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!

October 1, 2021November 26, 2021

How To Choose The Right Laser Printer For Home Use

Looking For The Perfect Laser Printer? Here Are 10 Top Factors To Consider

Are you looking for a laser printer for your home? Wondering if a laser printer is a worthwhile investment?

Contrary to conventional wisdom, it makes perfect sense for families and home-based businesses to buy laser printers. The main advantages of laser printers are their greater speed, durability, precision, and economy. Indeed, a laser printer can move very quickly, allowing it to churn out documents and images at a much greater speed than the average inkjet printer.

Furthermore, thanks to the advancement of technology, laser printers are now becoming more accessible for home and personal use. The prices for many models have come down considerably and their sizes are getting smaller too!

To decide if you should give laser printers a shot, you may need to first think about your expected usage.

Do You Need a Laser Printer?

Do you frequently need to print high volumes of black and white documents?

Value having clear and sharp text on your printouts?

Always need your printing jobs done in a hurry?

If your answers to the above questions are “Yes,” then it’s likely that you and your laser printer will be a match made in heaven.

But don’t go running off to the electronic or hardware stores yet. You need to first consider the pros and cons of laser printers.

Pros of Laser Printers at a Glance:

Laser printers are built for speed and volume. If you are a high-volume user who appreciates efficiency, this will definitely spark your interest.
Laser printers also produce crisp, sharp text. If your print jobs are mostly text documents with the occasional image or two, laser is probably your best bet.
Laser printers tend to have a lower cost per page. Although toners are more expensive, you will get higher yield in terms of more pages out of a toner cartridge compared to a traditional inkjet cartridge.
Most lasers also come equipped with high capacity paper trays which saves you the hassle of constantly having to top up paper.

Cons of Laser Printers at a Glance:

The upfront cost of a laser printer is usually higher, although the newer models are surprisingly affordable.
Laser printers cannot handle photographic paper but inkjet printers can.
Laser printers tend to be bigger and thus would take up a larger footprint in your home.

What to Consider When Buying a Laser Printer for Your Home

1. Upfront Cost

When it comes to buying a laser printer, your first consideration is typically the cost of the printer itself. While you may desire certain features in your printer, it is often your budget that will take up the bulk of your decision-making process.

If affordability is top of mind for you, you may want to check out the Brother DCP-L2550DW. This laser workhorse is designed for personal productivity and cost-efficiency, and the bonus is that it doesn’t cost an arm and a leg. It is also multi-functional, with wireless and mobile printing features, as well as scanning and photocopying capabilities.

2. Size of Printer

With their relatively larger footprint, laser printers in the past tend to only be found in offices and other professional work settings. However, there have been notable improvements in this area in the past few years, resulting in the creation of consumer-friendly laser printers that are smaller and more suitable for home use.

Arguably though, if you only have limited space on a desk, it may be easier to find an inkjet that fits into that smaller space. However, if space is not an issue for you, do consider getting a laser printer for its speed and efficiency.

3. Printer Connectivity

Most modern printers — whether inkjet or laser — offer various forms of connectivity such as Wi-Fi and Ethernet.

If you prefer to directly communicate with your printer from your mobile phone, look for Wi-Fi Direct capability. This allows a direct connection to be established between your device and the printer. Near Field Communication (NFC) is another feature to look out for. With NFC-enabled printers, you can print or scan directly from your mobile devices. Simply place your NFC-enabled mobile devices over the NFC tags on the printer to establish the connection.

You may also want to consider the ease of printing from Cloud services such as Google Docs, Dropbox, OneDrive, and Evernote. Do read up on the different services that your ideal printer supports, as this could translate into time (and sanity!) savings. It would be a breeze to print from Cloud services without needing to use a computer.

As a leading edge printer company, Brother offers direct Cloud printing services on its range of modern laser printers.

4. Types of Functions

Before rushing out to buy your new laser printer, you’ll have to ask yourself what types of documents you will be printing to determine the type of printer you should get.

These days, laser printers often come equipped with useful functions such as scanning and copying. You may not use these features frequently, but when you do need to call upon them—for instance in scanning your child’s educational certificates, or your testimonial letters—it’s nice to know that you have them all available at a touch of a screen/button.

Fancy being able to send scans directly from your printer to your mobile device or email? With Brother Cloud Apps—a free suite of innovative, cloud-based applications—now you can!

