Practicing the Black Art (04/08)
Buying An All-In-One Printer
by Vinny La Bash, vlabash@comcast.net
Member of the Sarasota Personal Computer Users Group, Inc.
Several years ago my advice to anyone thinking
about buying an all-in-one device was to run,
not walk away from these abominations. They were big, clunky, poorly
conceived, expensive, and worst of all, unreliable. How times have
changed. Today’s machines are well designed, sleek, relatively
inexpensive, and best of all, very reliable.
Why wouldn’t it be better to buy a dedicated printer,
fax, copier, scanner, and photo printer instead of a single
multi-function device? The all-in-one device takes up considerably less
space, and it is significantly less expensive than purchasing a group of
single-function machines. Switching from one function to another
requires no more effort than pressing a button.
The main drawback to a multi-function device is that
if it breaks down, all features are out of service. You can’t print,
fax, copy or scan. The second weakness is that while a good device will
perform all functions adequately, nothing can beat a dedicated machine
designed to perform one function extremely well.
Your solution is to consider your requirements and
decide if an all-in-one device is better for you than a group of
dedicated machines. Assuming that you don’t need top of the line
professional capabilities, what do you look for in a multi-function
machine?
Starting with the most common function, printing, you
need to decide between an inkjet and a laser printer. If you use a lot
of color in your printing, your choice is straightforward. Get an inkjet
printer. It is excellent for reproducing photographs. If you have kids
in the house, an inkjet is a godsend for school projects.
If you work at home and have extensive printing
requirements, consider a laser printer. Good laser printers produce high
quality documents, and are well suited for high volume printing.
Everybody wants speed, and printers are no exception.
Look for a machine that can produce at least eight pages per minute.
Anything less is bound to feel like it’s slowing you down, even if it
isn’t. Speed is important, but it isn’t everything. Wouldn’t you like to
know who that is standing next to Aunt Tessie in the family portrait?
Print detail and clarity are largely determined by
print resolution, which is how many dots per inch a printer can print on
paper. That’s partly governed by the quality of paper, but that’s
another issue. If you print images downloaded from the internet, 600 by
600 dpi will suffice. If you print photos from a good quality digital
camera, don’t settle for less than 2,400 by 1,200 dpi. You will pay
more, but you won’t be disappointed.
Decide if you want an automatic document feed for
your copying projects. If you copy ten or fifteen pages a month don’t
bother, but if you find yourself copying fifty pages at a time on a
regular basis, it’s probably a good idea.
A document feeder is rarely needed for scanning as a
flatbed scanner provides far more flexibility in scanning different
sized documents. (Now you need it, now you don’t. Isn’t this fun?)
Flatbed devices permit you to scan pages from books and magazines. Be
careful of copyright issues. Scanning from slides will require a
transparency negative adapter. Your salesperson will most likely profess
ignorance on this point, and that will require a visit to the
manufacturer’s web site or a call directly to the manufacturer.
Scanners have an additional complication called color
depth, which is how many colors can it accurately reproduce from a
photo, slide, or whatever kind of images it’s contending with. Look for
a color depth of at least 36 bits. Higher end models have scanner
capabilities of 48 bits and even more superior levels of resolution.
With the ability to attach documents to emails,
faxing is not as important as it used to be. However some entities like
insurance companies demand traditional faxes. Talk about being behind
the technology curve. If you do need fax capabilities, look for a
machine that allows you to bypass the PC. It’s a lot less hassle than
dealing with fax software.
Recent all-in-ones have slots for digital camera
memory cards so you can download and print photos directly from your
camera. Hewlett Packard and Canon have been leaders in this area.
Most of this capability is useless unless you can
connect the device to your computer. You want connection with a USB
port. Parallel ports are obsolete and most computer manufacturers today
don’t bother offering parallel ports with new machines.
How much does one pay for all this capability? Prices range from just
over $100 for a cheap inkjet printer to $1,100 for a high end laser
printer. Most people will do just fine with something in the middle of
the range. If you don’t need a photo printer or an automatic document
feed, a $200 to $300 model will probably meet your basic needs. :
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Copyright 2008. This article is from the April 2008 issue of the
Sarasota PC Monitor, the official monthly publication of the Sarasota
Personal Computer Users Group, Inc., P.O. Box 15889, Sarasota, FL
34277-1889. Permission to reprint is granted only to other non-profit
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