Best Printers 11/7/11

To help you save some money.... Consumer Reports just tested to find which all-in-one printers use less ink.

Lisa Marie Tiso’s printer is the workhorse of her home office. Lisa Marie Tiso, “It’s perfect because it’s one piece of equipment that does everything. It prints, it scans, and it just makes my life easy.” To help you find a good printer that won’t eat up a lot of money, Consumer Reports tested 135, including the latest all-in-ones. Testers print thousands of pages of text … color graphics … and photos and then assess quality. Consumer Reports also times the printers to see how quickly they print a page. Speeds vary widely. The machine on the left is almost three times faster than the one on the right!

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And because the cost of printer cartridges can really pile up, testers check how quickly printers rn through ink. “Some printers cost more than twice as much as others to use.” It’s handy to get a printer that has a network connection so you can print from across the room or even from another floor. In its latest tests, Consumer Reports named this all-in-one HP Officejet Pro a Best Buy at 180 dollars. It has a network connection and it uses less ink than any others tested, but you have to leave it on all the time. Dean Gallea, “Leaving it on uses very little power.” And Consumer Reports says consider a laser all-in-one printer if you only print in black-and-white. This 170-dollar Brother is a Best Buy. It’s easy on toner, and it’s very fast – printing 14 pages a minute. If you want to print photos and don’t care about scanning and copying, Consumer Reports says consider a regular inkjet printer.
You can find some good ones for under 100 dollars.
Consumer Reports says a good choice is the HP Officejet 6000 Wireless for around 80 dollars.
I’m Martha Koloski with today’s On Your SIde..”