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Best Printers UK 2023 – Reviews & Ultimate Guide
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Printers are becoming more and more important and even a must-have item in any office, workshop, and many other fields. If you are going to buy one, read the best printer reviews UK of ours first!
In this post, we have included all the knowledge and information that you need to know about these wonderful devices, including what a printer is, types of printers, how to determine an excellent product, and reviews of the top-rated products in different price ranges.
A printer is essentially an electronic appliance that accepts the data output (in the form of texts or images) from a computing device and then transfers it onto sheets of paper or sometimes other surfaces/materials (e.g., 3D printers can print objects such as a car).
Depending on the different requirements of specific works, printers vary in function, speed, size, complexity, and cost. Generally, modern printers with more features such as scan, automatic duplex, colour printing, 3D printing, or wireless connection are more expensive yet can fulfil more tasks than traditional models that can only print texts and images in black and white.
Types of Printer
Although you may meet some other kinds of printers on the Internet or in real life, please understand that we only mention the most common and noticeable ones in this article.
Dot-Matrix Printers
These printers use print heads that have between 9 and 24 pins. The pins generate patterns of dots that form specific characters on the papers.
Thus, models with more pins can produce clearer letters on the paper. Dot-matrix printers are cheap yet still able to create colourful prints and print at the rate of 120 – 630 characters/second.
Inkjet Printers
Inkjet printers are similar to dot-matrix printers. Yet, they use nozzles to spray tiny ink droplets that form dots and then characters. The speed often reaches up to 250 characters a second.
Some inkjet printers have all colour inks in only one cartridge, so if you need to use one colour more frequently than others, you should avoid these models.
Laser Printers
This kind of printer prints images on the paper by using a laser beam that reflects from a mirror onto an ink-coated drum. There are buffers to store a whole page at one time so that once it is fully loaded, the printer will start to print the page onto the paper.
Inexpensive home-use laser printers manage to print a page every 7 seconds. Nevertheless, faster models can print as fast as nearly 22.000 lines or 440 pages a minute given that each page has 48 lines.
All-in-one Printer
All-in-one printers are also known as multifunction printers. As their names suggest, they can do many things from full-colour printing and scanning to copying and faxing.
These printers may be integrated with either inkjet (for home uses) or laser (for business works) technology.
Line Printers
Line printers utilise a special mechanism to print an entire line at a time and can reach the speed of around 1100 to more than 6000 lines a minute. However, line printers can also be divided into three sub-types, including drum, band, and chain printers.
Drum Printer
This type of printer often offers between 80 and 132 print positions. At every print position, there will be a print hammer that stays behind and strikes the paper against characters along with the ink ribbon. The typical rate of these printers may range from 280 to 2100 lines a minute.
Chain Printers
A chain printer works almost like a drum printer, but it rotates a chain of print characters that wrap two pulleys. Therefore, chain printers are usually faster and can print at a speed of approx 360 to 2540 characters a minute.
Band Printers
These models are nearly the same as chain printers. The minor differences are that a band is used rather than a chain and the number of hammers is smaller.
3D Printer
The latest printing technology allows users to print any object into a 3D figure of all shapes and sizes. 3D printers add successive plastic layers on top of each other to produce everything indicated in the data output or reproduce the replica of a scanned object.
These devices are very pricey but still a great tool for professional businesses and education centres.
Solid Ink Printers
Solid ink printers melt solid ink instead of using powdered toner or liquid ink. They are more eco-friendly, easier to use, and create top-quality printouts.
Unfortunately, this technology is still an exclusive product of the Xerox company and will cost users an arm and a great deal to own and use.
How To Choose The Best Printer?
The cost
As you are likely to use your printer for a very long time, we have to warn you about the cost of running a printer first before all.
In the long term, the amount of money you have to pay for replacing ink cartridges may even exceed the price of your printer. Hence, do not consider a product to be budget-friendly just because its initial cost is low.
