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The Best Printer Deals This Week*
*Deals are selected by our commerce team
For most of the Information Age, pundits predicted that sooner or later, much of the world’s workforce would be working from home. The promise of fewer office skyscrapers, lower energy needs, and fewer nasty traffic snarls would inevitably lead to remote work no longer being just for a select few. As it happened, it took a global pandemic to bring governments and companies to their work-from-home senses—and to revitalize interest in affordable home-office hardware, including the oft-neglected printer.
Today, even as the work world returns to a semblance of normalcy, venturing out to Kinko’s or Staples to make prints and copies doesn’t have the appeal it once did. Part-time home-based workers—not to mention families and students—need to print, scan, and make copies, and maybe even send and receive the occasional fax. And while coworkers in a corporate office might share the same high-volume printer, smaller settings and smaller budgets call for diverse desktop printers. We’ve outlined below our under-$200 favorites from PC Labs’ recent reviews. Check them out, then keep reading to learn what to look for as you shop for your next affordable printer.
Deeper Dive: Our Top Tested Picks
Brother MFC-J4335DW
Best Budget AIO Printer for a Home Office
Why We Picked It
Brother’s MFC-J4335DW is such an appealing all-in-one printer that it’s hard to find a similarly priced alternative that’s remotely competitive. It takes little desk space and delivers text quality good enough for most business use, along with better-than-good-enough graphics. Plus, you’ll find suitable paper handling for printing in a micro office or home office. It also offers duplex printing and a 20-page automatic document feeder for copying, scanning and faxing. It’s even one of the rare AIOs that offers both a low initial price and low running costs, at less than a penny per black and under a nickel per color page. The ADF doesn’t handle double-sided pages, even for manual duplexing, but you have to sacrifice something in this price range.
Who It’s For
The MFC-J4335DW can fit nicely (both metaphorically and physically) in almost any small or home office. It delivers all the capability you probably need, including suitable paper handling for printing, scanning, copying, and faxing in one small machine, and its low running cost is an enticing bonus.
PROS
- Duplex printing
- Fast print speed for the price
- Fax function
- Prints from and scans to mobile devices
- Low price plus low cost per page
CONS
- ADF does not support duplex scanning
- Text quality is poor at small font sizes and with some stylized fonts
SPECS
| Name | Value |
|---|---|
| Type | All-in-one |
| Color or Monochrome | Color |
| Connection Type | USB, Wi-Fi, Wi-Fi Direct |
| Maximum Standard Paper Size | Legal |
| Number of Ink Colors | 4 |
| Number of Ink Cartridges/Tanks | 4 |
| Direct Printing From Media Cards | |
| Direct Printing From USB Thumb Drives | |
| Rated Speed at Default Settings (Color) | 19 ppm |
| Rated Speed at Default Settings (Mono) | 20 ppm |
| Monthly Duty Cycle (Recommended) | 250 to 2,000 |
| Monthly Duty Cycle (Maximum) | 30,000 pages per month |
| LCD Preview Screen | |
| Printer Input Capacity | 150 + 1 |
| Cost Per Page (Monochrome) | 0.9 cents |
| Cost Per Page (Color) | 4.7 cents |
| Print Duplexing | |
| Automatic Document Feeder | |
| Scanner Type | Flatbed with 20-page ADF |
| Duplexing Scans | |
| Maximum Scan Area | Legal |
| Scanner Optical Resolution | 1,200 by 2,400 pixels per inch |
| Standalone Copier and Fax | Copier, Fax |
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Canon Pixma G3270 Wireless MegaTank All-In-One Printer
Best Budget AIO Tank Printer for Families
Why We Picked It
Most low-priced multifunction inkjets have high running costs. In other words, they’re cheap to buy, but you can wind up spending a pretty penny on ink. The Canon Pixma G3270 is an exception: It’s reasonably affordable and also cheap to operate. Its ink comes in bottles and is rated at nearly 6,000 mono text pages and 7,700 color pages for the starter set of cyan, yellow, magenta, and black ink you get. For any ink you buy beyond that, the cost per page works out to 0.3 cent per mono text page and 0.8 cent per color page. At less than a penny per page, whether color or monochrome, the cost per page for the ink is clearly the big appeal here. Add impressive-looking output given the price, plus a flatbed for light-duty copying and scanning, and you get lots of high-quality output for very little money.
