Printer Basics

First, you must decide on what the primary use for your new printer will be. Are you looking for a workhorse that can print out letters, reports, spreadsheets and the like as well as decent looking copies of art from the 'net? Or are you looking for a professional quality printer to make prints of your art for sale and portfolio purposes? Think carefully on this point... after all, it's more than a little pointless to buy a Fargo dye-sublimation printer if the majority of your output is going to be your basic word-processor files.

Next, you need to think about your budget. With the rapidly falling prices in the computer industry, it's fairly easy to find a solid color inkjet for under $300. However, if you want the really high-quality output, you need to be willing and able to shell out the cash.

Some things to consider:

Inkjet, laser, or other

This is where much of the difference in prices will result. Inkjets these days are incredibly cheap, especially in comparison to monochrome laser printers, and can produce comporable results. In addition, with the advent of the digital camera, there are many inkjet printers that are designed specifically to produce photograph-quality images.

Laser printers, on the other hand, can produce a much smoother and sharper product than most inkjets, and at a higher rate of pages per minute (ppm). Unfortunately, most affordable laser printers output in greyscale only... color laser jets are still in the $3000 - $4000 range, and the coloring (at least, in my experience) is still not quite as good as it could be.

Finally, there are the other choices, such as the Fargo dye-sublimation and wax-transfer printers. or the ALPS MD series. While these can give you professional quality prints in a wide variety of sizes and mediums, they are also expensive as all hell. While the ALPS MD-1000 is moderately priced at $300 - $400, with cartridges running at $10 each, the Fargo series is a whopping $4000, it's special dye-sub ribbons have prices running in the $100 - $200 range, and special papers costing around $50 on average.

Technical Considerations

There are a few things you'll want to think about when making your purchases...

1) DPI
DPI, or dots-per-inch, is the measure of a printer's resolution. The lower the DPI (for example, 100 x 100), the larger the dots and the lower the resolution. This makes your print-out look grainier and less professional. If you're planning to print quality artwork, a good range is 300 to 600 dpi.

2) PPM PPM stands for pages-per-minute.
This is the measure of your printer's speed. Again, a higher number is better if you print in bulk or if time is of utmost importance. A monochrome laser printer can output up to 20 ppm, while a good inkjet can handle around 5-10 ppm b/w and 3-5 ppm color on your average sheet of paper.

3) Mediums and paper sizes
Since everyone doesn't work with 8" x 10" images, the ability to handle a wide range of paper sizes could well be important. Many laser printers can handle up to 11" x 17", as can some inkjets. However, the majority of printers will only accept 8.5" x 11" with an 8 x 10 print area. This means, of course, that if your work is bigger than the print area, either you will need to reduce the image size, or accept that your work will be cropped.

You will also want to consider what sort of mediums the printer can handle. Depending on your form of artwork, you may well want to print on glossy photo-paper, or on cardstock or even on t-shirt transfers. If this is the case, you may well want to do a little research on what each printer can handle. In addition, many printer makers such as Hewlett Packard, Epson and Cannon have lines of specialty papers created specifically for their printers. If you think you'll want to print on something other than plain paper, you may wish to compare prices and see which is right for your budget.

4) Cost Per Page
This is where you really need to consider your long-term budget. The cost per page is a combination of the price of the paper, the price of the ink cartridges and the ammount of ink needed for each page. Many high-quality printers have correspondingly high costs per page. Links of Interest

EPSON America Inc: http://www.epson.com/northamerica.html

FARP Article Guestbook

Date	Name	Comment
5 May 2008	Pirme816	Loading... buying a printer would take a lot of consideration for some ordinary people. One main consideration is what would be the purpose of buying one. Because the purpose also dictates on what will be the type of printer you will select or buy. for some business purposes the budget will not be a big deal but the quality it produces. Prime Don’t waste money on Printer Ink. Save up to 65% on toner cartridges, ink cartridges and printer supplies. http://www.concordsupplies.com

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