the capacity to quickly churn out large numbers of documents and pages.

Good colour print quality

With the technological advancements in laser printers, the quality of the colour prints has seen vast improvements in recent years. As such, whether you’re printing photos for personal use or professional use, you can expect excellent colour prints from your laser printer.

Cons of a colour laser printer:

More suited for document printing

Colour lasers are designed to print documents. While they can also handle graphics-and-text documents like brochures and newsletters, laser printers may not be optimal for printing photographs.

Larger footprint

Due to their relatively larger footprint, colour laser printers function best in larger offices and other professional work settings. If space is not an issue for you, you may want to consider colour lasers for your printing needs even in your home.

Quick and Easy Tips To Improve Colour Print Quality

How do professional photographers and designers create high-quality colour prints? This is the million-dollar question that we will address in this next section.

Vibrant colour yield (RGB to CMYK Colour Variances)

There are two ways to print in colour: RGB or CMYK.

RGB stands for Red, Green and Blue. The RGB colour mode combines these base colours in varying quantities to form just about any colour you can imagine. For example, if you want to create a yellow colour, you would simply combine green and red.

CMYK works quite differently from RGB—here, the printer uses subtractive colours, or Cyan, Magenta, Yellow and Black. In CMYK mode, all of the colours are subtractive which basically means that the more colours you add together, the darker the resulting colour is going to be.

When printing documents on CMYK printers, do ensure that you are creating your documents in CMYK colour mode. If they are not designed in CMYK, you can also convert them to CMYK through a photo editing program such as Adobe Photoshop, or layout programs such as Quark Xpress or Adobe InDesign.

● Print Resolution

Print resolution is measured in DPI (dots per inch). The more dots there are in an inch of paper, the sharper the resulting image.

Your printer needs to have a resolution of 600 dpi in order to print high-quality documents (and 1200 dpi to achieve sharp, detailed images).

When shopping around for printers, you may notice that print resolution is always presented as a set of two numbers, for example 1200 x 3600 dpi. This means the maximum resolution of that printer is 1200 multiplied by 3600 dpi.

● Paper Type

Substandard paper can result in substandard colour print quality so be sure not to overlook this small but important factor! Often, print problems such as excessive colour bleeding or colour dullness can be attributed to low-quality paper.

How to Choose the Right Colour Printer

Now that you’ve learned the characteristics of both colour inkjet and laser printers, your next task is to choose the best colour printer for your use.

1. Print Quality

If you’re expecting to print a lot of photographs on glossy or matte photo paper, a colour inkjet printer may be the best fit for you as the quality of the output is superior when photo paper is used.

However, if printing on plain printer paper, the print quality of a colour laser printer is on par with an inkjet printer.

2. Print Volume

Colour laser printers also work well if you need to churn out many documents per day—for most home printer buyers, this usually isn’t a dealbreaker as they normally only print a few documents every few days.

Thus, as you can see, the right colour printer for you really boils down to your expected print usage and your preference in terms of print quality.

Types of Colour Printers from Brother

Considering getting an inkjet or laser colour printer? Take a look at these recommended models from Brother.

Best for Affordability

The DCP-T420W is an affordable colour inkjet printer that offers cost-savings in the long run due to the ultra high yield ink bottles, which allows you to print 7,500 pages in black and 5,000 pages in colour. It also delivers professional quality prints with crisp black text and vibrant detailed images.

Best for Features

The DCP-T520W combines multiple functions of printing, scanning and copying into one nifty printer. It uses the same ultra high yield ink bottles as the DCP-T420W, thus allowing you to enjoy better page yields and lower costs per page.

Best for Efficiency

If you have a need for speed, the HL-T4000DW might be your ideal choice for a printer. It features automatic 2-sided printing, prints up to A3 size, uses ultra high yield ink bottles, and is able to print up to 22 images per minute or 35 pages per minute (in fast mode).

Best for Versatility and Overall Performance

Brother’s latest inkjet Multi-Function Centre MFC-J3530DW delivers business-class performance at a reasonable price. With low printing costs, you can print high volumes without constantly worrying about your bottom line. Furthermore, it also offers A3 paper printing capabilities, so you can expand and showcase your work without having to lose any details.

