Quality for Cheap - New Low Priced Printers Are Worth It

It had been three years since I bought my last personal printer for my office. With larger faster printers available and networked throughout the office, my Epson 600 printer was really used. This week, I found myself without my assistant and had to do my own printing jobs. Of course, my printer would not work and I was forced to replace it immediately.

The advantage or “disadvantage” to my office location is that I have a Comp USA store directly across the street. This is great for problems like this, but not great for my “impulse buying” habits.

I was absolutely surprised at the low cost of printers today. The same entry level Epson machine I bought three years ago for $179.00 now costs $79.00 (Epson Photo 780). Now I understand why the national inflationary index continues to be so low even in the face of higher energy costs, etc…prices for computers and accessories have just “caved”.

Today, printers for under $250.00 can print high quality individual 4X5 photos. The quality is so good that you cannot tell the difference between these print jobs and a regular film print. The Epson Stylus Photo 925 can print borderless six color printing jobs on 8 by 11 paper. Resolution ranges from 2880x720 dpi for cheaper machines under $100.00 to 5760x720 dpi for the Epson Photo 925 for under $250.00.

The three machines I would recommend are the Epson Stylus Photo 925 ($250.00), the HP Photo smart 130 ($179.00) and the Canon S520 ($149.00). These machines all offer photo printing and up to 16 pages of black and white printing per minute. They all offer a software package that allows you to create photo albums and some basic photo editing. All three units have input trays that hold 100 sheets of plain paper. They also can print two-sided prints, posters, envelopes and transparencies.

These machines are not meant for heavy use. Printing cartridges are expensive. Depending on the model, black-ink costs around 4 cents a page vs color at 27 cents a page. This is certainly a lot cheaper than using a copy store for printing needs.

For real estate agents, these machines present a quick and affordable solution for photo tours that can either be printed, or by using “stock” photo editing. can be emailed as photo albums or as a web page.

These machines also offer such good quality and speed that you can become more efficient by simply printing to a machine that is in your office or workstation rather than have to walk to a company printer that may be in use by another party.