Product review: 16 multi-function printers from 50 to 259 euros (page 1: Giant review of 16 All-In-Ones)

Giant review of 16 All-In-Ones

With prices falling, we can now find multifunction printers at 50 euros. This is true even for a manufacturer like Canon or in other words a well known brand that offers quality products. For this review, we went back and started with the basic questions that consumers might ask themselves when trying to make a choice on such products:

What budget? 50 €, 100 €, 200 €,? How is each price range justified? Should we always go for the most expensive? The answer is, « No » .

What brand? Brother, Canon, Epson, HP, Lexmark : We asked each of them to supply us with 3 to 4 products including one very economical model, another for around 100 euros, and a high end one, which is often more than 200 €.

What’s the cost per page? The cost per photo? This time we had some help. ISO, the international organization, finally adopted a standard for establishing these characteristics. All manufacturers have not yet all put this into practice, but when they do, it is of great reliability. When this information wasn’t provided, we most often went back to our standard test procedures.

How fast? In printing and scanning…Manufacturers often announce exaggerated figures of more than 30 pages per minute. In reality, the numbers can vary greatly!

And quality ? : like in previous articles, we will comment on quality in each product’s page. However, you can form your own opinions with the text, graph, photo and scanning samples that we provide for this purpose. This step in comparing printers seems very important to us. Don’t be happy only with our conclusions as tastes can differ. Some prefer true color rendering in photos, others want bright colors, etc.

First results

There are no longer any really bad printers (maybe because we didn’t include Olivetti in this survey). Pushing products in tests to their limits (each printer goes through more than 25 different tests, which can take up to three days per product) allows us to clearly determine the strong points and defects. And if you have already given in to buying a printer, maybe some of our advice can give you a better use. For example, Lexmark X2550 owners will read that it’s imperative not to buy the same paper and ink that come with the printer and should opt for compatibles. The result is a price per page and per photo which is cut in half!

Is there a best brand? Yes. One manufacturer stands above the rest for their consistent quality in products for all budgets, as well as their versatility in not having to buy an optional and expensive module. It’s Canon. They aren’t, however, best in everything and depending upon your criteria, perhaps another model is more suitable. This is the one thing you should indeed know before reading further: What is the most important characteristic(s) for you and what will be your main use for the printer?

The next thing you will want to do is forget about all the claims you have read. For the sake of simplicity, most of the time this is exaggerated and has nothing to do with the final quality. Also, don’t necessarily fall for a large number of functions that may be offered. A printer is not a Christmas tree and the more is not necessarily the merrier. Moreover, the more capabilities, the more the control panel becomes complicated, when actually you will only be using the basic functions of the peripheral.

Off we go! To start with here is quality in office use of the printers tested...