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Multifunction inkjet printers seem to be where the manufacturers are concentrating all their efforts and this is due to there increased popularity with users. It not hard to see why the multifunctional printer has become popular when you see the new Stylus SX400 for the first time it hard to believe that its actually three devices in one because its so compact. All this functionality can be purchased for under £70 which is great value for money, what’s not so great value is the running costs if you’re using genuine Epson inks. A set of Epson SX400 ink cartridges costs over £30 which is quite pricey when you consider that the printer itself only costs £60. Fortunately there are compatible printer ink cartridges available for the SX400 and they are much more reasonable at £15 a set. One advantage the SX400 has over it competitors in terms of it running costs is that it uses a more economical ink system which consists of four separate ink cartridges. Performance wise the SX400 has very little to find fault with, its weakest point is probably its printing speed which is much slower than the 34ppm stated on the official spec sheet but still reasonable for a printer in this category at 4ppm. Where the SX400 shines is in its print quality which surpasses expectations and produces great results for all documents from basic text to high resolution photos. The SX400 scanning capabilities are also impressive with its 1200 x 2400dpi resolution producing sharp detailed results when needed. The photo copier uses the flat bed scanner and also produces accurate copies with speed and efficiency. Overall The SX400 is a solid all rounder in terms of performance, quality and value for money.

If you’re looking at printers in the budget end of the market then Epson is a good place to start. Epson printer of good value for money but their printer ink cartridges do tend to be quite expensive. Luckily however they use a type of printer cartridge which make the compatible printer cartridges very cheap and using these make the printer very economical to run. The entry level Epson printer is the Stylus D92 and just like other Epson printers its cheap to buy but Epson D92 ink cartridges are expensive in comparison to the printer’s purchase price, and just like other Epson printer there are cheap compatibles available. It’s always best to do some research before you buy a budget printer because the manufacturers try their best to get you to buy them so that they can sell you lots of ink every if the printer isn’t suited to your needs. The best way to do your reach is to read reviews on the internet from people who have bought the printer and see what there experiences are. Epson are known to bend the true a little to make their printer appear to be better than they actually are and it maybe feature that you need the printer to be specifically good at. An example of this for the Epson D92 is the print speed, Epson claim it capable of printing twenty five pages per minute but in the real world it only capable of printing 2.5 pages per minute and if you buy it because you need a printer that does 25 pages per minute you will be left with a printer that can’t do what you bought it for.

With the price of inkjet printers reaching levels where they’re practically giving them away it was inevitable that someone would offer a budget colour laser printer that everyone can afford. Samsung have done this with the CLP-300n, it’s designed to offer colour laser printing to the home and small business using by having a low purchase price and economically viable running costs. Samsung CLP-300n toner cartridges are slightly different from the standard Samsung toner cartridges in that they are smaller and yield fewer pages. Resembling yogurt pots more than printer cartridges the black toner yields 2,000 pages while each of the colours (cyan, magenta and yellow) yield 1,000 pages. The result is a reasonable cost per page of 2p for mono and 9p for colour prints. One of the reasons the toner cartridges are so small is so that they fit in the machine itself because it’s amazingly compact considering in packs in so much, in fact it’s the world’s smallest colour laser printer. It still packs a good punch when it comes to print quality though, monochrome documents are clear and sharp with good contrast and colour documents are equally good quality. The overall build quality of the CLP-300n is very good for an entry level printer and operating noise is quiet. The CLP-300n is network ready and can neither be connected to network via Ethernet or used with a single workstation connecting via USB.