All In One Printers

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Last Updated: June 1, 2007

All-in-one printers include printing, scanning, and photocopying, while fewer and fewer models also include faxing.  Many people scan documents to PDF files and e-mail them instead.  CutePDF Writer is free software to "print" to a PDF file for viewing in Adobe Acrobat Reader (free).

Canon PIXMA MP600	Canon PIXMA MP810	Canon PIXMA 830	HP Photosmart C4180
HP Photosmart C5180	HP Photosmart C6180	HP Officejet 6210	HP Officejet 6310

Name Brand

Read the latest satisfaction survey of home printers from PC Magazine (Aug 2006) and PC World (Dec 2005) as reported by consumers that own and use them.  Canon and HP rated the best for all-in-one printers in the PC Magazine survey and average in the PC World survey.  Both surveys agreed Lexmark was the worst for all-in-one printers and everyone else was average.

Advantages and Disadvantages of All-In-One Printers

Multifunction printers save space and money by combining a printer, scanner, fax machine, and memory card reader in one.  If you want the best printer, photo printer, scanner or fax machine, then you'll want to purchase separate items.

Two Kinds

Multifunction printers are either based from a monochrome laser printer or a color ink jet printer.  The laser printer offers faster speeds and lower costs per page, but it's not color.  It's a personal preference on which one you choose.  Most people will have only one printer and I think the first one should be color.  That's why I only list ink jet based printers above and didn't include any laser printer based all-in-ones.

Photocopying

Laser printer based copiers print 1 page every 3 seconds (20ppm).  Color ink jet based printers print 1 page every 3 seconds in draft mode (20ppm), 5 seconds in normal mode (12ppm), and an estimated 20 seconds in best quality mode (3ppm).

What I Own

I own the predecessor to the Canon MP830 All-In-One printer with the automatic document feeder.  It has worked well for me, but I don't use most of it's capabilities.  I haven't found the time to scan in a filing cabinet worth of documents.  The photocopier at work is also a high speed scanner and will e-mail me a PDF file.  There is a huge difference between 30 pages per minute and 3 pages per minute.  I've used the printer at home as a color photocopier from time to time.  It's slow, but it works.

I print all of my photos at a local photo store because they are faster, cheaper, and get better results than I do.

I have a separate scanner for slides and negatives because I wanted fast, high resolution scans.  Scanning slides and negatives takes forever at any resolution.  It can be a challenge to find the slide or negative you want so I don't want to rescan it several times at different resolutions during the next 10 years.  I therefore scan all of my slides and negatives at the highest quality possible, which takes about 4 minutes per slide at 3200dpi.  Newer scanners can scan at higher resolutions.  The scanner can also scan our medium format negatives from our wedding, which all-in-one printers can't do.

I use generic inks at $4 per color at 1800emart.com instead of Canon brand at $14 per color.  This may be the reason the print nozzles get clogged after two years.  Everything prints great for about two years and then all of a sudden I get white horizontal lines on the page where ink didn't get applied.  It's happened to top rated HP and Canon printers.  I throw away the old printer and buy a new $200 printer to replace it.  It's cheaper for me to buy a new printer every two years than to buy the name brand ink.

I'm looking for a new printer with built in network capabilities so that I can print from any computer in the house and not just the main computer.  Since I already have an ink jet printer color, I'm looking at a laser printer for speed and low cost printing.  I won't have to replace the laser printer every two years because of a clogged print nozzle.

New Clogged Nozzle Theory

I have a new theory about clogged nozzles.  In February 2007, the printer was less than a year old and the black ink wasn't printing correctly.  It was too soon for a clogged printer nozzle.  The black ink cartridge was about a month old and had plenty of ink in it, but I replaced it anyway.  The replacement has been working for about six weeks without any problems.  I think I'm getting an occasional generic ink cartridge that doesn't last long in the printer.

My first ink jet printers were HP printers with $30 replacement cartridges.  When the "clogged nozzle" problem happened, I don't think I ran to the store to buy another $30 ink cartridge to see if the ink was bad.  I think I assumed it was a clogged head and bought a new, faster, more capable printer.  It's financially easier to test the clogged nozzle theory now with $4 ink cartridges as compared to $30 ones.

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