Printing has come a long way since the first Guttenberg bible.  Ever since that first manuscript was printed, ink cartridges have evolved. They moved from rolled on ink, mimeograph machines, and ink ribbons and finally up to the printer ink cartridges we know today. Here’s a history of printer ink cartridges.

When computers first started being produced for mass consumer use printers were stuck with basically the same ink delivery system as a typewriter. They used an inked ribbon on a spool cartridge and used a process called dot matrix to produce a really low quality image.

The next area of innovation was the toner cartridge.  They’re still in use today for mass black and white copying and printing. These are common in copiers and laser printers. They allow for high-speed mass reproduction of any black and white document.

Moving up to the modern era though we have the ink jet cartridge that lets you produce high quality printing in black and white and in color. The way it does this is by using two separate sets of cartridges. The first cartridge is just for black ink. The second cartridge contains three primary colors that mix together to give you great eye-popping color prints and even photographs.

For years whenever an ink jet cartridge was empty you just tossed it away and bought a new one. Now a days though you can refill your inkjet cartridge or buy refilled/refurbished ones.

Refurbished printer ink cartridges typically cost much less than a brand new one. If you choose to refill the cartridge yourself it’s even cheaper, but can be a little bit messy.

So there’s a history of printer ink cartridges from the lowly dot-matrix ribbon through modern photo quality ink jet printers.  There are all sorts of options out there for whatever printer you choose.

These days people often keep their photos on their computer or copy them to disc as many have digital cameras.  But what about those times when you have a favorite that you want to display or give as a gift to grandma.

That’s when you need a photo paper that will give you nice crisp, clear photos without smudges. And that is just what you will get with Canon Photo Paper Plus Glossy II, 4 x 6 Inches, 100 Sheets.

And by printing out only the photo’s that you want you will save money.

Canon photo paper always gives you an excellent result,  I have used Canon photo paper for years and it never fails.

This pack of 100 sheets of photo paper gives you a glossy finish that gives your photos the look and feel of a traditional photograph.

The 4 x 6 inch sheets fit into any printer and the standard photo frame.

CLICK HERE TO BUY THE PRINTER PAPER THAT GIVES YOU THE BEST RESULTS

In this guide, we’ll take a look at some of the most common reasons why people want printers and the best one to go for, in each case.

General ‘home’ user

This sounds like it would be an easy category but in fact, it is one of the most complicated. Home users need a printer that is extremely versatile. It should be able to print everything from the kids’ homework to photographs and most probably needs to fit into a reasonable budget. The best choice would be color inkjet that is designed to be a ‘jack of all trades’. These are often called ‘small office’ or ‘home office’ printers. Their only downside is that in order to fit into the low budget category, they tend to be a little on the slow side.

OR

Get two printers. You could go for a basic, low end laser printer for text documents and a color inkjet for photos and graphics.

Aspiring novelist?

If you’ve been slaving away on your masterpiece and now need to print it out to send to prospective publishers, you’ll need a fast printer that will give you beautifully crisp, easily readable text. Your best buy would be a laser printer. They can sometimes be more expensive than inkjets but are cheaper to run and maintain.

OR

You could go for an inkjet so that you also have the option to have colour. If you choose this option, be aware that the cheaper ones can be slow, so go for the best you can afford to gain that extra speed.

Enthusiastic photographer

Any inkjet printer can print color photographs but for really professional results, you’ll want one that specializes in doing so. Check out what kinds of paper it will print with. See which tools it has for color management. If you’re only going to buy one printer, your best choice may be an inkjet because it can also handle text well.

If you want truly dynamic photos, read up on the printers and find one that uses thermal dye-transfer. This advanced technology is also called dye sublimation. The printer uses heat to change the physical state of solid ink so that it infuses paper which has a special coating. The inks then return to solid as they get cooler.