Who It’s For
The G3270 isn’t especially speedy, and its paper capacity is only 100 sheets for its single input tray. But the low purchase price and low running costs make it a solid pick for light-to-medium-printing homes and home offices that aren’t daunted by filling it with paper often to reap the savings.
PROS
- Prints, scans, and copies
- Tank-based ink offers low running cost
- Included ink rated to print thousands of pages
- Supports mobile printing via Wi-Fi or Wi-Fi Direct
CONS
- No ADF
- Scans up to letter size only, one page at a time
- Manual print duplexing only
- Paper capacity for printing is only 100 sheets
- Slow speed
SPECS
| Name | Value |
|---|---|
| Type | All-in-one |
| Color or Monochrome | Color |
| Connection Type | USB, Wi-Fi, Wi-Fi Direct |
| Maximum Standard Paper Size | Legal |
| Number of Ink Colors | 4 |
| Number of Ink Cartridges/Tanks | 4 |
| Direct Printing From Media Cards | |
| Direct Printing From USB Thumb Drives | |
| Rated Speed at Default Settings (Color) | 6 ppm |
| Rated Speed at Default Settings (Mono) | 11 ppm |
| Monthly Duty Cycle (Recommended) | Not rated |
| Monthly Duty Cycle (Maximum) | 3,000 pages per month |
| LCD Preview Screen | |
| Printer Input Capacity | 100 |
| Cost Per Page (Monochrome) | 0.3 cents |
| Cost Per Page (Color) | 0.8 cents |
| Print Duplexing | |
| Automatic Document Feeder | |
| Scanner Type | Flatbed |
| Duplexing Scans | |
| Maximum Scan Area | Letter |
| Scanner Optical Resolution | 600×600 pixels per inch |
| Standalone Copier and Fax | Copier |
Canon Pixma TS7720
Best Cartridge-Based Alternative to the Canon Pixma G3270
Why We Picked It
If you’re on a rock-bottom budget and don’t print enough for a bulk-ink or tank-based printer’s low running costs to pay off in the long run, Canon’s cartridge-based Pixma TS7720 may be the printer you’re looking for. This four-function AIO (print, copy, scan, and fax) uses black and tricolor ink cartridges. It offers a 200-sheet paper capacity and connects to mobile devices as well as to PCs via Wi-Fi, Wi-Fi Direct, or USB. Unless you’re exceptionally picky, its output, while sluggish, is suitably high-quality.Â
Who It’s For
The TS7720 is a strong contender for any household that prints occasionally. It’s a little slow, but it offers good output quality (particularly for text and photos), and its two paper trays give it above-average paper handing for printers in its price class.
PROS
- Prints, scans, and copies
- Automatic duplexing for printing
- Two paper trays
- Supports mobile printing and scanning
CONS
- No automatic document feeder for scanning
- Limited to scanning letter-size paper or smaller
- Lowest running cost requires ink subscription
SPECS
| Name | Value |
|---|---|
| Type | All-in-one |
| Color or Monochrome | Color |
| Connection Type | USB, Wi-Fi, Wi-Fi Direct |
| Maximum Standard Paper Size | Legal |
| Number of Ink Colors | 4 |
| Number of Ink Cartridges/Tanks | 2 |
| Direct Printing From Media Cards | |
| Direct Printing From USB Thumb Drives | |
| Rated Speed at Default Settings (Color) | 15 ppm |
| Rated Speed at Default Settings (Mono) | 10 ppm |
| Monthly Duty Cycle (Recommended) | Not rated |
| Monthly Duty Cycle (Maximum) | Not rated |
| LCD Preview Screen | |
| Printer Input Capacity | 100 + 100 |
| Cost Per Page (Monochrome) | 7.6 cents |
| Cost Per Page (Color) | 19 cents |
| Print Duplexing | |
| Automatic Document Feeder | |
| Scanner Type | Flatbed |
| Duplexing Scans | |
| Maximum Scan Area | Letter |
| Scanner Optical Resolution | 1,200×1,200 pixels per inch |
| Standalone Copier and Fax | Copier |
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Pantum P3012DW
Best Budget Personal Laser Printer
Why We Picked It
Officially, the Pantum P3012DW has no list price—it’s $139.99 or less from retailers like Amazon—but it’s a consistently good choice if you’re seeking an entry-level monochrome laser printer. Taking about 13 by 14 inches of desk space, it offers suitably high paper capacity (a 250-sheet drawer plus a single-sheet tray for letterheads or other special media), and unlike most of its peers it supports the full range of standard connectivity options—USB, Ethernet, Wi-Fi, and Wi-Fi Direct. It also provides automatic duplexing and prints relatively quickly.
