While many of the important documents we need are easy to access on a computer or tablet, there’s still virtue in putting some things on paper—and for that, you need a good home printer. Whether it’s used to print out tickets for a concert, a form for work that you need to sign or a certificate that you’d like to keep, a printer is an indispensable tool for the home office. There are plenty of models on the market, but choosing the one that works best for your needs is key.
One of the biggest considerations is whether you need color printing, or if a black-and-white printer will suffice. You’ll also want to note how much space a printer takes up. The category isn’t known for producing high-design objects, so you’ll want to make sure your chosen model doesn’t take up too much visual space.
Some printers can also act as copying machines and scanners, valuable add-ons that come in handy whether you’re working from home or just need to create an extra copy of vital paperwork. Whether you’re going for no-frills or want all the bells and whistles, you’ll find something that suits your needs among one of the three options below.
1. Brother All-in-One Printer
One of the most annoying things about having a printer is replacing the ink cartridges. This is doubly true if you want to print in color. Thankfully, Brother’s color printer alleviates some of these headaches, as it comes with a full suite of ink cartridges that promise to last one full year, if you’re printing about 150 pages per month. There’s also an easy-to-read gauge on the front of the printer that tells you how much ink is left, so you won’t have to guess or wait until you start to notice the color running out. It can also scan and copy, and you can connect to it wirelessly from your phone for quick, easy printing.
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2. Canon All in One Photo Printer
Canon’s device is, first and foremost, a black-and-white printer, so those who want to regularly print in color will have to look elsewhere. That said, it’s a pretty high-tech offering—it can even connect to an Amazon Alexa so you can just tell it when to print something, rather than push any buttons. You can print things wirelessly from your phone via an app, and, perhaps best of all, you can program it so that it will automatically buy more ink cartridges when it starts to run low, so you’ll never run out.
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3. HP Color LaserJet Pro Wireless Printer
HP’s color printer is a bit too big to have at home, but for those who own a small business with more modest office space, it’s pretty much perfect. It has a suite of embedded security features, like instant threat notifications, and it can hold 250 sheets in one tray and 50 sheets in another. It can print 22 pages per minute, too, and for more complex daily tasks that involve double-sided printing and the like, you can create automated workflows and activate them with just the touch of a button. Oh, and it works with Alexa.
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