Best home printers (January 2023): remote working, home office and more

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Whether you have a multi-generational family with people who have different sets of needs or you have a work-from-home arrangement, only the best home printers can match your demands.

The wonderful thing about current printers is that they tend to be much more versatile and competent than ever before, even when they aren’t intended for household use, in which case they aren’t considered all-in-one printers.

Therefore, you don’t need the expensive behemoth you’ll find in most companies, whether your daily printing requirements entail printing and scanning a lot of work papers or are just focused on printing items for the kids’ homework and school projects. In this day and age, you need the greatest home printers for all your printing requirements. These printers, which may use either ink or laser technology, are equally adaptable and multi-purpose while yet being reasonably priced, small, and, perhaps more significantly, dependable.

One of the top home printers will more than enough unless you need a commercial printer’s high-capacity features. And for your convenience, we have compiled our favourite recommendations in one guide. This evaluation investigates the pricing and printing and scanning quality of the top home printers.

The best home printers of 2023 in full

1. Lexmark MB3442adw

SPECIFICATIONS

Category: All-in-one mono laser printer
Print speed: 42ppm (mono)
Paper capacity: 350 sheets
Paper size: up to A4
Despite its little size, the Lexmark MB3442adw provides all the features and capabilities of a capable office printer. It is a four-in-one gadget, so in addition to printing, scanning, and photocopying, it also allows you to fax (provided you have a landline). One of the quickest laser printers available can print 42 pages per minute. You probably won’t ever need another home printer because the main tray can hold 350 sheets of paper and there is capacity to upgrade.
The touchscreen and front USB ports are useful, and the duplex printing and scanning are done efficiently. Large papers like manuscripts may be printed rapidly, and the quality is always good. This AIO (all-in-one) device is ideal if you frequently print a lot of pages and need the extra features of a scanner and ADF. Just keep in mind the toner’s price.
The main selling feature is the lack of consumables beyond the cartridges, such as separate photoconductors, developers, and even the waste tone container, which is a lifelong purchase. Therefore, even though you would think the cartridges are pricey, other parts that could need to be replaced on competing goods don’t.

2. HP DeskJet 3755

The smallest all-in-one inkjet printer on the market, this tiny device can fit into a luggage or rest neatly on any shelf and comes in a variety of colours. It works well for light tasks at home rather than in the workplace because it only has space for sixty sheets of paper and two ink cartridges on board.

Any material up to A4/letter size, including glossy picture paper and envelopes, can be printed on. It features Wi-Fi with Wi-Fi-Direct and AirPrint and prints excellent photos slowly. HP’s novel scan beam, which functions as an ordinary A4 flatbed scanner and has what seems to be a carry handle on top, is unique. Any document can be inserted into the slot below, and it will automatically be pulled through, scanned, and prepared for copying.

3. HP Envy Pro 6420 printer

SPECIFICATIONS

Category: All-in-one color inkjet printer
Print speed: 10ppm (mono)
Paper capacity: 100 sheets
Paper size: up to A4

The HP Envy Pro 6420 is a small, reasonably priced inkjet printer that has every function a home office printer should have. Your smartphone may be used to print, scan, copy, and even fax. Although the print speed is poor, the built-in ADF allows it to duplex print and photocopy a stack of up to 35 pages (automatic document scanner). You get built-in Bluetooth and self-healing Wi-Fi in place of an Ethernet connector, which makes mobile printing with the HP iOS/Android app very simple.

While its absence of an LCD display, its small paper capacity, and its sluggish print speed can all be disregarded if you’re printing on a modest scale, we were delighted by its simplicity of use and overall print quality.

Replacement ink cartridges are somewhat expensive unless you sign up for HP’s Instant Ink subscription service, which guarantees cheaper cartridges sent in the mail when needed. However, we would advise against this commitment if you only print occasionally.

4. Epson WorkForce WF-7210DTW printer

SPECIFICATIONS

Category: Color inkjet printer
Print speed: 18ppm
Paper capacity: 500 sheets
Paper size: up to A3

There aren’t many printers designed for home offices that can handle A3 paper, and those that can automatically print on both sides of an A3 page are even less frequent. Such a creature exists, and the WorkForce WF-7210DTW does it pretty well. Whether it’s a glossy photo or a monochromatic text, print quality is amazing. Wi-Fi and NFC connection are included in the lengthy list of capabilities, and the two paper trays can handle 500 pages each.

