The five best home printers you can buy in 2020
PLENTY of people still need one of the best printers in their homes.
Whether you have to print out documents for work, or you’ve got university essays and projects to hand in, you don’t want to be reliant on a creaking piece of kit from the early noughties.
The first choice you have to make when choosing between printers is whether you want an inkjet printer or a laser printer.
The two types of printer differ significantly, which we show below.
Inkjet printers
Inkjet printers tend to handle colour printing better than laser printers, although they’re a little slower to print out large amounts of text.
Plus, although they tend to be cheaper upfront, inkjet printers usually cost more to run than laser printers because of ink costs (although that could change with the inclusion of integrated ink tanks).
Inkjet printers are the way to go if you have to print out a mix of documents including picture-heavy sheets that contain a lot of colour.
You’ll also want an inkjet if you’re planning on printing off any of your own photos.
Laser printers
Laser printers excel at producing black text-based documents quickly, which is great if you’re printing out long contracts or manuscripts on a regular basis.
They can be used to print off simple graphics, but don’t specialise in pictures, and the cost per page is usually lower with laser printers than inkjet models.
They also tend to be a bit larger than inkjet printers.
1. Best value inkjet printer: HP Deskjet 2632
- HP Deskjet 2632, £29.99 from Argos – buy here
If you want a printer that does it all, without breaking the bank, you won’t be disappointed with the HP DeskJet 2632.
It’s got a built-in scanner, has Wi-Fi connectivity and can be connected to using a variety of apps.
The downsides of this printer include having to manually re-insert paper into the tray if you want to print double sided, and because it has multi-colour ink cartridges, once one colour runs out, you have to throw out the whole cartridge and use a new one.
Still though, for people who don’t print every day, this printer will cover all of your basic needs at a great price.
2. Best value laser printer: Brother HL-L2310D
- Brother HL-L2310D, £69.99 from Argos – buy here
While this laser printer doesn’t have a lot of bells and whistles, if your only need is having your text-based documents printed off quickly, this Brother model is the way to go.
It’ll do two-sided printing and manage up to 30 pages a minute.
The toner cartridges aren’t too expensive either, so it’ll be relatively cheap to run.
The downside is that it has no scanner and no Wi-Fi connectivity.
But if you want something to plug and play with a USB port, this could be the printer for you.
3. Best tank printer: Canon Pixma G4510
- Canon Pixma G4510, £279.99 from Canon – buy here
Epson started the trend of Tank printers; which means instead of using cartridges to refill your ink, you buy bottles which you empty into the printer.
That means you tend to get a lot more bang for you buck and you’re not stuck buying expensive cartridges which increase your costs every time you run out of ink.
The down side of these printers is that they tend to be more expensive outright, but you should make a good slice of your money back if you use it regularly for a few years.
Canon has entered the Tank game though and this Pixma G4510 has a great range of connectivity options, including Wi-Fi, and has a scanner built in.
It’s expensive, but it’s economical and was even awarded a Which? Best Buy.
4. Best all-in-one laser printer: Canon i-Sensys
- Canon i-SENSYS, £309.99 from Canon – buy here
If you demand a top quality document printer, this Canon model should fit the bill.
It prints text accurately and quickly (28 sheets per minute) and Canon claims that its toner tank will manage 4,100 pages before it needs refilling.
The i-Sensys will connect to Wi-Fi, it has a scanner built in and it has an automatic document feeder that allows you to quickly scan and copy multi-page documents.
It’s expensive, but it’s got low running costs and will get the job done.
5. Best value photo printer: Epson EcoTank ET-2711
- Epson EcoTank ET-2711, £148 from Amazon – buy here
Printing your favourite pictures from your cameras and phones at home has been an expensive business in the past.
But thanks to this EcoTank from Epson, it’s more affordable than ever.
It’s got refillable ink tanks rather than cartridges to keep your costs low.
And reviewers have praised the quality of the images they’ve gotten out of it.
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