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Ken asked: “I’m trying to find a new printer for my home. Mine is just acting up and it’s probably cheaper to buy a new one. Something multifunction, nice and easy. Maybe Bluetooth.”
The good news, Ken, is there is no shortage of excellent multifunction printer models available, some at really amazing prices.
The big difference between printers designed for home use and those designed for office or home office use is paper handling and fax support. Printers that are designed to work in an office or home office will usually have automatic document feeders to let them scan a stack of pages in a single command, rather than a flatbed document scanner that requires you to swap each page as you are scanning.
And yes, fax support. Even though it’s 2017 there are still some businesses that run on faxes (we’re looking at you, doctors’ offices and insurance companies). If that’s an important feature for you, for some reason, then you know to check the feature list because it’s not automatic.
And yes, fax support. Even though it’s 2017 there are still some businesses that run on faxes
One great choice for a home printer is the Canon PIXMA MG5720. It’s reasonably fast with very good print quality and it can be purchased online for less than $50 (the list price being $99.95). The flatbed scanner is 1200dpi and it can print on legal size paper, 8.5 by 14 inches. For the price, it’s hard to beat this printer.
For around $125, the Canon Maxify MB2720 is a home office printer that has a multisheet automatic document feeder, better speed than the less expensive Canon model and more paper capacity.
With a manufacturer’s list price of $549 and an online sales price of around $385, the Epson WorkForce Pro WF-6590 would represent the sort of higher end professional multifunction printer that would be shared between multiple users on a home network. It supports professional features like PostScript printing and single-pass scanning of both sides of the paper in its automatic document feeder.
So whether you’re just a home user or someone who works from home, you’ve got choices ranging from $50 all the way to $400, depending on the speed, paper capacity, duty cycle, and features that you need. All of these printers will support Apple AirPrint and Google Cloud Print, so you can print from both computers and mobile devices.
We hope we’ve helped!