Best for Speed

Brother’s colour laser all-in-one MFC-L8900CDW delivers excellent colour performance with fast print/scan speeds. It also offers lower cost thanks to super and ultra high-yield toners. This intelligent multi-tasking printer is equipped with a dual CIS Automatic Document Feeder that allows you to scan up to 70 sheets directed to your preferred medium. It also comes with advanced security features.

Best for Home and Small Business

The Brother MFC-L3770CDW colour laser printer delivers superior colour performance and fast print and scan speeds, making it the perfect companion for your home or small business printing needs. This workhorse is able to boost your productivity with fast colour print speeds of up to 24ppm.

Conclusion

Deciding on the best colour printer for your home or office will depend on your specific printing needs and the factors that stand out the most to you.

We hope this detailed comparison between inkjet printers and colour laser printers will help you to make the right buying decision for yourself!

August 13, 2021July 26, 2021

How To Buy The Best Affordable Printers for Students

Need Affordable Printers? Here Are The Best Printers For Students!

Are you a student who needs an affordable printer for your printing needs?

Tired of paying for expensive prints every time a school project is due?

Having to wait in the long queue at the school’s printing shop during submission deadlines?

Perhaps you are a parent who grimaces at the struggle of your children, and wishes to make their lives easier.

Students (and parents) rejoice! In this article, you will learn how you can save money on printing by investing in the right affordable home printers perfectly suited for your needs.

Why Do Students Need Affordable Printers

But first, let us address the elephant in the room — do children, teenagers and youths need printers?

The short answer is a resounding yes! Here are four reasons why students need low-priced printers at home.

Printing of School Projects and Assignments

With project-based learning and school projects being the norm these days, students need to print reports, essays, photos, and other assignments.

These may sometimes include colour printouts of charts and graphs, or captioned photos depicting different locations that they’ve been. It is also common for students to print out lesson plans and notes from their teachers.

Tertiary level students in universities may also need a printer to proof-read long essays or churn out copies of their research reports.

Printing of Personal Fun Projects

Beyond school projects, having an affordable printer also allows your child to stretch her imagination with fun personal projects.

She could design and print out a photo book documenting your last family vacation. Create a sign-board just for her room. Or write a fictitious story involving space aliens and cowboys!

A home printer also allows you to print out family photos — a perfect way to decorate your home during these times.

Expensive Shop Printing Costs

Beyond the above reasons, printing can also be increasingly more expensive at print shops with rising labour and rental costs.

While professional printers may be suited for large volume commercial prints, small-scale printing costs for home users are likely to be high. This is especially so for high resolution colour printouts for images such as photos, posters, or other illustrations.

Inconvenience of Printing in School or at a Shop

Faced with mounting pressures at school, students who need urgent print-outs of their assignments may find it frustrating to look for an available print shop.

Often, queues at such printing shops may form — especially close to project deadlines!

Besides battling other students to get your job printed first, you may also have to contend with occasions where the shop closes, like weekends, public holidays, or non-retail hours.

What To Look For in an Affordable Student Printer

Getting an affordable printer will help you to solve your student printing woes. You won’t need to go to a library or an internet cafe to print out your work, or rip your hair out when your regular print shop closes.

Before you run out to get any affordable printers you can find, consider these factors when you choose a printer that is best suited for a student.

Print Quality of Printer

Low cost shouldn’t equate with low quality. While searching for the best economically-priced printer, you’ll need to ensure that your printer doesn’t skimp on print quality.

Check that your value-for-money printer can print out various documents with perfect clarity. It would be such a shame if your hard work came out with a bunch of blurs, lines and smudges!

Space Needed for Printer

Next, consider the space you have for your printer. You wouldn’t want a printer that takes up too much space, given the constraints of your room.

Try to find one that is compact yet packed with the features that you need for your school and personal printing needs.

Cost of Printer — Think Long-Term Costs

Lastly, you’ll need to consider the price of the printer itself, as well as its running costs.

Often, students and their parents opt for the cheapest printer available in the market without considering the ongoing cost of its consumables. Such costs may add up — especially when the volume of school work that needs to be printed goes up.

