What Is the best small office printer?

The best small office printer is one that will meet all your printing demands without taking up too much space. It also has to be robust, reliable, and cost-effective to operate. Replacement cartridges should be easy to obtain and quick and easy to fit. However, with so many small office printers to choose from and with such a wide range of prices to consider, how do you know you are getting value for money?

To help you decide on exactly what is the best small office printer for you and your business, you might first want to deliberate on precisely what you expect from your small office printer. For example:

• Will it be used every day?
• How many people will use it?
• Approximately how much printing will be done daily?
• Will you need to print in colour?
• Are you expecting to print a lot of images?

When you have some idea about the volume of printing you want your small office printer to handle, you will be able to search the right category and price band of printers. Next, you might want to also consider specific features. These days, printers come with a myriad of features as standard. Some might be useful for your business and others may not. You really don’t want to be paying for a host of features if you’re not going to use them so let’s look at this aspect in more detail.

What to look for in a small office printer

It’s always wise to select a printer from a recognised and trusted brand because you will need to purchase a number of consumables, such as cartridges over the lifetime of the printer. The best office printer for small business will be from a company that can provide essential replacement inks together with support, should you need it. Some important features to look for might include how light and compact the printer is, especially if space is limited.

Next, your printing solutions might include scanning and copying features. If you’re likely to need minimum scanning and copying then most multifunctional printers will handle these jobs and save you the need for a photocopier. Paper and ink capacity is another feature to look for together with the speed of printing. If you intend to print images or photos then you should be looking at the best colour printer for a small office.

With colour printing, image reproduction quality is obviously important and especially so if you intend to create brochures or other marketing material for your small business. Most colour printers will state image resolution with 300 DPI being the accepted standard.  

What type of printer should I buy for a small office?

Should you buy a laser printer or an inkjet printer? When choosing the best small office printer for your business, the initial cost of purchase and the ongoing cost of ink supplies are likely to be the 2 prime considerations. Cost saving is important to all small businesses and therefore you need to bear this in mind when checking the range of office printers available for your small office.  

A laser printer is going to be significantly more expensive than an inkjet type and laser cartridges are generally more expensive than inkjet cartridges. However, the actual cost per print is likely to be lower with a laser printer over the long term.

How to save on printer costs

The cost of printer ink is an issue for many small businesses, especially the small home office, and so you might find it useful to know how you can save on your printer running costs. One way is to recycle your toner and ink cartridges and then buy recycled and refilled ink cartridges. With inkjet printer cartridges you can buy the ink in refill kits and then refill your own cartridges. However, a sensible way to save money on your printing is to only print when you need to.

Sometimes you don’t actually need to print a document. You can instead save it as a PDF and file away your digital copy. Another way to cut costs is to use a smaller font and reduce your page margins. You can print on both sides of your copier paper to save on paper costs too, and you can print in grey rather than black. Before you do any of that, always ensure you proofread before printing and only ever print in colour when it’s absolutely necessary.