HP Photosmart 7510 e-All-in-One PrinterThe sweet spot for consumer inkjets is about $150. Occasional highlights such as printing on CDs and DVDs or Wi-Fi connectivity.Basic monochrome lasers with pricey toner.Ink costs ranging from reasonable to expensive.Single- and multifunction inkjets good for light-volume home or home-office use.The intended advice is that high-priced inks, while not recommended, might be tolerable for people who don’t print much. (Editor’s note: This paragraph was corrected from the version that appeared in the PCWorld March 2012 print issue. If you print a dozen or more pages per day, however, or if you want to print colorful pages or photos, you’ll be better off with a printer whose inks are economical.
The exception is if you print very little-just short text documents, for instance, with little or no color, and no more than a dozen pages per week-because your high ink costs will be spread out over a longer period of time. Printers costing less than $100 are rarely worth recommending, as they tend to be slow performers with pricey ink cartridges. It makes surprisingly few compromises for the price. If your budget is really tight, check out our favorite bargain, the $100 Canon Pixma iP4920 Inkjet Photo Printer, in “Cheap and Good,” below. Another consideration to keep in mind: If you have a long-term need to scan hundreds or even thousands of pages of documents, a dedicated document scanner that has its own automatic document feeder will simplify that job considerably.