It is recommended to check all the information about ink cartridge replacement cost, maintenance requirements, and warranty on a printer before you decide to buy it or not. Yet, of course, more expensive things often come with higher quality.
Colour
This factor is simple. In spite of their higher prices and sophistication, you still have to buy a multi-colour printer if you need to produce colourful printouts. Vice versa, cut down the unnecessary fee and complexity if what you need to appear on the paper is simply black and white texts and images.
Resolution
Printers with a higher dpi (dots per inch) parameter can create sharper images and texts on the paper. Even the cheapest models still ensure a moderate resolution at 600 dpi for people to see the printouts clearly.
However, beware that modern printing technologies can improve the sharpness of a printout without increasing the dpi, so you should not only depend on the dpi to determine the output quality of a printer.
Speed
The speed is critical if you regularly have to do a lot of printing without having much time to wait. The slowest printers may take up to 12 – 18 seconds to print a sheet, and colour printing is even prone to take more time.
The average black-and-white printing speed is about 16 ppm (pages per minute), while the medium colour printing is roughly 9 ppm.
Duty cycle
The duty cycle determines the number of pages a printer can reasonably print per month. It is not the page count that it can print if running consecutively in a month because it will become overheated and even burn when overworking.
If you are seeking a printer for an office, this parameter is important. But for home use, you are unlikely to care about it much.
Memory
The majority of printers feature a minor volume of memory (e.g., one megabyte) that users can still expand more with:
Cloud-based support: directly print photos from Dropbox, Facebook, Google Cloud Print, Flickr, and other internet-based services.
Built-in memory slots: print texts and photos from memory cards that are plugged in
PictBridge: The ability of the printer to connect with PictBridge-enabled cameras via USB cables
Bluetooth: print photos directly from your smartphone, tablet, or camera.
The more memory a printer has at a specific time, the larger tables or images it can print are. Also, this enables the device to produce printouts much more quickly without having to transfer data to a computing appliance.
Paper handling
Standard printers typically feed on a thick stack of 8.5 x 11 paper sheets. Nonetheless, if you have to work with special printouts such as index cards, envelopes, or glossy stock, so on, your printer needs to come with dedicated feed trays to load special papers of unique weights and dimensions.
Besides, you may also want to consider the input tray capacity to make sure that you will not have to add more paper too frequently. If you do much printing, a 250-page hopper will come in handy.
Connectivity
Nowadays, modern printers offer a number of connectivity options. While connecting computers with a printer via USB ports are standard methods, it is sometimes inconvenient because you always have to put these devices near each other.
For this reason, it is a good idea to purchase models with wireless connection and an Ethernet network. Wi-Fi capabilities are also becoming more and more common, but Wi-Fi Direct is even a greater function that allows users to connect their printers directly to an appliance. This mechanism is similar to Google Cloud Print or Apple AirPrint.
NFC (Near-Field Communication) is less popular. It enables a printer to connect with tablets and smartphones if they are in contact with an assigned spot on the printer.
Top 16 Printer UK 2023
When reviewing the best printer UK, we divide excellent products in different price ranges so that you can easily pick up the optimal choice in your budget. Let’s see what you can have with the amount of money that you can pay!
First of all, let’s take a look at the Canon PIXMA MG2550S 2422F20 Printer. It is the best budget printer UK for people who are on a tight budget.
This printer weighs solely 3.5 Kg and measures 42.6 x 14.5 x 30.6 cm, which is quite compact for narrow space. About printing speed, it can print 4 multi-colour pages per minute (with the maximum document size of 216 x 297 mm) and double of that for black and white printouts.
The quality of prints is standard at 600 x 1200 dpi. And as an all-in-one printer, the Canon PIXMA MG2550S 2422F20 Printer is capable of copying (up to 21 copies), printing, and scanning (approx 14 seconds) simultaneously.
