Top Recommended Christmas Printers December 07, 2011 11:40 by Matt Bird
It's the time of giving again, and one of the most popular gifts at Christmas is a new printer. But what printer should you buy this Christmas? We've trawled through existing special offers and used our industry expertise to select the best printers for your requirements.
We've also used our knowledge of printer cartridge running costs. If a printer is incredibly expensive to run, we haven't recommended it, so you'll be able to enjoy low-cost printing throughout 2012.
Best All Round Christmas Printer
If you're looking for a best value Christmas printer that's got amazing print quality (this machine is also perfect for photos), good running costs and rammed full of features, look no further than the Canon Pixma MG5150.
The MG range is replacing the phenomenal award winning range of Canon MP printers, so they needed to be good and Canon has not disappointed, these printers cater equally well for both office and photo printing requirements.
The printer uses one large black ink cartridge, the PGi-525 black, for text and document printing. This leaves 4 dedicated colour cartridges for image printing, and you can enjoy some fantastic quality photo prints that won't break the bank.
The Canon Pixma MG5150 has memory card slots catering Compact Flash, SD, xD and Memory stick formats, plus PictBridge connections for plugging in your digital cameras.
You've also got USB drives. In fact the only thing you're missing is WiFi. (If you really want wireless networking, check out the Canon Pixma MG5250, it's a little bit more expensive but provides the networking you crave).
Amazingly at this price you've also got a duplexer for double sided printing., which is very easy to use through Canon's beautifully simple menu interface, with LCD screen located on the top of the machine.
Some reviews comments this machine is slower than some of it's rivals, but with affordable running costs, fantastic print quality and ease of us, this is definitely our number one printer for Christmas this year.
Other top recommended Christmas printer - HP Photosmart B210a ,
Best Budget Printer for Christmas
If you're looking for a cheap Christmas printer then feast your eyes on the Epson SX425w. This machine has a small footprint (so it won't take much desk space) and provides good text printing coupled with fantastic photo prints (especially onto plain paper when compared to other budget printers).
Coming with card readers, USB and WiFi connectivity, plus a good quality scanner, you get an incredible amount of features for your money.
This machine isn't too expensive to run either. When buying Epson originals for your high-quality photo printing you can take advantage of the higher capacity cartridges, the Epson T1295 ink cartridge multipack, to get far more prints for your money.
There's also our best-selling range of compatible Epson T1295 ink for all your run-of-the-mill printing, making this budget printer cheap to run too!
The only real downside to this machine is it can be a little slow when printing (brutally slow on photo printing modes), and slightly noisier than other machines. But a home user shouldn't be too affected by this, making this attractive, well-designed machine our top Christmas budget printer.
Other top recommended budget printers this Christmas - HP Deskjet 1050
Best Small Office Christmas Printer
If you're looking to update the office this Christmas there are some great bargains around. If you're after a mono printer for all your documents then there are some brilliant deals on the HP laserjet P1102.
The worlds "fastest-on" printer, a single page print takes only a few seconds from clicking Print, even when the machine is on standby. This speed makes it perfect for customer-document printing, for example invoicing at a service desk.
The base P1102 version only has standard networking, but you can easily upgrade to the P1102W model for wireless networking for only a small price increase.
With an affordable 1,600 page toner cartridge, plus a money saving option available as well, it's pretty cheap to run too! With crisp black text printing, a tiny footprint (it's barely larger than an A4 sheet) and a brilliant power-saving mode, the P1102 is our top-recommended mono office printer this Christmas.
Other top recommended black-and-white office printer this Christmas - Samsung ML1865
After a little colour in your office?
If a mono printer won't do this Christmas then check out the new offering from Dell - the Dell 1355 (the direct replacement for the best-selling Dell 1320 printer we love at Stinky towers).
There are some phenomenal bargains around for getting yourself a new one of these machines, and the print quality is right up there with other best-selling value laser printers.
Though the original cartridges are pretty expensive to run, the real strength is in our up-and-coming compatibles. To be released mid-December, the print quality results are up there with the Dell 1320 we raved about, with brilliantly vivid images in addition to sharp text prints, all with a low up-front purchase cost.
With good print speeds, easy installation and connectivity, clear toner-management levels to help you monitor your usage, this little Dell has everything a small office will need.
It doesn't have a scanner or duplex option, for a small office colour laser you'll be hard pressed to find better value! Again there are wireless versions of this machine if networking is important for you!
