The inkjet printer.

Since the early offerings from Siemens with their PT88 and 89 which, although whisper quiet had an output which looked about as good as a nine pin dot matrix machine, this technology has improved in leaps and bounds. Any resemblance by today's printers to these early machines (early - we are only going back to the1980's) is pure coincidence. Today's printer is faster, quieter (well some are), and infinitely better in print quality. These Siemens machines cost around the $1500 mark and today you can buy a printer for less than $100 which surpasses the old machine in every parameter except ruggedness. In addition to this, the old printer was a monochrome printer, i.e. black only. Today's printer is small and sophisticated, with lots of built-in "smarts" and clever driving software.

If you are buying an inkjet printer, consider carefully what you expect to do with the machine. Is it for the office or for the home.  Will it be connected to a network for many users, or will it simply be connected to a stand-alone computer.  Will you be the only user or will all the children want to use it too for their school projects and  lots of pretty things off the Internet?  Do you really need colour or will monochrome print be sufficient?  Do you wish to print photographs which look like you just picked them up from your favourite camera shop, or will average image quality suffice because you mostly want to print black text?  How much printing do you think you will do - and remember, the quantity "lots" means very different things if you are a home user or a business. To a business, it may mean several reams a week, where to the home user it may mean three or four pages every second or third day.

After you have considered these things, think about your computer.  Does it have a USB port or only a parallel printer port.  Be aware that many of the inkjet printers on offer today have only a USB port and many people have bought a new printer only to find when they tried to set it up that their computer was not equipped to handle it. If you have an older computer, you may be able to have USB ports added to it to cater for these printers - but ask your local computer dealer if you are in doubt.....but do it before you buy the printer and save yourself some time and perhaps, embarrassment..

Workload. If you are likely to want to print large numbers of documents with significant amounts of colour in them, consider carefully the type of printer you need.  There are many "Professional" quality machines available but they are not necessarily suitable for a business with a large printing load. For this, you should look at the "Business" range of machines.  These units are designed with a different philosophy in view and are constructed in a manner which allows them to have a large output volume without flooding the printers absorbing pads with ink and staining all the covers and machine interior with ink mist.  If you are in doubt, please email us or give us a call to discuss these things. We do not sell printers but we do see what happens when people buy something inappropriate.  The salesman may be more interested in moving some of his stock than ensuring that what he sells you is entirely appropriate to your requirements.

Costs..    Be aware that inkjet printers are not cheap to run.  Check out the cost of the consumables (cartridges) and read the specifications for the printer you are considering.  Be aware also that what the manufacturer says you will get from a cartridge in terms of the number of pages is not what you will get.. WHY??? Because the test specifications are done at either 5% (and in some cases 4%) coverage.. This means, on a standard A4 sheet, a normal "business" letter which consists of an address, half a page of text and a sign-off...all in "courier" typeface which uses less ink than just about any other typeface.  So, if you are lucky, you can reasonably expect to get about half the page count that you expect, unless you run the printer in "Economode" (or draft mode).

If your questions have not been answered here, look on our "tips" page or give us a call on 03 6229 8511 or email us at  lorraine@printertech.com.au or lloyd@printertech.com.au