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What's Right For: Low-Cost Home Printing

By Peter Piazza, About.com

Who You Are

You're trying to enjoy our technological society -- but without blowing the family budget. You've just bought a new digital camera and you want to be able to print out occasional family pictures and pass them around at parties; however, for really good portraits, you’re willing to take your digital photos to a professional. Meanwhile, your 10-year-old wants to publish a newsletter for her class, your husband is planning to sell the car and wants to print up some posters, and you are finishing a report for work tomorrow.

What You Want

You want a good, all-around inkjet printer with better-than-average printing abilities for the occasional photo. A low-cost photo printer might do it as well, but if you’re going to be printing a lot of letters, be aware that many photo printers can print out fabulous photos and only mediocre text.

Things To Look For

  • Separate black and color ink cartridges
  • At least 10 pages per minute
  • Resolution of at least 2400 by 1200 dots per inch (dpi)
  • Paper input tray that holds at least 50 sheets

Nice Extras

  • Networking ability (for home networks)
  • The ability to turn off color printing (to save on ink)

Price Range

  • $50 to $200

Some Examples

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