If you’re into digital photography, you could choose to buy a snapshot printer which is compatible with your camera. Or, you could go for a multi-functional printer. These have recently improved and many now have integral scanners, memory cards and LCD’s that you can use to preview pictures before printing.

Budding Entrepreneur

If you run your own small business or often work from home, a multifunction printer would be a good buy for you. These are also called AIO’s, which stands for ‘all in ones’. This printer may be inkjet or laser but will also have a scanner, copier and fax machine. These are great because they save both money and space – both of which are often in short supply if you are working from home.

The inkjet models are generally slightly cheaper but if your budget stretches to it, go for one that allows ‘stand alone’ faxing and also has an automatic document feeder. This allows you to put a stack of documents into the feeder tray and go off to do other things while the machine faxes or copies the lot!

OR

If you already have a fax, scanner or copier, a color laser printer should suffice, unless you need to print a lot of graphics in which case, go for an inkjet.

Team worker

If your business is expanding and you are going from a sole trader to a small team – or if you work as part of a team in a big organization, then you need a workgroup printer. These laser printers are especially designed to tackle multiple printing jobs. They have faster internal processors, a larger amount of memory and can print out more than twenty pages every minute. These printers are at the higher end of the market and their network capabilities, large volume toner cartridges, higher paper input and output trays are all reflected in their price.

OR

If your team doesn’t need to do much printing, you may be able to manage with a business inkjet but do check out if it is able to support network printing.

High Flier

If you are a jet-setter in the truest sense of the word and really do have to carry your office around with you, you’ll be happy to know that portable printers are now available. They may be either battery operated or charged up in your car. Most weigh between two and five pounds so are easy to carry whilst travelling and easy to pack. Some newer models have support so that you can print from a mobile phone by using a wireless connection.

OR

The least expensive alternative is not to have a printer. If you’re constantly on the go, it’s not difficult to find a printer in any office. Most hotels and airports often have areas to use a wired or wireless network so you use their printer or can send text and graphic files to another user to print.

Review and compare

Spend some time on sites that carry reviews or comparisons to see what consumers have to say. You may love the sound of a model but what do people who now own one think of it? You may also find yourself looking again at ones that you had discarded on the back of five star reviews. This is time well spent and will help you to find the printer that perfectly meets your needs.

There are so many printers available now, that choosing one can feel very overwhelming. They vary in their level of technology, size and of course, price.

So how do you decide which one to go for? It’s easier if you choose the printer that’s right for you. First decide what you want it for and what your budget is. Those two factors alone will start to narrow down the enormous choices.

Inkjet or laser?

As a general rule, inkjet printers are great for photographs and high resolution printing – which simply means they are better when a high level of detail is required in the finished print out.

Laser printers are better at producing text only documents but even then, their speed varies so don’t forget to check it out if it’s important to you. If you have high volumes of text to print, you don’t want to be feeding each sheet in by hand and tied to the printer all morning.

Top Selling Laser Printers

1.  Brother HL-4040cdn Color Laser Printer with Duplex and Networking

• Up to 21ppm color and monochrome printing
• Built-in duplex printing
• Up to 2400 x 600 dpi resolution
• Print directly from a USB flash memory drive or PictBridge-enabled camera
• High capacity replacement toner cartridges

2. HP LaserJet 4050 Printer

• 1,200-dpi resolution
• NEC 4310 133-MHz RISC microprocessor
• Prints 17 pages per minute
• On-printer help system
• 8 MB memory

3. Brother MFC-8420 Laser Multifunction

• Faxes, prints, copies, and scans
• 2,400 x 600 dpi resolution for printing, copying, and scanning
• Copy and print speeds up to 17 pages per minute
• 33.6 Kbps fax modem; 2 seconds per page transmit time
• Parallel and USB 2.0 interfaces, PC and Mac compatible

