Laser printers have become the ultimate choice of many corporate offices across the world. According to a recent study by the analyst firm Gartner Inc. the sale of color laser printers in the United States sees a 20% augmentation yearly. Despite being more expensive in price, more and more offices are adopting color laser printers because they make your business efficient performance wise. Whether you are running a Desktop Publishing Unit or owing a law firm, a color laser printer helps you present yourself in a highly professional manner.

If you are running business that requires frequent color printing, you should seriously consider buying your business a color laser printer. You should consider the following points while buying a laser printer for your business.

Resolution: Usually, resolution in color laser printers is expressed in terms of DPI (Dots per Inch). The higher the number of DPI, the sharper the image. Figure out the frequent needs of your business in terms of using a color laser printer. As a rule of thumb, choose a 600x600 resolution if you will use your laser printer more for text. If your daily printing requirements are more than just text, consider buying a laser printer with at least 1200x1200 resolution.

Print Speed: Talking about print speed, consider two important aspects such as PPM (Print per Minute) and time the laser printer takes to print the first page. If, for instance, you are running a run firm and need to print out 200 pages at a time, an 8-ppm printer would take about half an hour. Whereas, the same number of pages can be printed in just five minutes if you use a 35-ppm laser printer. However, PPM should be less important for your if you print requirements substantially include large documents.

Networking: Do you want to use a printer at home or office. If your requirement is for the latter then consider buying a laser print that comes with built-in network capability. Although, it might be a bit expensive for you, it will be extremely helpful in the long run.

Memory: Look at the RAM capacity of the laser printer and whether it is expandable.

Paper Size: What paper size do you use very often? The answer will vary depending on the nature of your business. While most low-priced laser printers can accommodate 8.5x11-inch paper of medium weights, organizations such as law firms will need expensive laser printer that can handle heavy-weight and large papers such as legal papers.

Paper Tray: See if the printer comes with a paper tray to hold papers, letterheads and envelopes. This is critical to saving a lot of your time. You don`t want to swap and refill the papers each time you print documents.

Number of Print: Usually, printers rated according to their ability to print pages per month. Choose your printer according to the workload of your business.

Toner Cartridges: Usually, low-budget color printer will cost you more in the long run in terms of consumable such as toner cartridges. Expensive laser printers will give you a low cost per page print. So, it`s entirely your call. Moreover, look if the supply for the toner cartridges can be available locally. Many manufactures offer them online, but it helps if you can find them at any local stores during emergency.

Duplex Printing: Does your laser printer need to have the capability to print both side of the paper? While some printers come with duplex printing features, others may not offer this feature at all. Laser printers with additional features tend to cost higher. Hence, look if you are really going to need this feature.

This article can be accessed in portuguese from the Article section of page http://www.polomercantil.com.br/impressora.php

Roberto Sedycias works as IT consultant for http://www.polomercantil.com.br

Tags: copier, multifunction printer, printer, scanner

Recent craze towards multifunctional or all-in-one printer is because these can save valuable space, convenient to do several jobs and are less costly.

A multifunctional printer is capable of doing various tasks, namely printing, photocopying, scanning, etc. Sometimes these printers can also be used as a fax machine, and you can take direct photo-prints from your digital camera.

It is important to know a few points before selecting a multifunctional printer.

The type of Printer: The two main types of printers in vogue are inkjet and laser printer. Both these printers produce high quality of printing. Inkjet printers use magnetized plated which directs ink onto sheets of paper in desired style. Normally using two cartridges, one for color and the other for black and white, the printout quality matches with laser printer. This is less costly and portable; the only disadvantage being it is much slower in comparison to laser printer.

Laser printer operates by sending a laser beam producing an image on the drum. Also known as page printers, the laser printers are much faster as the entire page is printed here in one going. Though expensive, these types of printers produce high quality printing at high speed with unlimited variety of fonts.

It is important to check the resolution of the printer. Normally higher the resolution, the better is the print quality.

Compatibility of the printer: Selection for the printer should also consider the type of operating system the printer can work with. There are printers which can work with multi-systems like Windows, Linux, Mackintosh, etc.

Scanning: By scanning, graphics and text can be directly transferred to and stored in a computer and printed as per your need. Normal multifunctional computers will have a 600 dpi resolution. In case of a photo printer the resolution may be higher. The color depth capacity of a scanner is important factor to be considered also. The greater the bit depth, the greater is the resolution and more colors can be represented.

