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How To Buy Inkjet PrintersWhen you start shopping for a new inkjet printer, you'll need to decide what's most important to you: price, print quality, speed, or some other attribute. One of these starting points will help you weed out models that don't fit your needs. Of course, as you learn more about inkjets, your priorities may change, so be flexible in your search.Price. Most shoppers start off with a ballpark price in their heads, such as $120 or less. At these bargain prices, you'll find a good selection of inkjets from major manufacturers. However, most sub-$100 printers tend to do only one thing well, such as print colorful photographs while suffering from fuzzy text, glacier-slow speed, or expensive ink cartridges. Also, some of the cheapest printers can only hold a black or color cartridge but not both at the same time. Avoid one-cartridge printers unless you're seriously strapped for cash. Inkjets that cost $150-$250 tend to have a more balanced approach. Few midrange inkjets really drop the ball in speed or print quality although each may excel in different areas. It's important to note that high-end inkjets (more than $250) may offer blazing speeds or features such as digital camera ports, but they may not print substantially better images than midrange units. Print Quality. Choosing an inkjet printer is more subjective than choosing most other devices. We can throw numbers and opinions at you, but you should still find a nice computer store clerk who will let you print a test page of text and images before you buy anything. After all, you may prefer a humble model's output to that of a much more expensive printer and pocket the savings. Printer vendors rate their machines by resolution, or the number of dots of ink each can spray on a square inch of paper. In theory, higher resolutions mean better images, but you'll want to compare actual printouts before you buy. Many of today's inkjets can print 1,200 x 1,200 or 1,440 x 720 dpi (dots per inch) and can imitate resolutions as high as 2,400 x 1,200 dpi using built-in image enhancement software. Other software enhancements, such as Hewlett-Packard's PhotoREt III, improve photo realism but may vary in actual resolution. In any case, make sure the printer's text and graphics have clean edges and solid areas of black and color. High resolution is important for sharp graphics and text, but it's not as important for photographs as color reproduction. We've seen very vivid photos from 600 x 600 dpi printers. Any inkjet printer can print photos, but photo-specific printers may offer extras such as additional inks for more lifelike images. If photo printing is important to you, it's a good idea to buy a small pack of photographic inkjet paper and print a sample from each printer you're thinking about buying. In addition, take note of how the printer performs using plain copy paper. You can always buy special coated paper to make special projects look their best, but try to pick a printer that looks good no matter what paper you feed it. Speed. If you need speed above all else, you'll probably have to start your search in the midrange or high-end categories. Check out each printer's ppm (page per minute) ratings. Our ppm counts tell you how many pages of our sample documents each printer could produce in a minute, so you can focus on the types of documents you'll print most often. Be aware that with all else being equal, we usually favor an inkjet with better prints over one with faster speeds. Speed is a good thing, but a print is forever. Other Considerations. Once you've narrowed down your choices, look at the cost of replacement ink cartridges. The best scenario involves relatively inexpensive cartridges that yield many pages. We present these figures in our reviews whenever possible. Also, consider the hidden costs of replacing color cartridges that contain three or more colors (some of which may not be empty yet) as compared to the savings of replacing single colors as they run out. Some newer midrange and high-end inkjets have separate ink tanks for each color, which can save you money. Scrutinize each printer's warranty period and coverage, as well as any special features it may have, such as automatic dual-sided printing or the ability to print on larger paper sizes. Also, be sure you don't buy a USB (Universal Serial Bus)-only printer if your computer only has a parallel port connector. Finally, don't ignore the extra software bundled with many brands of printers. If you were planning to buy a photo-editing or print-management application anyway, a good software package could sway your vote.
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