Three tips for buying a new printer

1) Buy what you need, not what the salesperson suggests
It may seem like a good deal to buy an all-in-one printer, scanner, fax and coffee machine, but if you never scan images and don't send faxes you will be buying technology that you will not use. Another problem with these all-in-one devices is that if there is a fault with the scanner you may not be able to print any more. If all you need is a printer, buy a printer.

2) Buy the right type of printer
If you are going to only ever print black and white documents on Letter or A4 sized paper, don't buy a colour printer. Rather, consider buying a B&W laser printer, especially if you are going to do a lot of printing, which makes a laser printer more cost effective. If you need colour prints or are not going to print regularly then an inkjet printer may be preferable, as the initial outlay is less.

If you are only intending to print photographs off from your digital camera look to see if the camera's manufacturer offers a printer designed specifically to work with their range of cameras. This may cost a little more, but the results will generally be better than what you would achieve using a cheaper inkjet on your computer - plus you will probably have the benefit of connecting the printer straight to your camera.

So, think about what type of printing you are actually going to do and buy the best tool for those jobs.

3) Check the price of consumables
Once you have decided what type of printer you want it is time to compare the cost of replacement ink or toner cartridges. Quite often the printer with the lower price will end up costing you more because the ink is more expensive. Remember, you only buy the printer once, you will buy ink or toner again and again.

The 5th Carnival of Computer Help and Advice

Top commenter and all-round good-egg, Eerik, will be hosting the fifth monthly Carnival of Computer Help and Advice at his Cool Windows XP tricks, tutorials and software reviews blog.

There are a couple of days left for you to submit your blog posts for the next carnival. To do so go to this submission form on the Blog Carnival's site.

Cheers
K

Bloody Computer! reaches the ton

This hundredth post on Bloody Computer! reviews the story so far (as the fiftieth post did at the beginning of this year).

Top 3 Most Read Posts
1. Free Lightweight Alternatives to Bloatware: 805 views
2. Windows Task Manager Explained: Part 1: 466 views
3. Where has all my hard-drive space gone?: 427 views
Data from the excellent Google Analytics

Top 3 Most Commented on Posts
1. Keyboard shortcut of the week: Quickly Open Link in New Tab: 17 comments
2. Keyboard shortcut of the week: The Case of MS Word: 11 comments
3. How to install new fonts: 9 comments
Thank you for all your feedback

Top 3 Most Dugg Posts
1. Bring files back from the dead: 12 diggs
=2. Folder types: Music, Pictures, Videos, Documents, etc: 7 diggs
=2. Keyboard shortcut of the week: Quickly Open Link in New Tab: 7 diggs
=3. Four Hardware Tips: CD/DVD drives and scanning: 6 diggs
=3. Recovering text from Word documents (Part 1): 6 diggs
Data from Digg (the whole countdown is here)

Top Ten Commenters
1. Eerik (3)
=2. MS (2)
=2. Jo3Black (2)
=2. Magdalen Islands (2)
=2. skyllo01 (2)
=2. Ashutosh Mishra (2)
=2. Davidlind (2)
=2. erickia (2)
=2. Laura (2)
=2. Computer and Electronics Hot Deals (2)
Data from the fancy widget by Blogger Buster (now in the left hand column)

Many thanks to all my regular readers, and here's to the next 100 posts.
K