Ink Maker Magazine Article
Which Printer Should You Buy?
If a person is not especially technically inclined (like most people), it can be a scary proposition to shop for printers. First of all, you have a number of different options when it comes to printers these days, so you have to decide which one you want. The second problem is the techno-babble that goes along with buying printers and pretty much everything electronic these days. In order to be in the know, you may feel like you have to jump through hoops and wear a secret decoder ring in order to know what exactly it is you are buying.
The techno-babble, however, is not really all that complicated, and I suspect that it is really only included to make a machine look and sound more impressive than it actually is. If you see something that says 2400dpi, all this really equates to is the number of dots the printer will make on the page per inch, in order to produce the finished printout. Obviously, the more dots per inch there are, the sharper the image will be. This is as opposed to those old dot matrix printers from the 1980s where you could clearly see the pixels on the printed page, no matter what it was you were printing.
So technology has made its advances and that gives you, the printer shopper, more options. The best part is that there is no need to feel intimidated by those options, and to be quite honest with you, there is no need to concern yourself with the dpi number. Any reputable retailer, whether it be a mass merchandiser or a store that specializes in computer equipment, is not going to be selling anything in the way of printers that will yield poor print quality.
No, what you need to think about when you shop for a printer is what applications you intend to use it for. Are you a writer who is printing out their first novel? All you need is a basic printer, particularly if you are writing books or any other text material that does not include pictures. The text printing these days is going to look pretty much the same no matter what printer produces it.
On the other hand, let's say that you are a photographer and need a good quality printer that can produce photo-quality printouts. You may want to consider a laser printer, and you will probably want to make sure that you get a printer that boasts a high dpi number in order to get crisp, clean images.
What is almost more important than which printer you choose is the type of paper you use in the printer. Printer paper comes in a number of different varieties, such as photo paper in both matte and glossy, card stock (for making your own Christmas cards or business cards, for example), and several weights of typical printer paper. The weight and consistency of the printer paper make a big difference when it comes to printing, because if the paper is too soft, for instance, the printer ink may bleed slightly on the page, which will make the printout appear blurry. A harder and more smooth surfaced paper may create the opposite issue, where the ink cannot adhere quite as much to the paper, which means the ink takes longer to dry completely.
Your best bet is to research the different types of printers on the market today and see which one is going to best suit your needs. If you visit a computer store, the staff is likely going to be knowledgeable about the printers and will be able to give you more detailed information about what all the lingo means and what kind of printer will work best for you.
