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Choose the right printer for your home.

Vishnu K. Mahmud Contributor Jakarta

Remember the old days when buying a printer was a major investment? You'd be lucky to find an affordable machine, or one that can print in "Near Letter Quality". Don't even think about printing pictures or photos on them.

Fast forward to the present. You can now choose a printer from a wide variety of types, models and prices. Need one for your Small Office Home Office (SOHO), or just one to print out your business papers? Or do you plan to fully use your digital camera and print out Junior's birthday party? The market is flooded with choices.

There are 3 types of printers that are suitable for the home: Laser, Inkjet and Dot Matrix.

The Laser printer has always been synonymous with the office printer. It's fast, quiet, and produces the best quality documents. Although at first it could only print in monochrome (i.e. black), there are now color laser printers on the market.

This printer is ideal for the home office that generates multitudes of documents daily. The toner cartridges may be rather pricey (starts at about Rp 300,000) but make up in yield (up to an average of 5,000 pages per cartridge, depending on make and model). Laser printers also consume a lot of energy, which may be something to consider in order to prevent your circuit breaker going down.

Ink Jets are currently the most common home printer sold. The print results are close to those of a laser printer but lack the speed and unobtrusive nature (it can be rather noisy and tends to vibrate during printing). The Ink Jet's strengths are in its low price and color printing capability.

These printers can also be multi-purpose machines. Not only can they print photos and letters, but some can scan documents and pictures as well, with the appropriate add-on device. You can save money by purchasing individual ink cartridges (black or color) depending on the amount of documents or photos you wish to print. You don't need a color cartridge to print your business papers or black ink for pictures.

Dot Matrix is perhaps the grand daddy of them all. These old war horses are still used today, especially within government agencies or law offices since some models can accommodate extra wide legal paper. The printer's ink ribbon is rather inexpensive but can be rather noisy when printing.

Dot Matrix printers are still available as they are ideal for businesses that print on continuous forms or bills. You can also use color ink ribbons, but it would only be useful for text. Printing even small pictures is not worth it.

Selecting a home printer is not that complicated. You must decide what the printer will be used for mainly, and what is your budget. Although Laser printers may be expensive initially, you save more in the long term. Ink Jets are an ideal family printer while Dot Matrix printers fill a niche in the business world.

Before you go out and buy one, consider these following tips.

If you plan to print photos, try getting the printer with the highest resolution possible (like 700 by 1,400 dpi). The higher the resolution, the better quality pictures they will produce.

Consider the cost of the cartridges for each printer. Each model uses its own specialized cartridge and each brand has its own pricing standards. Some cartridges may be more expensive then others. Ink Jet cartridges in particular may have the print heads built in with the ink reservoir which can increase the cost of the unit.

If you plan to print in a particular color more then others, find a printer that has individually replaceable cartridges. An ideal one would be one ink reservoir for black, and 3 others for creating the different colors.

Try and get find a print out sample to compare the different printers. You should also see how fast the machine prints out a page. Remember that each printout speed depends on the amount of text and graphics that required on each single page.

And finally, for Ink Jet printers, do not in any circumstances refill your cartridges manually. There are a few cartridge refill kits that permit the user to inject ink into the cartridge ink reservoir. This can damage the print head since the quality of the ink is rather questionable and may not be suited for that particular printer.

Before long, you'll be able to prepare your presentation, archive your photos on paper and do your work at home. That's what technology is supposed to do: make things easier. Just make sure you conserve paper!