Its longer-than-average warranty at the time of writing was something we liked. Although this printer lacks fax and scan capabilities, we believe that at this price range, A3 printing makes up for it. It seems sense that it would require a lot more room than a typical A4 printer. Please keep that in mind if you want to purchase this (or any other) A3 printer.

5. Canon PIXMA G1220 (G1520 in the UK)

SPECIFICATIONS

Category: All-in-one color inkjet printer
Print speed: 9ppm (mono)
Paper capacity: 100 sheets
Paper size: up to A4
This entry-level MegaTank model from Canon offers you refillable ink tanks and a large number of bottles at a reasonable price. In order to accomplish this, several features have been sacrificed, including the auto-duplex mode, the display, and the amount of space for paper. Even the quickest printers cannot match their promised print speed of 9 pages per minute. However, it can handle envelopes, glossy picture paper, and even print banners. It can also print, scan, and copy in high quality.

Your recurring print expenses may decrease by as much as 90% if you gave up expensive cartridges and switched to inexpensive bottled ink. Although it isn’t the most affordable inkjet available, it may be the most cost-effective option for usage by a family, at home, or in a home office. It’s also a fantastic choice if you want to lessen your own environmental effect.

 

6. Brother MFC-J5945DW Printer

SPECIFICATIONS

Category: 4-in-1 Color inkjet MFD
Print speed: 22ppm
Paper capacity: 500 sheets
Paper size: up to A3

By combining the quick print times and large capacity of a laser printer with the outstanding photo finish of an inkjet, this big brother blurs the distinction between home and workplace printers. Although it is smaller than the laser counterpart MFC-L8690CDW, the inkjet MFC-J5945DW can handle A3 paper, thus we suggest it for both uses.

This printer can automatically scan up to 50 front and back pages if you routinely scan documents with multiple pages. The standard-sized ink cartridges that come with the MFC-J5945DW are nothing special. However, this device is more cost-effective than comparable laser printers since the high-yield cartridges can print up to 6,000 pages.

There’s nothing that this fully featured 4-in-1 can’t do, and it carries out all tasks satisfactorily. Its features are skewed more towards the home office than the family computer desk, so keep this in mind when selecting the best home printer for your needs.

7. Xerox Phaser 6510DN

SPECIFICATIONS

Category: color laser printer
Print speed: 28ppm
Paper capacity: 250 + 50 sheets
Paper size: up to A4

Although you usually only think of Xerox when it comes to corporate printers, the company’s entry-level line would be ideal for a home office, especially one with heavy print needs. The Xerox Phaser 6510DN features automated double-sided printing and a quick print speed of 28 pages per minute.

250 sheets of A4 paper may be expanded to 850 pages in the main tray. Standard black toner cartridges can print up to 2,500 pages on the Phaser 6510DN, while the printer comes with enough toner for 1,000 colour or 1,500 monochrome pages.

This printer doesn’t have scan, copy, or fax capabilities, but these are trade-offs you must accept if you want a laser printer at this price. It includes every security feature and good build quality that one would expect from Xerox. If you want Wi-Fi in addition to the Ethernet connector, we advise going with the DNI model.

8. Brother HLL2395DW Laser Printer

SPECIFICATIONS

Category: Mono laser printer
Print speed: Black: 36 ISO ppm
Paper capacity: 250 sheets
Paper size: up to A4
One of the greatest home printers available is the Brother HLL2395DW. It is also one of the best printers for small companies that need to print a lot and rapidly. Although this printer can only print in black and white, it can print up to 36 pages per minute and has a 250-page capacity, so you could potentially print out an entire book before needing to reload it.
It boasts an intuitive interface that enables printing from and scanning to cloud services like Dropbox and Google Drive, just like other contemporary Brother printers. You may access it from a mobile device without a network connection thanks to NFC “touch to connect” printing. Overall, this printer is quite cool.