There are four running cost components that you should consider:

Printer Ink or Toner Cost
Printer Paper Cost
Printer Electricity Consumption
Printer Maintenance or Repair Cost

Printer Ink or Toner Price

The printer ink or toner is one of the biggest running costs when it comes to owning a printer. You wouldn’t want to get a cheap printer that has a huge cost for its ink or toner.

You may want to consider if the majority of your print jobs are to be in black and white or colored. This will help to determine your budget for the cartridges — yes, colour cartridges are more expensive.

Do also be careful of using third party ink or toners — those may not be suitable for your machine and may damage it in the long-term.

It is wise to find a balance between your cost-per-page and the upfront printer cost.

Once you have these costs figured out, it would be easier to see if a printer will burn a hole in your pocket in the long term.

Pro Tip: If you’re looking to get an inkjet printer, you should use it at least weekly to maximize its cartridge use. Idle printers can dry up cartridges or result in clogged print heads.

If you are not printing constantly, and have longer idle time in between prints, it is better to get a laser printer. While the upfront costs of Laser printers may be higher than inkjet printers, toner replacement wouldn’t be as often. Besides, laser printer toners are dry powders which wouldn’t dry up with time.

Printer Paper Price

The next cost to consider are your paper costs. There are different types of printing media and they all have different prices.

If you need to print art pieces on a certain print medium, its costs and compatibility may vary from printer to printer. Getting these special papers from the same printer brand ensures that your printouts will be of a premium quality — it also helps you to avoid printer jams and other mishaps.

If you are just printing regular documents, sticking to regular A4 plain paper shouldn’t be much of a problem. A cost saving tip is to buy your printing paper in bulk or during a sale — it is much cheaper than buying them individually.

Printer Electricity Consumption

This next cost might seem negligible to some, but with any electrical appliances, the electricity consumption costs of your printer do add up over time.

Where possible, look for printers that have a deep sleep mode or energy saving functions. This might not seem like an important cost to consider in the beginning — however, in the long run, it will save you a considerable amount.

Printer Maintenance and Lifespan

What’s the point of buying a printer which spoils the next year? Fixing it or buying a new one altogether can be both troublesome and costly.

To prevent this, ensure that you buy a reliable printer with a good warranty. Often, this is a good sign that its maintenance costs will be manageable.

Do also look out for printers from established trustworthy brands that provide reliable customer service. This can help you to reduce your printer maintenance costs, and minimise the need for you to replace your student friendly printer every few years.

Where To Buy The Best Printers for Students

If you are looking to buy the best affordable printer for students, here are a few printers from Brother that can meet a student’s needs for affordability, high print quality, low consumables prices, and compact in size.

1. Brother Laser Printer For Students

Monochrome Laser printer:

DCP-L2550DW

Print, Scan & Copy
Monochrome Laser Printer
Automatic 2-sided Printing
Wireless Networking
Print Quality: Up to 600 x 600 dpi, HQ1200 (Up to 2400 x 600 dpi), Up to 1200 x 1200 dpi
Size: 410 mm x 398.5 mm x 318.5 mm

Colour Laser Printer:

DCP-L3551CDW

Print, Scan & Copy
Color LED Printer
Auto 2-sided printing
Wireless & Network Connectivity
Print Quality: Up to 600 x 600 dpi, 2,400 dpi (600 x 2400)
Size: 410 mm x 475 mm x 414 mm

MFC-L3750CDW

Print, Scan, Copy & Fax
Color LED Printer
Auto 2-sided printing & scanning
Wireless, Network Connectivity & NFC
Print Quality: Up to 600 x 600 dpi, 2,400 dpi (600 x 2400)
Size: 410 mm x 475 mm x 414 mm

2. Brother Inkjet Printer For Students

Colour Inkjet Printer:

DCP-T520W

Print, Scan & Copy
Inkjet Printer
Wireless and mobile printing
Print Quality:
- Windows: Up to 1,200 x 6,000 dpi
- Mac: Up to 1,200 x 3,600 dpi
Size: 435 mm x 380 mm x 159 mm

Now go find your perfect printer and skip the nuances!