This question gets asked a lot now particularly as now many people are working more from home and the need for a home/office printer has increased.
As a rule, I tend to recommend for home an all-in-one (MULTIFUNCTION) printer, as these print, scan, and fax. These, however, are getting a bit rare as who faxes nowadays but they are still available if you look for them. Of course, if you like so many do not have a landline now at home, its not much use to you the fax part but if faxing is very important to you then you may want to investigate some fax services that are available.
Today the scanner is very important, we are continuously being asked to scan some documents and send it by either email or fax it. Yes, you can use your mobile’s camera to do this and if you only occasionally need to do this, it maybe could be enough for you but the quality of this scan doesn’t come up to the quality of a scanner.
How often will you print?
Inkjet printers tend to dry out if not used, so if they are not used for a month there are problems. So if months could go by and no-one prints anything on that printer, then the ink can dry and the inkjet printer needs cleaning, which generally is not an easy task to do.
For this reason, overall lasers cause fewer problems as in school holidays, the kids have not used the printer, you do not print, and then when someone tries to use it the inkjet does not work without a clean, generally, what happens then the inkjet gets dumped as who can be bothered fixing it.
How much do you expect to print?
As a rule, lasers print a page cheaper than an inkjet. However, there are a few inkjet printers out there with a supertank, which have refillable tanks that offer a lower cost per page than lasers.
This is important as the biggest expense for a printer isn’t the printer, the paper but the ink. I have known people to buy printers on special with free ink when the ink runs out, they throw out the printer. It was not worth buying the ink. So they buy another printer on special with ink.
Do you mind some bother?
Inkjet printers need ink cartridges you often need to continually restock them which is a pain.
Plenty of times at home, after doing some printing, just one of these ink cartridges ran out and I had to go to a shop to buy another ink cartridge. If the shop did not stock my inkjet cartridge, there were problems.
Do you want to print in colour?
I have given up on printing photos on my home printer, the professional printers are so much better but if want to do photos then you need an inkjet. If you just need some colour now and then, then either laser or inkjet can do the job.
The professional look of the print?
I find the quality of the text printing by lasers more precise although some of the better inkjets are good enough for most documents.
Speed
This is often not a factor in a home printer as you can always in a big run, set the printer up, go and do something else but if it is a factor lasers are faster
My conclusion is that overall, it is worth spending a little more and getting a laser all-in-one (MULTIFUNCTION) printer for home.
Hope this all helps.
