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Shopping for a home printer usually starts with a wall of spec sheets and ends in confusion. The truth is that picking well comes down to a handful of decisions: what you print, how often you print it, and how much each page will cost you over the machine’s life. Get those three right and the brand or model almost chooses itself. This guide walks through each decision in order, so you can narrow hundreds of options down to two or three sensible candidates.
The biggest fork in the road is inkjet versus laser, and it trips up more buyers than any spec. Neither technology is better across the board — each one rewards a different kind of household. Below, you’ll weigh your actual printing habits against the strengths of both, then sanity-check running costs, connectivity, and physical size before you commit. Expect the whole process to take an evening of comparison rather than weeks of second-guessing.
Step 1: Pin down what you actually print
Before comparing any hardware, spend five minutes describing your real workload. Most buyer’s remorse comes from purchasing for an imagined workload instead of a real one.
- Estimate your monthly page count. A few school forms and shipping labels is a light load; weekly reports or homework packets is a moderate one.
- Decide whether color matters. If 90 percent of your output is black text, paying for color hardware and consumables makes little sense.
- Note any photo printing. Glossy photo output demands specific hardware — the models in our roundup of the best photo inkjet printers exist precisely because ordinary document printers handle photos poorly.
- List secondary jobs: scanning, copying, or faxing. These push you toward a multi-function device rather than a print-only model.
Our pick for this guide: Brother HL-L2400D Laser Printer
If you mostly print documents, this compact laser is the low-maintenance pick reviewers consistently recommend for home use.
Step 2: Decide between inkjet and laser
With your workload written down, the inkjet-versus-laser question mostly answers itself.
- Choose inkjet if color, photos, and mixed media top your list. Inkjets print on glossy stock, cardstock, and labels, and modern picks — see our guide to the best inkjet printers for home use — have largely closed the old speed gap for household volumes.
- Choose laser if you print text frequently and in quantity. Toner never dries out, per-page costs on mono lasers are hard to beat, and pages come out smudge-resistant. Our comparison of the best laser printers for home office shows how compact these machines have become.
- Consider a tank-style inkjet if you sit in the middle. Refillable-tank models trade a higher upfront outlay for dramatically cheaper ink over time, which suits steady moderate use.
- If you print rarely — a few pages a month — lean laser. Infrequent use is exactly the scenario where inkjet cartridges clog and dry out.
Step 3: Compare cost per page, not sticker price
Consumables, not the printer itself, determine what you’ll spend over a few years of ownership.
- Find the manufacturer’s yield rating for each cartridge or toner, published per ISO/IEC test standards on the product page and cartridge packaging.
- Divide the replacement cartridge cost by that yield to get an approximate cost per page. Do this for both black and color.
- Run the math against your monthly page estimate from Step 1. A machine that looks like a bargain can cost several times more per year in ink than a pricier rival.
- Check third-party and XL cartridge availability. High-yield options and a healthy supply ecosystem meaningfully lower long-term costs.
Step 4: Check the features you’ll use every day
Two printers with identical print engines can feel completely different to live with. These conveniences matter more than raw speed at home.
- Confirm dual-band Wi-Fi and AirPrint or Mopria support so every phone and laptop in the house can print. If wireless setup worries you, our walkthrough on connecting a printer to Wi-Fi covers every common pairing method.
- Look for automatic duplex printing. Printing both sides halves your paper use and is worth insisting on.
- If you scan multi-page documents, require an automatic document feeder (ADF) — flatbed-only scanning gets tedious fast. Scanner-equipped models are compared in our roundup of the best all-in-one printers.
- Check the paper tray capacity. A tray that holds a full ream’s worth of everyday paper means fewer refills and fewer mid-job stoppages.
Common mistakes to avoid
A few recurring errors account for most printer regret. Steer around these and your shortlist will hold up.
- Buying on purchase price alone. The cheapest printers often carry the most expensive ink. Cost per page (Step 3) is the number that matters.
- Ignoring cartridge dry-out. An inkjet used once a month will spend more ink on cleaning cycles than on printing. Match the technology to your frequency, not just your content.
- Assuming every printer scans. Print-only models still exist. If you need copies or digital records, verify the scanner and ADF before checkout.
- Skipping the size check. Open paper trays and rear feeds extend well beyond the listed footprint. Measure your space with trays deployed in mind.
- Forgetting the operating system. Confirm current driver support for your OS version on the manufacturer’s support page, especially for budget models from older lines.
Frequently asked questions
Is a laser printer cheaper to run than an inkjet?
For black-and-white documents, usually yes. Toner cartridges are rated for far more pages than standard ink cartridges, and toner cannot dry out between sessions. For color and photo output, tank-style inkjets typically offer the lowest running costs. Always compare manufacturer yield ratings against your own monthly page count.
Do inkjet cartridges really dry out if I rarely print?
Yes. When an inkjet sits unused for weeks, ink in the nozzles can clog or evaporate, and the printer burns additional ink running cleaning cycles. If you print only occasionally, a laser printer avoids the problem entirely because toner is a dry powder.
Do I need an all-in-one printer or a print-only model?
If you ever scan documents, make copies, or digitize records, choose an all-in-one — the scanner adds little to the size or cost of modern machines. A print-only model makes sense mainly when you already own a scanner or exclusively print.
What matters more: print speed or print quality?
At home, quality and running cost almost always matter more than speed. Rated pages-per-minute figures are measured on light draft text and rarely reflect real documents. Unless you regularly print very long documents, a difference of a few pages per minute is unnoticeable.