Scanners normally come as flatbed or sheet-fed. Flatbed scanners are more versatile as they can scan a range of documents irrespective of their thickness whereas in a sheet-fed scanner the documents are scanned one sheet at a time and the documents need to be detached from the magazine or book for scanning. Scanners are normally sold with a twain driver which can be easily installed in any computer and can work seamlessly with other applications.

Copier: In comparison to analog machines, digital copiers have much larger zoom range for reducing as well as enlarging. The speed and resolution of the copier is generally the same as that of the printer.

Faxing: The easy way to transmit documents over phone line is faxing. The majority of these machines transmit between 14.4 to 33.6 kbps speeds. This means 6 to 10 seconds and 3 seconds respectively to transmit data per page. Normally 512 kilobytes of memory in a fax machine can hold about 20 to 25 pages of incoming and outgoing pages without relying on paper. The speed dial indicates how many fax numbers can be stored in the memory of the machine.

Optional items such as automatic paper feeder, extra paper trays and enhanced photo printing capability printers are available also. In case of automatic paper feeder, you don`t have to wait and feed manually for copying and scanning more than one sheet. Optional paper trays can add up 500 pages to the total capacity. Enhanced photo printing capability printers have high resolution capability, four to six cartridges and also provide a direct connection for downloading photo from your camera. Also it allows you to view the picture before printing.

This article can be accessed in portuguese from the Article section of page http://www.polomercantil.com.br/impressora.php

Roberto Sedycias works as IT consultant for http://www.polomercantil.com.br
 

Tags: copier, multifunction printer, printer, scanner

Multifunction printers are the best for small offices and or the home. It is a real miracle - one unit that prints, copies and scans. It saves on space and money. One point has to be kept in mind that it does all these functions but not all of them well. If the requirement is for high grade scanning then this three-in-one model might prove to be inadequate. It is all right for moderate use and not for intensive application.

As regards the speed the printer might prove to be too slow for professional use. This is especially so in the case of colour printers. While using a multifunction printer and trying to get some fast assignment completed then the rate of 22 pages per minute as against the crawl of 12 pages per minute does matter.

Multifunction printers that have more memory turn out to be more costly. This inadequacy becomes apparent when one tries to do three things together - scanning, printing and copying. If the requirement is heavy then it is best to opt for a multifunction printer that has 16 MB - to say the least.

The quality of the image depends on dpi or dots per inch. The standard (600x600) will suffice for printing but is unsuitable as regards quality of photo. Scanner resolutions must be noticed, as these are usually low in multifunction models. There is a wide gap as regards quality between interpolated and optimal resolution.

Multifunction printers that have to be fed with one page at a time can become a real headache and eat up the whole day. It is best to buy a multifunction printer that is fitted with a document feeder system that is automatic and at each go holds 15 sheets at the minimum.

It is advisable not to just pick a multipurpose printer off the store shelf, have it packed, pay and walk off with it. Always play around with it in the store giving a good amount of time and attention. Carefully scrutinize the specifications and see how the printer actually behaves when put to the test. Each operation should be tested separately. After all it must meet the specific requirements of the buyer - no matter how small it is.

Most of the multifunction printers are manufactured with the prime function of photographic output. But being three-in-one the other utilities are kept in mind.

The scanner function is of great importance. There are two main types technologies involved in manufacture of scanners. CCD or charge-coupled-device performs better as regards quality of image especially when dealing with books. On the other hand the other technology of CIS or contact-image-sensor makes the machine more durable. Other points to consider are sheet-fed versus flat-bed machines.

The flat-bed ones allow scanning of thicker objects. Try to include in the purchase package an OCR or optical-character-recognition. It converts the pages that are scanned into text documents that can be edited. This will save a lot of time - running into hours - if the original soft copy is misplaced. For those who want to store old photographs purchase with this multipurpose printer attachments that will enable scanning of slides and films.

The speed of making copies can never be up to the mark unless the unit has these gizmos. Always bear in mind that documents have to be lifted and replaced innumerable times. Apart from speed other areas of importance are user friendliness and storage of memory. But with all the attachments included it will be child`s play to manage multiple copies; only few buttons will have to be pressed.

This article can be accessed in portuguese from the Article section of page: http://www.polomercantil.com.br/multifuncional.php , http://www.polomercantil.com.br/impressora.php

Roberto Sedycias works as IT consultant for PoloMercantil.

Tags: copier, multifunction printer, printer, scanner