Multifunctional Printers (MFPs - reviews and price comparison

Multifunction

If you have the need for a scanner, copy machine, and printer it can be both money- and space- saving to buy all in one device; a multifunction printer.
Multifunction printers always have scanner, printer and copying. Some machines also feature a fax machine.

Type

There are two main categories of printers; laserjet (to the right in the picture) and inkjet printers (to the left).

Laserjet printers are in general more expensive to buy, but cheaper to run than the inkjet printers. Laserjet printers are usually more bulky.

Inkjet printers are in general great for printing pictures in colour, and this is why certain photo printers have been developed with this technology. Both types of printers (inkjet and laserjet) can provide similar quality in printing text.

If the printer is rarely used the liquid ink in the inkjet printers can dry and stop up the printer heads. The consequence of this can be that you have to change cartridges even though it is not empty. This problem won’t occur with laserjet printers since they use powder toner.

Operation costs

A print-out with a laserjet printer usually costs approximately half as much as with an inkjet printer. The printing costs vary a lot between different manufacturers and models. We recommend you to read the test reviews to get an idea of if a printer is cheap or expensive in operation costs. (show more on ink and toner)

Drums (laserjet printers)

Laserjet printers use a drum to transfer the toner to the paper. The drum is consumed and needs to be replaced. Many printers for domestic use utilize toner cassettes with a built-in drum and with these you don’t have to change the drum separately.
Colour laserjet printers use one drum per colour, which means four drums in total. A drum lasts for 3.000 to 100.000 prints depending on manufacturer and model.
The price range is wide, from £ 50 to 400, depending on how many print-outs the drum can last for.
hide text

Colour/black&white

If you don’t print in colour you can save money on buying a black&white laserjet printer. The purchase will only cost marginally more than an inkjet printer and it is usually cheaper to run.

Summary:

	Inkjet	Colour laser	B/w laser
Buying price
Operative costs
Size
Suitable for photos
Suitable for text
Maintenance

Technology

Do you prefer any of the technologies?
No, not important Yes, laserjet Yes, inkjet

Colour/black&white

Do you need a colour printer?
Not important Yes

Printing speed

Something worth consideration if you print a lot, and/or large documents, is the printing speed. The printing speed is indicated in pages per minute.

Resolution

The printer’s resolution indicates how detailed printings it can handle. The resolution is specified in Dots Per Inch (dpi). 600 dpi gives you good text printings and pictures, but for photo printing 1200 dpi or more is recommended.

Noise

Some printers can be quite noisy when printing.

Sound/noise levels are measured in decibel (dB) and a printer usually lies somewhere between 35 and 70 dB, which represents a large scope since the scale is logarithmic.

The following audio file illustrates how big the difference 10 dB makes. The files contain noise in three different sound volumes with 10 dB difference between each step. Between the first and the last sound the difference is 30 dB. How many decibels the sounds are played with of course depends on how loud your computer can play them, the difference between the sounds are however still 10 dB.
Play noise

Connections

Traditionally printers have been connected to the computer’s parallel/printer port (the parallel port), but nowadays most printers use USB.

Most new printers use USB	The parallel/printer port is rarely used by new printers.

Many printers have, or can be optionally equipped with, network connection. This makes it easier to use the same printer to several computers in a network. Some printers have the possibility to connect to wireless networks (WLAN), which can be useful since you don’t have to use a network cable to the printer.

Optical scanner resolution

If you are scanning pictures to show them on screen or to print again an optical scanner resolution of 600 dpi is sufficient
If you want to make detailed enlargements or if you for any other reason need a high detail level you might need 1200 dpi.
If you are scanning photo negatives or film slides you need at least 2400 dpi and a printer constructed to be able to scan them directly or an adapter for negatives/diapositives as accessory.
hide text

Additional features

Many multifunction printers have additional functions such as memory card reader for printing directly from the digicam’s memory card, the possibility to automatically make double sided printings (duplex) or TWAIN-compatibility which enables you to scan documents directly from a range of picture editing programs.

Size

Multifunction printers can be quite bulky and some models are not suited for placing on your desk.

Rating/awards

On testwinner.co.uk all the different ratings given by expert testers have been translated into a percentage from 0 to 100 with 100 being the maximum rating.
The average rating for a product can indicate different things. A low average rating is a warning that the product maybe won't live up the expectations created by the ads for the product. A high rating often means that the product has great features and works well. The more tests of the product the better accuracy in the average rating.

The amount of test wins/awards shows how many times the product has been named winner or been selected "Editor's Choice", "Best Buy" or received similar positive awards in tests. An award means that the product stands out from the competition in one way or another. It can be by giving value for money or by being innovative, or simply by just filling its purpose in a really good way.