Top Selling Ink Jet Printers

1. HP Officejet J6480 All-in-One Printer

• Includes: HP Officejet J6480 AIO, CD with software, Fax and wireless starting guide, Set-up poster, Power cord, HP 74 Black Cartridge (210 page yield), HP 75 Tri-Color Cartridge (155 page yield), 1-Year limited warranty
• Black printing speed – Up to 31 ppm
• Color printing speed – Up to 25 ppm
• Black print resolution – Up to 1200 rendered dpi black (when printing from a computer)
• Color print resolution – Up to 4800 x 1200 optimized dpi color (when printing from a computer and 1200 input dpi)

2. Canon PIXMA MX860 Wireless All-In-One Photo Printer

• Fully-Integrated 35-sheet Auto Document Feeder for rapid built-in two-sided document copying and scanning
• Built in auto duplex copying
• Dual color Gamut Technology optimizes the original so that copies remain true
• Various security features including password protected PDFs
• 5 ink tanks only replace the tank that runs out

3. HP Officejet 6310 All-in-One Printer

• Robust and affordable all-in-one printer, fax, scanner, and copier
• Crisp and clear 1,200 dpi black and white print quality; 4,800×1,200 dpi full-color print quality
• Prints or copies up to 30 pages per minute
• Windows and Mac compatible
• 1-year limited manufacturer’s warranty

Ink tanks

Something to be aware of when choosing a printer is the cost of the inks that will be used. Some printers use one tank for all colors. Others use separate tanks for separate colors – which is useful, but do be prepared to stock up on the black tanks if you print a lot of text.

There are now shops and online companies who offer to fill empty ink tanks for you, so if you have one near you, this may be a viable option – but do check if the printer that you have fallen in love with has refillable tanks.

It’s really worth taking a little time over this and the cost of inks is considerable, will add to your outgoing expenses and may need to be factored into the cost of anything you are producing to sell.

Using genuine Canon ink is your assurance  that your Canon printer will give you the performance it is designed to give.

Using  Canon  ink cartridges gives you a smudge resistant print that is fade resistant and a print that is sharp and clear.

The Canon CLI-8 4-Color Multipack has  four high-capacity color ink cartridges with long-lasting Chromalife ink for bright and vivid results. The Box  includes one cartridge  of each of black, cyan, magenta, and yellow.

This ink is compatible with Pixma models  iP4200, Pixma iP4300, Pixma iP5200, Pixma iP5200R, Pixma iP6600D, Pixma iP6700D, Pixma MP500, Pixma MP530, Pixma MP600, Pixma MP800, Pixma MP800R, Pixma MP810, Pixma MP830, Pixma MP960 and Pixma Pro9000

Based on 5% coverage means that each of the four ink cartridges wil yield up to 280 pages.

Pixma printers give excellent results and using the right ink will make sure your printer continues to give you excellent prinnting.

There is a huge range of printer ink cartridges on the market today. OEM cartridges, compatible ink cartridges and remanufactured printer ink cartridges are all available and deciding on which cartridge type to purchase can be confusing. This guide will provide you with information to help you with your printer ink cartridge purchase.

OEM cartridges

OEM cartridges are Original Equipment Manufacturer cartridges. They are printer ink cartridges that are developed by the manufacturer of your printer. This might be HP, Canon, Lexmark or any of the other printer manufacturers around today. These type of cartridges are generally more expensive than remanufactured or compatible ink cartridges.

Remanufactured cartridges

Remanufactured printer ink cartridges are empty cartridges that are refilled with printer ink. The process involves checking the cartridge for faults, cleaning and refilling with fresh printer ink. The cartridge is then tested to ensure it meets OEM standards. It is essentially a cartridge that has been recycled and therefore excellent for the environment. Remanufactured cartridges are generally cheaper than OEM and compatible cartridges.

Compatible cartridges

Compatible printer ink cartridges are cartridges that have been manufactured to meet or exceed OEM standards. In other words, they are generic brands of printer ink. They use brand new components so are not recycled in any way and are generally cheaper than OEM cartridges.