Number 300 - May 2008

Buying An All-In-One Printer
by Vinny La Bash, 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. :    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.,
Number 300 - May 2008