Who It’s For
Like other low-cost lasers, the P3012DW prints admirable text but mediocre graphics and photos—good enough to be recognizable, but not something you’d want to use for even one-page mailers or handouts if you want to look professional. However, its running costs work out to a lower cost of ownership than pricier rivals with less expensive toner as long as you don’t need more than about 400 prints per month. If you can live without top-quality graphics and photos, the combination makes it a first-rate choice as a shared printer in a micro office or as a personal desktop printer.
PROS
- Low price, high speed
- Auto duplexing
- Wired and wireless connections including Wi-Fi Direct for handhelds
- High-quality text for common fonts
CONS
- Banding in graphics and photos
- Poor setup instructions for mobile printing
SPECS
| Name | Value |
|---|---|
| Type | Printer Only |
| Color or Monochrome | Monochrome |
| Connection Type | Ethernet, USB, Wi-Fi, Wi-Fi Direct, NFC |
| Maximum Standard Paper Size | Legal |
| Number of Ink Colors | 1 |
| Number of Ink Cartridges/Tanks | 1 |
| Direct Printing From Media Cards | |
| Direct Printing From USB Thumb Drives | |
| Rated Speed at Default Settings (Color) | N/A |
| Rated Speed at Default Settings (Mono) | 32 ppm |
| Monthly Duty Cycle (Recommended) | Not rated |
| Monthly Duty Cycle (Maximum) | 60,000 pages per month |
| LCD Preview Screen | |
| Printer Input Capacity | 250 + 1-sheet bypass |
| Cost Per Page (Monochrome) | 2.8 |
| Cost Per Page (Color) | N/A |
| Print Duplexing | |
| Automatic Document Feeder | |
| Scanner Type | N/A |
| Duplexing Scans | |
| Maximum Scan Area | N/A |
| Scanner Optical Resolution | N/A |
| Standalone Copier and Fax | N/A |
Learn More
Pantum P2502W
A Solid Alternative to the Pantum P3012DW
Why We Picked It
If you absolutely must have a laser printer—for crisp text that won’t smudge from highlighters or a few stray drops of water, for example—but are short on dollars and desk space, the Pantum P2502W may be the answer. This miniature monochrome printer can cost as much as $99, but its price varies from day to day (just $85 on Amazon at this writing). Smaller than many inkjet printers, with a footprint of just 13.3 by 8.7 inches, it delivers suitable paper handling for a personal printer thanks to a 150-sheet paper tray and manual duplexing. It also offers a choice of toners, with one cartridge that Pantum says delivers better print quality and another that offers a lower cost per page. It didn’t score well on graphics output in our tests, but it yielded decent speed and text quality plus good photo quality for a mono laser.Â
Who It’s For
The P2502W supports Wi-Fi, so you can connect it to a network for sharing and put it anywhere you’d like, but its low paper capacity, manual duplexing, and relatively high costs per page—even with the more economical toner—make it a poor choice as a high-volume shared printer. Its natural home is sitting on your desk as a solid choice for a personal mono laser.
