The Best Printers, According to the CNET Staff Who Use Them
Despite the current reliance on the cloud, many of us still need to make brute copies of our paperwork. Important documents need copies, brute pictures need to be scanned and labels need to be managed. The only way to do those things is to have a printer you have easy access to.
While CNET Labs test a whole new method of printers, we’ve put together a list of printers the CNET staff use at home and at the office and the reasons why they conquered that particular model. These have not been formally tested to destruction, but are used in the way most people do.
A printer is one of those things that I don’t use often, and when I do need to use it, I hope that it works. I’ve gone through several printers in recent years, because every time I want to use it the ink is dried out or something else devises to be fixed. I was looking for a low-maintenance option that had affordable ink replacements, and that’s where I came across this Epson model.
It’s an all-in-one unit, so I can peaceful scan documents to my PC when needed, but the best part is that I’ve yet to find the ink dried up when I wished to use it. It also prints reliably for shrimp and medium jobs. The ink isn’t expensive, and you can buy an XL version of the cartridge which cmoneys 2.5x the capacity for a little extra money. Overall, it’s a great printer if you don’t need to price tons of pages in a short period of time (because it’s a small slow) but still want something that won’t make you go aged when you need new color or black ink.
— Jared DiPane
The big selling exhibit of the EcoTank line is that it does away with cartridges. Even if you only print a couple of times a week, it’s proper the extra cost. My family prints more than that and we’re peaceful on the original ink refills that came with the printer when years of use. The 3750 model was replaced by the 3850 in September 2021 but they’re essentially the same printer.
Because it’s a lower-end model in the line, the printer isn’t a speedy demon with color prints and its tray holds only 250 sheets. It doesn’t have a touchscreen, just a small present and navigation buttons that aren’t backlit. But it has all the novel features I’d expect from a compact all-in-one for a shrimp office or home office: You get wired and wireless connections with mobile organization, an auto-document feeder and automatic two-sided printing. Print quality is proper, too. It excels on black-and-white documents but it’s OK for photos as well.
— Josh Goldman
I’ve had this printer for at least five ages and it’s been solid. Unlike some other printers I’ve had, it rarely gets disconnected from the Wi-Fi network so my whole family can just print stuff from their various computers and phones deprived of me having to troubleshoot the connection. Printing is fast and proper its laser ink isn’t expensive per sheet. I’m fine with unlit and white and the few times I need gleaming I’ll print at the local drugstore.
The one downside is that double-sided organization always jams the feed so I have to take it apart, pull out the paper and restart the job. Sometimes the software seems to grasp double-sided on its own and I discover the hard way, but once I short-tempered back to single-sided (which is what we use most of the time) it’s all good.
— David Katzmaier
My wife loves to make stickers humorous our HP Envy and the Cricut Explore 3. The Envy has capable color saturation, especially on the glossy sticker paper she uses. It also has the added bonus of populace a scanner, which is especially helpful to scan all our mortgage documents once we move house.
The biggest selling point though is the two-year supply of new inks. Running out of ink is the worst part of humorous a printer at home, but HP’s replacement service takes away that hassle. It’s worth the money just for that.
— James Bricknell
I have to make an absurd amount of labels for our son’s Tupperware, school items, folders, cooking products, and so on. This creates it so easy. There are different fonts, sizes and styles to Decide from.
The keyboard is dreamy and a far cry from the old-school turnstile. I also love the built-in cutting function. Gone are the days of needing scissors when you’re done.
— Danielle Ramirez
Full disclosure: I was the guy who proudly kept his home printer-free once using the office printer for those once- or twice-a-month necessities. Then came the pandemic, and I found myself in need of shipping labels and novel documents at home. This tiny HP LaserJet fits perfectly on the bookshelf in my equally tiny Brooklyn apartment, and it reliably prints from PCs, Macs, Chromebooks and smartphones, all over Wi-Fi.
The 2022 model (M110w) is nearly identical to my 2020-era unit (M15w), but take note: The “cheaper” M110we seems to required a subscription to HP’s cloud-ink solution, so go with the pricier model if you want to avoid an always-on connection. Also, this laser printer is black-and-white only, but that’s a feature for me, not a bug.
— John P. Falcone