Your computer will be compatible with the device if its operating system is Windows XP SP3 (32 bit), Windows Vista SP2, Windows 7, Windows 7 SP1, Windows 8, Windows 8.1, or Windows 10.
However, this cheap printer offers poor connectivity capability. There is solely a single USB 2.0 port but no other means of connection and even no USB cable in the package.
Pros
Very cheap
Compatible with numerous operating system
Compact design
Save ink and energy
Cons
Poor connectivity capability
2. Canon PIXMA TS3350 Multifunction Wi-Fi Printer
At a size of 31.6 x 43.5 x 14.5 cm, the Canon PIXMA TS3350 Multifunction Wi-Fi Printer weighs 5.14 Kg and is a little bulky.
Its parameters are not very special. Each minute, the appliance can print 7.7 mono pages or 4 colour pages at the sharpness of 600 x 1200 dpi. And it takes around 65 seconds to print a 10 x 15 cm borderless photo.
However, do not look down on this product immediately. It comes with many helpful features such as the 1.5-inch mono LCD monitor for easy control, and wireless connectivity that enables printing, scanning, and connection to the cloud server via AirPrint (iOS), Morea (Android), or the Canon Print app.
Furthermore, you can take advantage of the Creative Park craft resource hub to get beautiful templates of greeting cards, out paper craft, and many other interesting things to print.
Unfortunately, given that its feed tray can load up to 60 sheets of paper, you will have to reload new papers quite frequently. And you cannot do anything to solve this not-so-small problem.
Pros
Wireless connectivity
Inexpensive
Cost-effective printing
Craft resource hub available
Cons
Limited paper tray
Quite bulky
3. Canon Pixma TS 3150 Multifunctional Printer
The Canon Pixma TS 3150 Multifunctional Printer is another great all-in-one printer. It is slightly smaller than the Canon PIXMA TS3350 at the weight of 3.9 kg and dimensions of 43.5 x 31.6 x 14.5 cm.
However, its printing speed and input capacity are still the same. In other words, this equipment can create 7.7 mono-colour prints or 4 multi-colour prints every minute with the 60-sheet tray.
But the greatest thing is that it can produce super-sharp printouts. The maximum resolution for printing is up to 4800 x 1200 dpi, which is multiple times sharper than the standard. Meanwhile, the highest resolution for scanning over a 216 x 297 mm area is 600 x 1200 dpi.
Some other noticeable features include PictBridge, Wireless LAN, and USB 2.0 connectivity, which allows users to connect the printer to most devices. And you can also monitor the process effortlessly with the intuitive 3.8cm LCD screen.
Unfortunately, the Wi-Fi capability of this model is quite outmoded. It will not support WEP/WEP2 security and is likely to disappoint those who are looking for that.
Pros
Ultra-high resolution
Ergonomic design
Multiple connectivity methods
Easy to use
Cons
Outdated Wi-Fi capability
4. HP Deskjet 2630 All-in-One Printer
Yeah, we have gone through somewhat cumbersome printers, it is time to come back with a compact printer – the HP Deskjet 2630 All-in-One Printer.
The little device only weighs 3.42 Kg at dimensions of 30.4 x 42.5 x 14.9 cm, and can easily fit in a small working table at your home or office.
Well, it is quite common sense that you have to trade-off a reduction in features for reduced weight and size. Yet, this is not true with HP Deskjet 2630 since it is still a multifunctional printer.
It is able to not only print but also copy and scan via both wired and wireless connectivities. Users can print from a wide array of smart devices and computers at the speed of 7.5 mono pages per minute or 5.5 colour pages per minute.
What’s more, the rendered black and white resolution is 1200 x 1200 dpi, and optimised colour resolution is 4800 x 1200 dpi. Therefore, you must be pleased when you see beautiful images and texts coming out of the equipment.
About the downside, we have to warn you that HP will cost you an arm and a leg on buying ink if you are going to do much printing. Therefore, it is eventually not a budget-friendly option.
