[Multifunctional Printers]
Smart Printers wid Scanner, Copier, fax, etcAll in One Printer
2008-03-03
More than 3m Brits now officially work from home, and millions more are catching up with office tasks at home in the evenings or at the weekends. The idea of doing your job without leaving your house (or even your pyjamas) might be tempting, but to get really productive without getting dressed you'll need to partner your computer with a printer, a photocopier and maybe even a scanner.
An easy way to do this without turning your spare bedroom into a branch office is with an all-in-one (AIO) printer. This multifunctional desktop device can print business letters and colour pictures, photocopy paperwork and scan all kinds of documents for digital storage.
What's more, it's compact, has just one mains plug and in most cases connects to your PC with a single USB cable. Annoyingly, you'll need to buy the cable (costing from £3) separately for every printer on test here, except for the Lexmark X4550, which transmits data wirelessly over your wi-fi network, so you can really clear up your desk by hiding it away in a cupboard. The Brother can also work wirelessly if plugged into a wi-fi router.
All the printers on test except the Lexmark X2550 have memory-card slots and a PictBridge port for printing photos directly from your digital camera. A few AIOs (such as the Brother) can also work as a fax machine, but these tend to be pricier, and faxing isn't popular nowadays.
At the heart of every AIO is an inkjet printer, a technological marvel that uses thousands of tiny nozzles to deliver microscopic amounts of ink with incredible precision, hundreds of times a second. The number of coloured inks is important; all the printers in our test used four, but more sophisticated photo printers can use up to eight inks for richer, more realistic colours. The Lexmarks can add two extra inks but the Canon and HP produced decent photos with their standard four.
You'll end up spending much more on ink over the lifetime of a printer than you ever did on buying it. Except where noted, these printers use about 5p worth of ink to print or photocopy a typical page comprising black text and colour images. But if you print mostly ink-hungry photos, be prepared for rocketing running costs.
Shop around for replacement inks, as online stores often charge far less than high street shops do. Think carefully before using cartridges that aren't from the printer's maker, or ink-refill packs; these do save you money, but at the risk of patchy ink coverage and smeary or fading prints.
When it comes to scanning, all the AIOs here were fine for making digital back-ups of letters and passports. But if you want to digitise photos to enlarge later, you'll ideally need a resolution of 2,400 x 4,800dpi, which only the Canon and HP could offer. While all the AIOs tested could produce readable (if not necessarily beautiful) photocopies of documents, none is suitable for bulk copying or making pristine reproductions of photos. Nevertheless, all-in-ones are a very handy home-office addition for weekend workers.
!~Brit~! (2008-03-04)
Id love to have a job where i didnt have to leave my house or my pajamas
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