PROS
- Inexpensive
- High-quality text
- Solid graphics and photo output
- Wired and wireless network connections
CONS
- Paper tends to curl after printing
- Manual duplexing only
- Unusually noisy when feeding paper
SPECS
| Name | Value |
|---|---|
| Type | Printer Only |
| Color or Monochrome | Monochrome |
| Connection Type | USB, Wi-Fi, Wi-Fi Direct |
| Maximum Standard Paper Size | Legal |
| Number of Ink Colors | 1 |
| Number of Ink Cartridges/Tanks | 1 |
| Direct Printing From Media Cards | |
| Direct Printing From USB Thumb Drives | |
| Rated Speed at Default Settings (Color) | NA |
| Rated Speed at Default Settings (Mono) | 23 ppm |
| Monthly Duty Cycle (Recommended) | 700 |
| Monthly Duty Cycle (Maximum) | 15,000 pages per month |
| LCD Preview Screen | |
| Printer Input Capacity | 150 |
| Cost Per Page (Monochrome) | 3.8 cents |
| Cost Per Page (Color) | NA |
| Print Duplexing | |
| Automatic Document Feeder | |
| Scanner Type | N/A |
| Duplexing Scans | |
| Maximum Scan Area | N/A |
| Scanner Optical Resolution | N/A |
| Standalone Copier and Fax | N/A |
Learn More
Canon Selphy CP1500 Wireless Compact Photo Printer
Best Budget 4-by-6-Inch Snapshot Printer
Why We Picked It
Most fully portable photo printers today offer wallet-size or slightly larger prints, so if you want a 4-by-6-inch picture size, which the Canon Selphy CP1500 offers, you have limited choices. Fortunately that doesn’t mean you have to make compromises. The latest in the long-running Selphy line of portables, the CP1500 in particular delivers a solid feature set; drugstore-grade photo quality, courtesy of its dye sub technology; and a reasonably low running cost, at a bit above or below 30 cents per 4-by-6-inch photo. (The cost covers both the paper and required dye rolls.)
The CP1500 weighs 2.5 pounds with the paper cassette and its dye roll inserted, but not the optional battery, which can print up to 54 photos per charge. This model can print from an SD or microSD card, a USB thumb drive (you get a Type-C, not Type-A, port for that), an iOS or Android phone or tablet, or a macOS or Windows PC, and it can connect via USB cable or Wi-Fi. In our tests, the CP1500 printed each sample photo in a bit less than a minute, complete with a protective coating. And the dye sub picture comes out fully waterproof, without needing drying time, and with a long promised lifetime, rated at 100 years.
Who It’s For
The CP1500’s 4-by-6 inch picture size, image quality, and long life for its prints are aimed at producing photos likely to wind up displayed in a frame or saved in an album, and the image quality is easily suitable for that. If you’re looking for a low-cost printer exclusively for wallet-size photos or sticking to various objects, you can use the CP1500 for those as well, but you’ll have to cut the photos down to size after printing, and depend on refrigerator magnets, glue, and push pins to make them stick.
PROS
- Solid photo print quality
- Low running costs (for 4-by-6-inch media)
- Supports multiple paper sizes with inexpensive tray option
- Easy-to-use control panel
- Prints from USB and SD card memory devices
- Optional battery
CONS
- No Windows or macOS software (companion apps are phone-oriented)
- Photo paper stock provided in packs of consumables is thin
SPECS
| Name | Value |
|---|---|
| Type | Printer Only |
| Color or Monochrome | Color |
| Connection Type | Wi-Fi, USB-C |
| Maximum Standard Paper Size | 4″ x 6″ |
| Number of Ink Colors | 4 |
| Number of Ink Cartridges/Tanks | 1 |
| Direct Printing From Media Cards | |
| Direct Printing From USB Thumb Drives | |
| Rated Speed at Default Settings (Color) | 41 seconds per print |
| Rated Speed at Default Settings (Mono) | Not rated |
| Monthly Duty Cycle (Recommended) | Not rated |
| Monthly Duty Cycle (Maximum) | Not rated |
| LCD Preview Screen | |
| Printer Input Capacity | 20 |
| Cost Per Page (Monochrome) | NA |
| Cost Per Page (Color) | 29 cents |
| Print Duplexing | |
| Automatic Document Feeder | |
| Scanner Type | N/A |
| Duplexing Scans | |
| Maximum Scan Area | N/A |
| Scanner Optical Resolution | N/A |
| Standalone Copier and Fax | N/A |
Kodak Mini 3 Retro (3×3) Portable Printer
Best 3-by-3-Inch Snapshot Printer
Why We Picked It
The Retro part of the name of Kodak’s Mini 3 Retro pocket-size photo printer refers to its ability to print 3-inch-square images that are either borderless or have narrow white borders like old-time drugstore prints. We think the former option looks sharper, but both kinds look great thanks to the Kodak’s four-pass dye-sublimation technology, which delivers far better output quality than the zero-ink (Zink) output of many compact photo printers. The Mini 3 Retro is available in three colors (white, yellow, and black) and two prices—a $141.99 version that comes with a dye roll and enough media for 8 prints and a $156.99 version that comes with enough for 68 prints. Refills are available in 30-, 60-, and 90-print packs that you load by simply sliding them into the printer.