Pros
Ergonomic design
Good speed
Multifunctional
High resolution
Cons
It is costly to use in the long term.
5. HP LaserJet Pro M15w Printer – I Highly Recommended
Weighing only 3.8 Kg at the size of 18.9 x 15.9 x 34.6 cm, the HP LaserJet Pro M15w is a small yet well-functioning printer that provides an impressive duty cycle of up to 8000 pages per month.
Moreover, its printing speed is also top-notch with a yield of 18 black and white pages per minute, which is 2 – 3 times faster than a conventional model.
And being speedy does not always mean being negligent. The good resolutions of 600 x 600 x 1 dpi for the best and 600 x 400 x 2 dpi for normal black and white printing are still ensured.
In terms of modern technology, the HP LaserJet Pro M15w has a LED display, built-in Wi-Fi 802.11b/g/n, and Hi-Speed USB 2.0 port.
The standard 16MB memory allows users to do quite a lot of things, and you can also do some wireless printing with Wi-Fi Direct, Google Cloud Print 2.0, Apple AirPrint; HP Smart App, and Mopria-certified.
Unfortunately, ease of use is not what this model is famous for. Novices may take a while to figure out what is happening and begin to get acquainted with the machine later.
Here we start the section of the above-average products with the Brother DCP-1610W Printer. And you can instantly tell the differences between cheap and more expensive printers.
This printing machine can reach an incredible speed of up to 20 pages per minute, which is triple faster than a low-end printer and double quicker compared with a standard printer.
The 7Kg printer has a size of 34 x 38.5 x 25.5 cm with a large 150-sheet paper tray and 700-page toner. Owing to these, you will not have to load new paper and toner too frequently.
In addition, users can print directly from either DDR3 SDRAM computer memory, devices connected with the USB 2.0 port, or via Wi-Fi and mobile connection.
Unluckily, this great machine cannot generate colour prints. In other words, you can only receive black and white texts and images. We do not know why, but that is so ironic for the price of this product.
Pros
Speedy printing
Compact design
Extended paper tray and toner
Multiple connectivity methods
Cons
No colour printing
7. HP Envy 5030 All-in-One Printer
The HP Envy 5030 All-in-One Printer is a big boy that weighs 5.41 Kg and measures 36.7 x 44.5 x 12.8 cm. However, you can be assured that its bulky size is proportional to its sophistication.
The primary reason for that is because there are many components built into the machine to bring about higher performance. Indeed, we have never seen anyone complain about the quality of its printouts.
Whether you use the appliance to copy, scan, or print, both images and texts it gives out are sharp, crispy, and vibrant. Can you believe that this monster can provide up to 1200 x 1200 rendered dpi for mono prints and 4800 x 1200 optimised dpi for colour prints? Yes, it is true!
Plus, the printer can complete the job satisfactorily at a blazing speed. Users can have the exceptional productivity of up to 10 ISO black or 7 ISO colour A4 pages per minute.
On top of that, the massive 256 MB DDR3L memory in combination with the Wi-Fi 802.11b/g/n (dual-band) connectivity, Hi-Speed USB 2.0 port, and mobile printing capability with Windows RT, Windows 8, HP ePrint, Android, iOS, Apple AirPrint, Blackberry, and Symbian also ensure premier convenience for those who need wireless features.
Pros
Superb resolution
Relatively high speed
Huge 256MB memory
Numerous ways of connection
Cons
There might be issues with Wi-Fi connection
8. HP OfficeJet Pro 7740 Colour Inkjet Printer
The HP OfficeJet Pro 7740 Colour Inkjet Printer is a “heavy-duty” printer for those who do professional printing works. It offers an impressive yield of up to 22 pages per minute for both black and colour printing, and the duty cycle is over 1500 pages per month.
You can print, copy, and scan texts and images in standout colour for bold presentations and documents at approximately 50% less cost compared with standard colour laser printing.
