Many businesses are going digital, but an office printer remains valuable for any company that needs a paper trail for documentation. While some organizations need to print often and a lot, others might depend on high-contrast color printing. With a wide range of models on the market, selecting the right one can be confusing.
Besides fulfilling your company’s specific needs, you’ll also want your printer to be efficient, long-lasting, and cost-effective. Whether you’re thinking about print speed or ink cost, this article will review how to choose the best office printer for your business.
The Basics of Office Printer Technology
Before selecting this new piece of equipment, it’ll be helpful to familiarize yourself with some of the basics of office printer technology.
Inkjet Printers and Laser Printers
This is the first feature you’ll want to examine when choosing an office printer. Inkjet and laser are the two most popular types of printing technologies. They use alternative methods resulting in opposing strengths and weaknesses. Here are some of their characteristics:
- Inkjet Printers. These machines spray tiny ink droplets on paper with miniature, high-precision nozzles. They’re especially good at producing high-quality and accurate pictures. Inkjets are cheaper upfront, but constantly changing the cartridges can make them expensive in the long run. Inkjet printers can produce more natural images and print all the way to the paper edge.
- Laser printers. This printer type produces documents by melting toner powder directly on the page. Because of their complex technology, laser printers are more expensive upfront. However, they’re usually faster and more cost effective in the long term.
When choosing the technology for your office printer, consider your industry and company needs. For example, design and advertising companies might benefit from an inkjet printer because of their ability to make highly accurate pictures. On the other hand, a filing organization might need a large volume of basic document prints daily. Hence, a laser print is the better option.
Color and Monochrome Printers
You can select color and monochrome printers once you’ve chosen from between inkjet and laser. Once again, this will depend on your individual industry and business. Design studios are more likely to benefit from a color printer while an insurance company will find a monochrome more efficient.
Some of the benefits of a color printer include:
- Vibrant, high-accuracy outputs. Color printers can add quality color to all your daily prints. Their technology makes it easy to portray hues, gradients, and colorful embellishments. This makes them ideal for eye-catching marketing materials and potential creative projects. A color printer is a must for marketing and advertising agencies.
- High versatility level. A color printer can make black-and-white documents, pictures, handouts, presentations, graphics, and photographs. They’re reliable for producing a wide variety of document types needed for daily operations.
While color printers are optimal for variation and highly accurate pictures, they tend to be much slower in printing speed due to their complex operating process. However, some specific color printer models offer higher rates for more output.
The benefits of monochrome printers include:
- Faster and more efficient text-focused printing. Because monochrome printers don’t work by mixing colors, they’re much quicker at printing text-based documents. Their black text is precise and sharp so that no readability issues can occur. If you’re a business that needs a lot of forms, contracts, and reports, monochrome printers might be the better choice.
- Cost-effectiveness. Monochrome printers are cheaper than color ones, both upfront and long-term. This is because black and white cartridges cost less once emptied. Budget-conscious buyers can save money by choosing a monochrome.
If you buy a color printer and never print in color, you’re essentially setting back the printer since it’s made to optimize colors. A color printer will print a black-and-white page slower than a monochrome printer would.
Monochrome printers have the fallback of being unable to create diverse and colored documents. However, this generally isn’t essential for many companies that need clarity and texts for readability rather than colorful marketing material.
Printer Technology Specifications
While deciding between printer features is essential for making the proper selection, business owners will also want to consider other office printer specifications. This will narrow the search and ensure you choose the highest-performance printer in your category.
Print Duty Cycle
If you want to be sure your printer can handle your monthly workload, consider its print duty cycle. This number indicates how many pages the machine can print monthly without stress or potential issues. Businesses that require a large amount of documentation should pay special attention to these factors. A typical office printer will have a print duty cycle of approximately 20,000 or above.
Printer Speed
Printer speed is another specification many companies might find crucial for daily operations. Usually, this number is expressed in pages per minute. A high PPM is ideal for businesses that value efficiency and need to make documents under short deadlines. A typical home printer will have 20 PPM, while an office printer can reach up to 40 PPM.
Automatic Double Side Printing
Not all printers can print on both sides simultaneously. Even some high-grade models skimp out on that feature and require the user to insert the front page in a certain order. Printing on two sides can greatly slow down the printer, but it removes the possibility of misaligned page sides.
Printer Functionality and Purpose
While printing might be your primary concern, offices frequently need other functions to create and prepare documents. You can choose from a single-purpose printer or a multi-purpose option, which also acts as a copier and fax machine. Multi-purpose printers are very common in offices because of their versatility. However, they tend to be much more expensive.
Security
Business owners will also want to ensure they choose a secure machine for their office. Printers are frequently the target of cybersecurity threats that can lead to mass data loss and corruption. This leaves businesses that store most of their data digitally especially vulnerable.
To combat this, many printers will have encryption software and other protection systems to prevent potential threats.
Boost Office Efficiency With the Best Printer
When choosing the right office printer, search for a machine to empower your space. Buckmaster Office Solutions offers many reliable, secure, effective, and efficient office technology options. Whether you need to change your equipment setup or organize your documents completely, we have a tailored solution you can benefit from. We focus on providing a wide range of printers for any business, rentals, and managed print services. If you’re a Sacramento business, it’s time to contact Buckmaster Office Solutions.