Who It’s For
The Retro connects via Bluetooth and prints from both Android and Apple phones and tablets (but not from PCs or Macs). It’s not the only dye-sub game in town—HP and Canon offer bulkier models that print larger pics—but if you’re content with 3-by-3 instead of 4-by-6-inch snapshots, it’s a fun, nifty smartphone companion.
PROS
- Fine photo quality in 3-inch square print format
- Prints both borderless and bordered photos
- Comes with enough consumables for 68 photos
CONS
- Bluetooth only; no Wi-Fi connectivity
- Android or iOS only; no Windows or macOS support
SPECS
| Name | Value |
|---|---|
| Type | Printer Only |
| Color or Monochrome | Color |
| Connection Type | Bluetooth |
| Maximum Standard Paper Size | 3″ x 3″ |
| Number of Ink Colors | 4 |
| Number of Ink Cartridges/Tanks | 1 |
| Direct Printing From Media Cards | |
| Direct Printing From USB Thumb Drives | |
| Rated Speed at Default Settings (Color) | 1 ppm |
| Rated Speed at Default Settings (Mono) | 1 ppm |
| Monthly Duty Cycle (Recommended) | Not rated |
| Monthly Duty Cycle (Maximum) | Not rated |
| LCD Preview Screen | |
| Printer Input Capacity | 90 |
| Cost Per Page (Monochrome) | 30 cents |
| Cost Per Page (Color) | 30 cents |
| Print Duplexing | |
| Automatic Document Feeder | |
| Scanner Type | N/A |
| Duplexing Scans | |
| Maximum Scan Area | N/A |
| Scanner Optical Resolution | N/A |
| Standalone Copier and Fax | N/A |
Epson LabelWorks LW-PX300
Best Budget Label Printer for Industrial-Style (Plastic) Labels
Why We Picked It
This isn’t your grandfather’s Dymo Label Maker. The Epson LabelWorks LW-PX300 ($59 alone, though the $89 kit with accessories is a better deal) can produce everything from standard plastic stick-on labels to promotional refrigerator magnets to heat-shrink tube tapes for electrical, phone, or data cables. It’s an easy-to-use handheld gadget with a small QWERTY keyboard (it doesn’t connect to a PC or phone) that works on either battery or AC power. Even better, it prints on clear or colored plastic tapes up to 0.71 inch wide as well as several specialty tapes, including silver-matte, strong adhesive tape, fluorescent tape, and the abovementioned heat-shrink and magnetic tapes. Most come in a variety of colors and widths, giving you more than 80 tapes to choose from.
Who It’s For
The LW-PX300 can’t print graphics (though it has a library of bar codes and symbols for industrial and professional use), and it prints pretty slowly. But its labels look great and work fine. It’s ideal for light-duty industrial-style labeling for, say, switches or cables whether for work or hobbies. And Epson throws in the ultimate sweetener: a lifetime warranty that even covers accidental breakage.