Furthermore, the model allows users to handle high-impact A3 printing. Indeed, its 35-page ADF can easily process documents of up to 21.6 x 35.6 cm in size.
Like most premium printers, this HP OfficeJet Pro 7740 Colour Inkjet Printer also supplies wireless connectivity so that multiple users can use it remotely without having to move.
However, one small disadvantage is that the equipment measures 71.27 x 58.39 x 38.32 cm and weighs 19.5 kg, which is inappropriate for small rooms and hard for transportation.
Pros
Can handle A4-A3 papers
High page yield
Create crispy images
Cost-efficient
Cons
Extremely bulky and heavy
9. Brother MFC-L2750DW Mono Laser Printer
If you are keen on speed, the Brother MFC-L2750DW Mono Laser Printer will never let you down. This is one of the quickest models with the capability to print up to 34 high-quality pages per minute. For calculation, it takes even less than 2 seconds to give you a sharp text or image.
Besides, the appliance also carries out scanning, copying, and faxing tasks at the same speed, saving users plenty of time for other works. People in the same office will love this. They just need to be in their seats and wait for their colleagues for around 1 – 2 minutes to start printing wirelessly from their laptops, smartphones, or tablets.
In spite of operating at a high rate, the machine is actually very quiet. As we measured, it emits sounds at less than 50 dB and will never distract anybody from concentrating on works.
If you ask us whether there is anything to complain about this printer, perhaps it is only its weight. Notwithstanding, we find that the 12 Kg weight and 39.8 x 41 x 31.8 cm dimensions are still quite okay for a 4-in-1 device like the Brother MFC-L2750DW Mono Laser Printer.
Pros
Rapid operation
Very quiet
Convenient wireless connectivity
Multifunctional
Cons
There might be defective products
10. HP OfficeJet 2M32H38 inkjet printer
Welcome to the best compact printer UK – the HP OfficeJet 2M32H38 inkjet printer. It measures merely 18.6 x 36.4 x 6.9 cm and weighs 2.5 Kg.
The reason why the appliance is so lightweight is that this is a battery-powered printer. Like any other cordless electronic appliances, this printer is very mobile and can be brought from home to the office effortlessly. You can charge it anywhere and anywhen whether you are at home, in your car, or at the workplace.
It is completely possible to do some printing on the go if you are busy. Just sit on your car, connect this portable printer to your laptop, tablet, or smartphone wirelessly without a network. Before you get to the place, you can finish your document.
In spite of running on a battery, it is very quick, reliable, and can run for quite a long time. On battery, it can print at the speed of 18 pages per minute, and on AC, it can print at the speed of 20 pages per minute.
However, it goes without saying that this battery-powered model is not ideal for those who have to do much printing and public uses, even though it is the best small printer UK. In fact, it is solely intended for personal uses.
Pros
Top-notch compactness
High speed
Wireless printing
Ultra-convenient
Cons
Inappropriate for much printing
11. Epson EcoTank ET-4700 Printer
Boasting a long-lasting ink tank, the Epson EcoTank ET-4700 Printer deserves to get the title “the most economical printer in the UK”.
Yes, you are not misreading! This printer utilises an easy-refill ink tank instead of a conventional ink cartridge like the majority of products on the market.
With this the ultra-high-capacity ink tank design, users can save up to 90% of costs related to ink on average. You will not have to go out to buy new ink until you have printed 7500 pages in colour and 4500 pages in black and white!
Despite featuring a generous ink tank and being a 4-in-1 device, this equipment weighs merely 5 Kg and measures 34.69 x 37.49 x 23.69 cm, which might be the most compact printer that can carry out printing, copying, scanning, and faxing.
When it comes to speed, this marvellous tool can print 15 black and white pages per minute or 8 colour pages per minute via wired connections, Wi-Fi, and mobile appliances.