9. Brother MFC-1205W (DCP-J1200W in the UK)

SPECIFICATIONS

Category: All-in-one color inkjet printer
Print speed: 16ppm (mono)
Paper capacity: 150 sheets
Paper size: up to A4

This uninteresting, basic box in a light grey colour might be the ideal all-in-one printer for your home office because of its low cost and incredibly cost-effective ink cartridges. A few features on the Brother MFC-1205W (also known as the DCP-J1200W in the UK) help to keep the cost of ownership low.

For instance, there is no multifunctional tray, auto-duplex mode, fax, or display. There is only a single 150-sheet A4 paper tray and an A4/letter-sized scanner bed for copying documents one side at a time. It can, however, fit extremely big printer cartridges, so that’s something. Yes, it is the reason the bodywork on the right side protrudes.

This printer from Brother, which competes with Epson and Canon’s refillable ink tanks, is known as an INKvestment Tank model. This type is more cost-effective to operate than the majority of other inkjets that use cartridges since these high-capacity carts have a greater yield. Additionally, it regularly produces high-quality prints on both plain and picture paper. This modest printer will provide a professional finish at home at a reasonable price if you can live without auto-duplex.

10. Epson EcoTank ET-3760

SPECIFICATIONS

Category: All-in-one cartridge-free printer
Print speed: Black: 15 ISO ppm, Color: 8 ISO ppm
Paper capacity: 150 sheets
Paper size: Up to A6
You could fall in love with the Epson EcoTank ET-3760 whether you’re attempting to run a more environmentally responsible household or you’re just sick of having to rush out and buy extra ink at the most inconvenient moments, like in the middle of printing your crucial papers, for example. Instead of using ink cartridges, this all-in-one printer uses refillable bottles that can hold up to two years’ worth of ink. Only 150 sheets of paper may be loaded at once, but that is hardly a deal-breaker, especially if you want to use it mostly for personal purposes.
When you consider the money and time you save dealing with pricey cartridges, you’ll find it to be fairly affordable, despite the fact that the ticket price makes it look more costly than many of its best home printer competitors.

Best home printer FAQs

What is a home printer?

Home printers, as the name would imply, are intended primarily for use with your home computer and several other devices, making it simple for you to print documents and photographs.

Modern home printers frequently double as scanners and fax machines, obviating the need to purchase separate equipment for these functions. All home printers produce decent photos in general, but if your family prefers pixel-perfect prints, you may pick from high-quality home photo printers.

Ordinarily, home printers are made for less frequent use than their business counterparts. However, as working from home becomes more common, you’ll discover a variety of home printers that are equally competent to satisfy the demands of your family and your company.

How to choose the best home printer for you

The best home printers are increasingly necessary furnishings in our homes and workplaces because so many people now work from home. However, there are a tonne of various makes and types of printers on the market. You can select printers from producers like Epson or HP. Additionally, there are issues with inkjet, laser, and black-and-white printers.

Additionally, there are instances in which you might require a different kind of printer, such as a wireless or portable one or even one designed expressly for a Mac.

This wide range of options is beneficial in some ways since it ensures that you can choose the ideal printer for your needs, regardless of the kind. Finding the ideal printer might be considerably trickier, though, because there are so many options available. But here’s where our top printer’s manual comes in.

The finest printers on this website can help you swiftly and efficiently print out documents correctly while minimising operating expenses, whether it’s a home printer or a commercial printer for your workplace.

We’ve put up a list of the top home printers for your benefit and sanity. We have photo printers that can print your photos in lab quality, all-in-one printers that can scan and copy documents, and even solid black and white laser printers for quick, affordable office printing.

Best home printers: How did we test them?

Contrary to smartphones, don’t anticipate printers to have undergone a substantial change from those introduced last year. Both our printing tests and printing resolutions, connectivity, and features have remained mostly unchanged.

Every printer we use for testing is calibrated on our test bench, and the findings are then evaluated against every other model we have examined. Using a typical ten-page document and a stopwatch app, we time the first page out and print speeds in single sheet and duplex mode instead of relying on the manufacturer’s stated numbers.

We print the identical sample papers on each device to compare print quality. These twelve test pages contain text with various font sizes and colours, pages with both images and text, a collection of pictures, and a number of test patterns for judging sharpness, colour fidelity, contrast, and grey scale.

Additionally, we compare functionality, compute operational expenses, and take each product’s adaptability, design, and build quality into account. All of these factors and overall value for money are reflected in the final score.

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