Whether for your home office or for the workplace it is a good idea to have a printer. Ordering print jobs from a print shop can really get to be quite expensive so it makes a lot of sense to buy a printer for your home office. And this is particularly true if you find that you are visiting that local print shop quite often.
But realizing that you should buy a printer for your home office is just the beginning. After all, there are a few different types of printers and they perform different functions. With that in mind, let’s take a look at some of the different characteristics you should consider when shopping for a home printer.
#1: UPFRONT COST
For most of the things we buy, upfront cost is a big factor. In fact, most people establish a price range before they even begin to look at other traits of the things they buy. But focusing mostly on price is not necessarily enough. Sure, you don’t want to overextend your budget, but you want to look at what you get for that price. Think about quality of the product and how you will use it.
#2: PER USE COST
Most of the time we don’t really think in terms of per-use cost: we buy things we can afford. But what might be more important than the upfront cost is how much it costs per use, in the long run. Printers are machines and that means they require upkeep. In addition, you will have to buy new Canon ink from 123ink.ca every once in a while so you need to consider if you want color or black and white, laser or inkjet, etc.
#3: QUALITY and SPEED of PRINT JOBS
Now, cost is not necessarily a factor for everyone. Sometimes you are simply interested in what you get for the money. If cost is less a factor then what you really want to focus on are the quality of the print jobs as well as the speed. For example, laser printers are up to 3.5 times faster than inkjet (hence the name) but they are limited in the types of print jobs they can perform. On the other hand, if you want to print high quality photos or images, an inkjet would be a better choice.