PROS
- Affordable, industrial-style labeling
- Easy-to-use handheld design with QWERTY keyboard
- Tape choices include plastic, vinyl, magnetic, and fluorescent up to 18mm
- Saves up to 50 labels in memory for easy reprinting
- Lifetime warranty
CONS
- Noticeably slow print speed
- Doesn’t connect to a PC or mobile device for printing
- Batteries not included
SPECS
| Name | Value |
|---|---|
| Type | Printer Only |
| Color or Monochrome | Monochrome |
| Connection Type | None |
| Maximum Standard Paper Size | 18mm roll |
| Number of Ink Colors | 1 |
| Number of Ink Cartridges/Tanks | 0 |
| Direct Printing From Media Cards | |
| Direct Printing From USB Thumb Drives | |
| Rated Speed at Default Settings (Color) | N/A |
| Rated Speed at Default Settings (Mono) | 6 mm / 0.24 inches per second |
| Monthly Duty Cycle (Recommended) | Not rated |
| Monthly Duty Cycle (Maximum) | Not rated |
| LCD Preview Screen | |
| Printer Input Capacity | 1 cartridge roll; sizes up to 30 feet |
| Cost Per Page (Monochrome) | varies with width and label length |
| Cost Per Page (Color) | N/A |
| Print Duplexing | |
| Automatic Document Feeder | |
| Scanner Type | N/A |
| Duplexing Scans | |
| Maximum Scan Area | N/A |
| Scanner Optical Resolution | N/A |
| Standalone Copier and Fax | N/A |
Learn More
Brother QL-800
Best Budget Printer for Paper Labels
Why We Picked It
For those whose labeling needs fall on the paper side of the paper-or-plastic divide—i.e., they need address labels, folder labels, and the like—it’s hard to beat Brother’s QL-800. This gadget can churn out labels in types and sizes ranging from one-line barcodes to address labels and everything in between. It can print labels on rolls up to 2.4 inches wide, but that doesn’t mean it can’t print a 1.25-by-3-inch address label. The trick is to orient the labels on the roll the right way. Brother offers both continuous-tape and die-cut labels, including one type that lets you print in red instead of or in addition to the usual black. Whether you need to design and print labels from Windows, Mac, or Android devices, the QL-800 can handle the job nicely.Â
Who It’s For
The one notable limitation of the QL-800 is that it connects only via its USB port, whether to your computer or an Android device, so you can’t easily print over a network or wirelessly from your phone or tablet. If you’re planning on using a USB connection to your PC anyway, however, or don’t mind making one with your mobile device, that’s a nonissue. And once connected, the Brother can print professional-quality labels in multiple shapes and sizes at a relatively fast clip.
PROS
- Fast output.
- Good print quality.
- Excellent label design, print software, and mobile apps.
- Prints two-color, black/red labels.
- Good selection of label types.
- Good value for the price.
CONS
- Per-label media cost is somewhat high.
- Ability to print in red limited to one label type.
SPECS
| Name | Value |
|---|---|
| Type | Printer Only |
| Color or Monochrome | Monochrome |
| Connection Type | USB |
| Maximum Standard Paper Size | 2.4″ roll |
| Number of Ink Colors | 2 |
| Number of Ink Cartridges/Tanks | 0 |
| Direct Printing From Media Cards | |
| Direct Printing From USB Thumb Drives | |
| Rated Speed at Default Settings (Color) | 93 labels per minute |
| Rated Speed at Default Settings (Mono) | 93 labels per minute |
| Monthly Duty Cycle (Recommended) | Not rated |
| Monthly Duty Cycle (Maximum) | Not rated |
| LCD Preview Screen | |
| Printer Input Capacity | Roll feed |
| Cost Per Page (Monochrome) | N/A |
| Cost Per Page (Color) | N/A |
| Print Duplexing | |
| Automatic Document Feeder | |
| Scanner Type | N/A |
| Duplexing Scans | |
| Maximum Scan Area | N/A |
| Scanner Optical Resolution | N/A |
| Standalone Copier and Fax | N/A |
Learn More
Buying Guide: The Best Cheap Printers for 2024
Getting hard copy shouldn’t be hard. A low-priced printer won’t be as fast as an enterprise machine designed for even a medium-size workgroup, nor will it be able to handle as high a volume of pages per month. But you don’t have to compromise on output quality or convenience. Today’s printer and scanner technology lets you focus on productivity features, handy control panels, and saving money by comparing running costs.
Some of the questions to ask when printer shopping haven’t changed in years; others are new. Let’s start with the big ones: print-only or multifunction, and monochrome or color—and indeed whether cheap printers are worth considering at all.
First Question: Are Cheap Printers Worth It?
Depending on what you do, the answer can be a resounding “yes” or a firm “no.” To start figuring where your print needs stand relative to the cheap models on the market, you first need to think about whether you need a single-function or a multifunction printer.
Single-function models do just one thing—print, naturally—while all-in-ones (AIOs, also known as multifunction printers or MFPs) can also copy, scan, and sometimes send and receive faxes. In terms of design, most AIOs are printers with a flatbed scanner sitting on top.