Pros
Save up to 90% ink costs
This is a 4-in-1 device
High-capacity ink tank
Compact design
Cons
The resolution is quite bad
12. HP Colour LaserJet Pro M283fdw – I Highly Recommended
The HP Colour LaserJet Pro M283fdw is the best office printer UK with seamless connections, multifunction, high performance, and professional security design.
It provides all 4 essential functions for office, including printing, copying, scanning, and faxing. Thanks to the Smart Tasks in the genuine HP Smart app, everybody can organise documents much faster and can scan documents to the cloud server, send emails, and fax with just a few taps.
Most importantly, software validation and real-time threat detection functions will protect all of your data from attacks of hackers, data leakage, and so on. Whether you are working in a competitive business or an organisation/authority/office that has confidential documents, safety is always critical.
Plus, as an office printer is going to be used by many people, the Energy Star certification and the Auto-On/Auto-Off Technology are huge bonuses to cut down the cost of power and prolong the device’s lifespan.
You and your colleagues can share documents with each other conveniently owing to fast Ethernet networking and dual-band Wi-Fi connections.
And you will never have to worry about the cases when everybody in your office has to queue in front of the collective printer. The HP Colour LaserJet Pro M283fdw printer can print up to 21 pages per minute with both black and colour. Whereas the input tray can load up to 250 sheets, and the output tray can hold up to 100 sheets.
Pros
Multifuncional
Energy saving
High security level
Fast working
Cons
Very hefty (15 Kg)
13. Brother MFC-L3770CDW Colour Laser Printer
The gigantic Brother MFC-L3770CDW Colour Laser Printer comes with a weight of 24.5 Kg and dimensions of 41 x 50.9 x 41.4 cm. However, large as it is, this is not a noisy plougher.
At the blazing speed of up to 24 pages per minute, it still only produces a small sound that is less than 47dB. If you highly evaluate quietness for your home or office, you cannot go wrong with this.
On the massive 9.3 cm colour LCD screen, users can manoeuver all tasks at ease. From printing, copying, scanning, and faxing to set up wired, NFC, and Wi-Fi connectivity, all of which can be done with several touches on the monitor.
Users do not have to replenish new paper and ink too frequently with the 250-sheet capacity tray and 1000-page in-box toners. And the automatic 2-sided scanning and printing will even make the device more cost-effective.
Nevertheless, you may sometimes find the display shows that the cartridge is out of ink although it is still full. This bug is quite uncomfortable for people who use the printer regularly.
Pros
Ultra-quiet
High capacity
Easy to use
Speedy printing
Cons
The cartridge sensor is sometimes buggy
One of the heaviest options
14. Brother MFC-L8900CDW 5837358 Printer
The most shining candidate for the title “the best printer under £1000” is nothing else but the Brother MFC-L8900CDW 5837358 Printer.
This well-built machine comes with a 300-sheet capacity tray and can even be expanded up to 2380 sheets with extra lower trays. Therefore, the high chances are that you will not have to replenish new paper more than once a month.
And to be proportional to those high-capacity paper trays, the optional cartridges allow users to print up to 9000 black and white pages and 6500 colour pages. Cutting down on time and cost is easier than ever!
In addition, we highly appreciate the admirable speed of 31 pages per minute for mono and colour printing and 56 ISO pages per minute for automatic 2-sided scanning/printing.
If you often work with confidential documents, the Brother MFC-L8900CDW 5837358 Printer will give you the premier security. Owing to port-based access control and end-to-end encryption, users are fully protected at the network level.
Pros
Perfect security
High-speed printing/scanning
Long-lasting ink cartridges
Expandable paper trays up to 2380 sheets
Cons
Receive data slowly
Final Words
Hopefully, with our comprehensive guide and recommended products in different price ranges, you can pick the best printer UK for your work in the long run.
Just set a budget, determine the most appropriate types of printer, and consider essential features that you are willing to pay for. And boom! The perfect choice will be right in front of your eyes!