5. Types of Print Jobs

Laser printers are specifically built to quickly print out large numbers of documents and pages, whilst inkjet printing is generally a better fit for occasional or low-volume print usage.

Wish to have the versatility of printing both images and photos? You may need to weigh your options more carefully here.

Colour lasers offer superior print quality and colour depth and richness — if you are talking about printing on normal paper — but if you need to print on photo paper for poster quality prints, nothing beats an inkjet printer.

6.Black and White vs Colour

With the technological advancements in laser printers, the quality of both their monochrome (black and white) and colour prints have 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.

7. Print Speed

When it comes to speed, laser printers beat their inkjet counterparts hands down. These mean machines can churn out around 40-50 pages per minute while inkjet printers print at a more gentle speed of 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, your print speeds may slow down.

8. Cost of Toner

When purchasing a laser printer, the cost of replacement toner needs to be considered in addition to the initial upfront cost.

You may also need to take into account the cost of other consumables such as a replacement drum unit, which transfers the toner onto the paper, over the long-term.

9.Paper Handling

Most printers can handle paper up to A4 sizes, so if you’re looking at printing documents on A3 paper, your options may shrink by quite a bit. Printers that can print on A3 (or larger) tend to also have a larger footprint, requiring more space at home.

If you need things to be printed on envelopes or other types of specialty paper, you will need to look for a printer with a multi-purpose tray. Do also check your printer’s specifications to assess the weight limit of the paper that it can handle (in gsm).

Most people tend to overlook this, but there are other smart paper handling features that could make your life a little easier. These include functions such as automatic duplexing, which allows seamless 2-sided printing, as well as the ability to scan or copy multi-page documents via an automatic document feeder (ADF).

10. Power Consumption

Power consumption is another point worthy of consideration. In particular, you may wish to look out for eco-friendly printer models that come with a deep sleep mode. Do also check how much power the printer uses when it is actively engaged in printing tasks.

What are the Best Laser Printers for Home Use?

black and white laser printer for home use

The Brother DCP-L2550DW monochrome laser Multi-Function Centre combines wireless and mobile printing, scanning and copying capabilities to deliver productivity and ease of operation. With a fast print speed of up to 34ppm, and excellent print quality that guarantees sharp, clear text and graphics every time, this laser printer offers great value for money.

The Brother MFC-L3750CDW digital colour all-in-one delivers print, copy, scan and fax functions for home and small offices. Its 250-sheet capacity adjustable paper tray minimizes refills, while its 30-sheet capacity multi-purpose tray tackles diverse print needs including cardstock and envelopes. Its two-sided copying and scanning function further help Work From Home (WFH) folks to save precious time while creating more convenience.

Having a trusty printer in your home is vital to your professional or school success. With the above key considerations and printer recommendations, we hope you will be empowered to choose the best laser printer for your home.

August 20, 2021July 26, 2021

How To Print Auto Duplex on Laser Printer

Confused About Auto Duplex Printing On Laser Printer? Here’s how

Clueless about auto duplex printing on laser printers? Don’t worry we’ve got you covered. Auto duplex printing is basically printing on two sides of the paper automatically. Yes, it means that you don’t have to flip the pages manually when you want two-sided printed pages.

But how do you do that? Is there a special switch that you need to flip? Read on to find out!

Manual VS Auto Duplex Laser Printer

Manual duplex printing can achieve the same result as automatic duplex printing — the only difference is that you will have to turn the page over yourself to print the other side.

On the other hand, in auto duplex printing, the printer does the flipping for you. This saves you time, money, effort, and paper!

An auto duplex laser printer helps you to enjoy higher print quality, faster print speeds, cleaner prints, lower print costs, and more efficient printing.

Check out some of Brother’s best Laser Duplex Printers

Here are some additional tips to enhance your printing efficiency:

Two Ways to Optimize Printing Speed

1. Use a Laser Printer

Compared to inkjet printers, laser printers usually print more quickly, regardless of whether your prints are in colour or monochrome (black and white).

2. Use Auto Duplex

As mentioned previously, auto duplex printing saves you the hassle of manually flipping the pages. Just press print, make yourself a cup of coffee, and come back with double-sided prints!

How do you set up auto duplex printing?

How To Do Auto Duplex Printing

Setting up duplex printing can change your printing routine and reduce costs. All you have to do is to follow the steps below:

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!