Sometimes all you need is a device that prints, either because you don’t need to copy or scan or because your scanning needs are heavy-duty enough that you need a dedicated scanner that can do the job better than any inexpensive AIO. That said, most home offices will benefit from at least occasional copying and scanning, making an AIO the better bet. Even if you don’t make a lot of copies, spending a little extra for a part-time copier can reduce the need to run local errands.
(Credit: Canon)
An important distinguishing characteristic of an AIO is whether its flatbed scanner is teamed with an automatic document feeder (ADF) for handling multipage documents without user intervention. When copying or scanning a stack of pages, the simplest and cheapest AIOs oblige you to place each page on the scanning glass or platen one at a time. With an ADF, you put the stack in the feeder, press Copy or Scan, and walk away. That’s an obvious time-saver if you work with lengthy documents more than occasionally.
Besides having different capacities (30 versus 50 sheets, for instance), automatic document feeders come in two main varieties: strictly simplex (one-sided) and duplex-capable (two-sided scanning, either manually or automatically). You’ll ideally want a higher capacity than the longest documents you scan, but most AIOs will pause after scanning a batch to let you add another stack. Duplexing is an absolute must if you need to scan two-sided originals.
Manual duplexing lets you duplex using a simplex ADF by scanning one side, then flipping the stack over to scan the other, and letting software or firmware interfile the pages in the right order. Auto duplexing scans both sides automatically; you just load the stack, give the command, and wait for the scanning to finish. There are two types of auto-duplexing ADFs, one of which is faster and more expensive than the other, but few AIOs that qualify as cheap offer either kind, aside from models that are heavily discounted or discontinued. If you find one in the sub-$200 price range, it will almost certainly have the slower, less expensive version of auto duplexing.
Do You Need a Monochrome or a Color Printer?
Without question, color pages are more eye-catching than their black-and-white counterparts, and they carry more impact. For many purposes, color is all but essential when producing your own brochures, flyers, and other promotional materials. And it is essential for printing almost any photos other than new copies of your grandparent’s old black and white prints.
(Credit: Canon)
But some kinds of documents don’t benefit from color, and sometimes using color ink is an unnecessary expense. Depending on your printer and the pages you print, a color page can easily cost you three to five times as much as a monochrome one or more. Note also that color inkjets will eat through their color inks, and force you to buy more, even if you rarely print in color, just in housekeeping tasks that keep the nozzles from clogging. Many color printers also add color inks to black when printing graphics and photos in monochrome, and we’ve even seen some that add dots of color ink to monochrome text. So if you don’t need color, you’re better off getting a monochrome printer.
Paper Handling and Print Volume: What You Need to Know
Some home offices not only print a lot, but print on different types and sizes of paper. What if you print mostly on plain paper or letterhead, but occasionally need to output a legal-size spreadsheet? Or a sheet of labels or a check? What if you print so many pages that you need a machine with deep paper trays that don’t demand frequent refilling?
While most cheap printers lack high-volume trays and multiple input sources, you should still pay attention to a machine’s input options. An open, easily accessible tray that lets you simply slip more pages on top of the current stack can make refilling paper or changing to different stock a lot easier than having to pull a drawer out of the printer to load paper. Beyond the main tray, many printers offer a single-sheet override slot or tray for printing one-off envelopes, forms, or labels, or sometimes a 10- or 20-sheet second tray for photo paper or envelopes. Others offer a 50- or 100-sheet second tray on the rear of the printer.
Note that a printer’s input capacity tends to scale with its rated print volume, which manufacturers usually express as the number of pages the machine is good to print per month or “duty cycle.” There are two kinds of monthly duty cycles, maximum (the absolute most pages a printer is rated to crank out per month without shortening its overall lifespan) and recommended maximum (a much smaller number, based largely on print speed, paper capacity, and how many pages the device is expected to print over its projected life—usually three to five years—before wearing out). Many, if not most, cheap printers don’t list rated duty cycles in their specifications, but it’s info worth having if you can find it.
(Credit: Epson)
One good rule of thumb for choosing a printer is to consider how many pages you expect to print per week or per month, then pick one with enough paper capacity so you needn’t refill the trays more than once a week on average—or however often you’re comfortable doing that chore. Another is that if you expect to print so much that you’re concerned about the maximum duty cycle, you shouldn’t buy a printer that doesn’t include that number in its specs.
