Print for less.(computer printers)(Buyers Guide)

If you're shopping for a computer printer, odds are you're leaning toward an inkjet printer, currently the overwhelming favorite on the home front. Because they can print in color as well as black-and-white, inkjets are the best choice for printing photos, school projects, greeting cards, banners, and business graphics. But laser printers have advantages as well, including faster and cheaper black-and-white output than most inkjets can offer.

If you work at home and need more than just printing, you have another possibility: multifunction models, which add fax, copy, and scan functions to either an inkjet or a laser printer. (See "A Jack of All Trades," page 34, for details.)

In this report, we cover 24 printers from the leading manufacturers: 14 inkjets, 4 multifunction inkjets, and 6 laser printers. Prices range from $90 to $400.We also identify 26 similar models that should offer print quality comparable to the tested units', although features and functionality may vary.

INKJET OR LASER?

For all practical purposes, an inkjet printer is the obvious choice for color output. There are color lasers, but at upward of $1,000, they're more likely to be used in businesses than at home.

Most inkjets can turn out high-quality color photos, but be prepared to wait a while. Manufacturer claims notwithstanding, it often takes about ten minutes to print an 8x10-inch photo at a printer's best setting, although the speedier inkjets can cut that time in half. (All speeds in this report are based on our tests, not the rated speeds quoted by vendors, which often vary between brands and may be higher than you're likely to achieve in typical usage.) Photos cost about $1 to $1.30 or more for an 8x10 print on glossy photo paper, but you can print only the shots you want and size, crop, and edit images before you commit them to paper. For color graphics like a greeting card, figure on about 20 cents per page on plain paper.

With black-and-white text pages, inkjet speeds typically jump to about 3 or 4 pages per minute (ppm), while costs drop to 3 to 5 cents per page on most models. Print speeds on lower-priced models are often 1 to 2 ppm. Adding even a little color to a text page can slow the speed on some models, so think twice before using color headlines or bullets in a document you want to print out by the dozen.