Multifunction Laser Colour Printers

Multifunction laser printer types

• Colour - print and copy in colour, suitable for printing artworks and photos. Use separate colour cartridges - red, yellow, blue, black (CMYK).
• Black & white - print and copy in monochrome, making them particularly suitable for printing documents. Colour scanning. Printing requires black toner only.

What to focus on when buying

• Print speed - ranges from 12 to 65 ppm in mono and 4 to 40 ppm in colour. Faster printers tend to be more expensive.
• Print resolution - ranges between 180 and 2400 DPI (dots per inch). Higher resolution means a more detailed image. This parameter is especially important if you want to print photos (300 DPI or more).
• First page out time - time taken by a printer to print the first page after receiving the print data from the computer. Ranges between 4 and 25 s.
• Scanner resolution - number of pixels that a scanner can detect. Ranges between 300 and 2750 DPI.
• Printing and scanning format - A4 and A5 are the most common. If you want to print photos, look for devices that support 15 x 20 cm. Large-format printers can print on A3 sheets or larger.
• Connectivity - mostly through a USB cable or wirelessly via WiFi. Network printers can be used by multiple computers.

Useful multifunction laser printer features

• Duplex printing - two-sided printing. In manual, you have to put the printed sheet back into the printer to print the other side, while automatic duplex printing lets the machine take care of it. Duplexing saves the environment and lowers operating costs.
• Borderless printing - colours can be applied up to the edge of the paper. You can print without the usual white borders.
• Scan to email - automatically assigns the scanned images as attachments to an email message.
• Automatic document feeder - lets you copy and scan multiple documents at once, without having to manually insert each and every page.
• Display - informs you about print jobs, lets you adjust their settings, and generally facilitates printer operation.
• Card reader/print from USB - allows you to print directly from a memory card or USB drive.
• ePrint/Air Print - secure cloud services that allow you to print from anywhere if you have an active Internet connection.