What Kind of Printer Connectivity Do You Need?
Most of today’s lower-end machines come with Wi-Fi and USB connectivity. Ethernet, if you can find it, is the fastest and most secure option; Wi-Fi, which is more or less today’s standard, is highly convenient and plenty fast enough for printing. Most modern printers also provide free downloadable apps for iOS and Android phones. What you get doesn’t always correspond to the printer price, so check the individual details of any model you are looking at with care.
Most printers come ready to connect to most handheld devices (smartphones and tablets) wirelessly either via Wi-Fi Direct (a peer-to-peer protocol) or Wi-Fi (with both the printer and mobile device connected to the same network). The printing is handled through manufacturer-specific apps. The standard wired interfaces for use with desktop and laptop computers are a USB port for connection to a single PC and an RJ-45 Ethernet jack for joining an office network. The latter is more of a business-centric protocol and is relatively rare on low-cost printers, but well worth using if you have it available. Connecting a printer to a network with Ethernet is usually far easier than with Wi-Fi, rarely requiring anything beyond plugging in a cable.
What Kind of Onboard Printer Controls Should You Look For?
Typically, the cheaper the printer, the fewer the functions and features it offers, and the less need there is for an option-rich control panel. While a few of today’s bargain AIOs have roomy color touch screens, most employ simple panels with a few buttons and status LEDs, and many of those with touch screens are so stingy on screen size that it can be hard to hit right spot, so you’d be better off with buttons.
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(Credit: Brother)
That said, a suitably large touch-screen control panel can be handy—with “suitably large” defined by your finger size. In addition to making walk-up functions (such as making copies or printing from cloud sites) easier, such panels let you specify security and other configuration changes, monitor and order supplies, and generate usage and other reports for printers that offer these features. You can also control, configure, and monitor many printers via an onboard web portal that you can access from any browser, whether on a PC or phone. The cheap printers we’re including here are less likely to offer this capability than printers aimed at offices, however, so if you want this feature, check to make sure the printer has it.
More generally, don’t assume any printer has any of these features, regardless of price. Check reviews or the printer’s spec sheet for the features you want.
So, What Are the Best Cheap Printers to Buy?
Each family or home office has its own unique needs in terms of print and copy volume. Since we’re focusing on cheap single-function and AIO printers here, this roundup assumes you won’t be printing or copying more than a couple of hundred pages per month. For most families and homebound office workers, this is plenty, although demand is rising as we’re seeing more printing from home.
We scrutinized all of the printers PC Labs has tested in the last few years that are still on the market, focusing on home-office or business models (both laser and inkjet) and photo-centric models (all inkjets among desktop printers). Usually, you’ll see significant differences in features between machines tweaked for office use and for photo printing. Low-cost office inkjets, for example, often include automatic document feeders while their photo-centric counterparts don’t.
Meanwhile, photo-minded inkjets tend to offer better quality for photos, with some higher-priced models employing five or six ink colors instead of the standard four (cyan, magenta, yellow, and black, often referred to as CMYK). The extra inks don’t guarantee better photo quality, but they make it easier to design a printer with better color accuracy. By contrast, the cheapest inkjets sometimes use old-school dual-cartridge (black and tricolor) designs, which work fine but are more wasteful as you have to throw away the color cartridge as soon as one of its three hues runs dry.
We’ve also included two niche classes of printers widely available for under $200: label printers (both the kind for hobbyists and the kind for folks shipping lots of items from home) and portable photo printers (for quick snapshots from your smartphone). The very smallest of the latter use an inkless technology known as Zero Ink (Zink) that applies heat to specially treated paper, though their output quality falls short of inkjet and dye-sublimation photo printers.
Finally, we can’t recommend any color laser printers for less than $200 (or anything close to it). The laser machines in this price class are monochrome.
It’s important to note that you can find some very cheap printers nowadays—some under $50—at the bottom of most manufacturers’ product lines. But it rarely makes sense to buy a slow printer with scanty features and replacement cartridges that typically cost as much or more than the printer. It’s smarter to look for printers that will save you money in the long run and check your possible choices against reviews that assess features and cost of ownership, as PCMag’s do. All of our picks below are informed by rigorous testing.
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