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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!