The Best Printers You Can Buy Right Now

Even the best home printer might not be the most glamorous piece of hardware you’re ever going to invest in, but there’s no doubt that these units are useful, letting you get hard copies of tickets, essays, agendas and many other kinds of documents without having to venture to a print shop.

With Working from home The printer is still an integral part of many people’s daily lives. Even if you’re not officially working from home, chances are that, sooner or later, you’ll need to print something, despite the continuing trend towards a paperless existence.

The best printers won’t cost you all that much and can be relied on to give you good service for a number of years, provided you stick to the recognized brands. It’s also a relatively easy gadget to shop for, without too many specs that you need to wade through or compatibility issues to consider.

Here we’re going to focus on all-purpose home office printers, but if you need something a little more niche, check out Gizmodo’s list of the best photo printers. Note that we’re going to quote prices on the web at the time of writing—you’ll often be able to get these models cheaper in deals.

The editorial staff of Gizmodo independently test and review each product found in our Buyer’s Guides. G/O Media might earn a commission for you purchasing something through our affiliate links. G/O Media does not allow affiliate links to influence its editorial content.

Best Printer for Value: Canon Pixma TR7020a ($160)

• Dimensions: 15.9 inches x 14.4 inch x 8.2 inches
• Color print speed: 6.8 pages per minute
• Mono print speed: 13 pages per minute
• Connectivity: USB, Wi-Fi, Canon Mobile Printing, Apple AirPrint, Mopria Print Service
• Type: Inkjet
• Available for: $160

When it comes to solid, dependable, low-cost home printers, the Canon PIXMA series is well worth a look—the brand has been around for absolutely ages, and while you don’t always get the best performance or professional print shop quality, you do absolutely get value for money. A Pixma TR7020a home printer is the best option for many users.

Being an all-in-one printer, it can take care of your scanning needs too, and will also produce serviceable copies if required (just don’t expect the speed or sharpness of an actual photocopier). These on-board controls are always appreciated as they eliminate the need to use software on your computer or smartphone for everything.

Despite its low price, it offers many appealing features, such as two-sided printing, an automated sheet feeder and a paper tray that can hold up to 100 sheets at once. Most importantly, it’ll churn out pages with very respectable quality, and you get a host of different connectivity options, including wired and wireless ones.

Epson WorkForce WF-2900 ($110) is the other best printer for value

• Dimensions: 22.7 inches x 14.8 inch x 9.5 inches
• Color print speed: 5 pages per minute
• Mono print speed: 10 pages per minute
• Connectivity: USB, Wi Fi, Epson iPrint. Apple AirPrint. Mopria Print Service
• Type: Inkjet
• Available for: $110

The Epson WorkForceWF-2930 is a budget printer that offers a lot of printing for surprisingly low prices. You really don’t want to go lower than this in terms of price when buying a printer, but this model is good enough to satisfy the needs of most home users—and as long as your needs aren’t too demanding, it might suit you.

This printer’s screen and console are very comprehensive, especially for the price. The companion app allows you to print directly from your phone.

Two-sided printing is possible with the Epson WF-2925, which has a paper tray that can hold 100 sheets, an automatic feeder, and superior quality prints (in black and in color). Definitely worth considering if you’re looking to stretch your printer budget as far as it’ll go.

Brother HL-6200DW ($300), the best laser printer

• Dimensions: 15.3 inches by 14.7 inches by 11.3 inches
• Color print speed: n/a
• Mono print speed: 48 pages per minute
• Connectivity: USB, Wi-Fi and Ethernet
• Type: Laser
• Available for: $300

Laser printers are an interesting proposition: They’re typically more expensive than inkjets, especially the color ones, and yet they’re usually more reliable and give you sharper results when it comes to output. A laser printer may be worth the additional cost if you are doing a lot of home printing and require high quality and speed.

Brother’s HL-L6200DW laser printer is one of the best. As you can see, it’s not much to look at, and it’s rather bulky—but then you’re not buying a printer for its looks, are you? It dependably churns out sharp and clean pages at decent rates, and you won’t need to replace the ink as often as you would with an inkjet either.

This is a monochrome model, which makes sense for a big chunk of home users: Ask yourself if you’re really ever going to need to print color documents or photos at home, because if you won’t, you can save a significant amount of cash when it comes to laser tech. As for features, it has almost everything you could want, though there’s no scanner.

Best Color Laser Printer: HP LaserJet Pro M479fdw ($800)

• Dimensions: 18.6 inches x 16.4 inch x 15.7 inches
• Color print speed: 27 pages per minute
• Mono print speed: 27 pages per minute
• Connectivity: USB, Wi-Fi and Ethernet. Bluetooth. Apple AirPrint, HP ePrint. Mopria Print Service.
• Type: Laser
• Available for: $820

If you’ve got a serious chunk of money to spend, you like the idea of a laser printer, and you want to include scanning capabilities as well as color printing, this HP model should be on your shortlist: Make sure you’re going to make the most of it though, because as you can see, the price jump is quite significant over a monochrome laser printer.

Okay, you’re going to need a lot of space to set this up as well as a decent budget to be able to afford it, but the printing speeds are excellent, the print quality is top tier, and you only need to replenish the paper tray every 300 sheets. It’ll even output very good quality photo prints, too, so it’s suitable for getting your digital memories into physical form.

There’s a large touchscreen console here you can use to manage your printing, scanning, and copying, and you get features like two-sided printing too—as indeed you would expect when spending this much money. You can also print from an attached flash drive using the USB-A connector on the front.

Epson EcoTank ProET-5800 ($900) is the best printer to run a Kinkos from your Office.

• Dimensions: 32.4 inches by 16.7 inches by 13.8 inches
• Color print speed: 12 pages per minute
• Mono print speed: 25 pages per minute
• Connectivity: USB, Wi-Fi and Ethernet, Bluetooth, Apple AirPrint, Mopria Print Service
• Type: Inkjet
• Available for: $900

The Epson EcoTank Pro ET-5800, like the other printer on our list, is designed for those who want more from their home printer, and can afford it. As it’s an all-in-one, high-quality scanning and copying is included in the deal as well.

Offsetting the upfront cost, the printer comes with two sets of ink tanks that will get you through several thousands of pages of prints before you need to buy any more ink, while printing from mobile devices like phones and tablets couldn’t be much easier. It is easy to scan and copy from the touchscreen display.

You’re going to have to make sure you’ve got enough room for this, of course—check the dimensions listed above—but on the plus side, the paper trays have a 550-sheet capacity. We also like the way the ink tanks face outwards from the unit, so you always know how much of the cartridges you’ve used up and how soon you’re going to have to replace them.

Best Printer for Looks: HP Smart Tank 7301 ($450)

• Dimensions: 16.83 inches x 4.33 inches x 9.46 inch
• Color print speed: 9 pages per minute
• Mono print speed: 15 pages per minute
• Connectivity: USB, Wi-Fi and Ethernet, Bluetooth, HP Smart. Mopria Print Service, Apple AirPrint.
• Type: Inkjet
• Available for: $450

An excellent mid-range choice, the HP Smart Tank 7301 is one of the better-looking printers that we’ve seen from an aesthetic standpoint. That won’t be a priority for a lot of people—not as much of a priority as printing quality, anyway—but it’s worth mentioning if you’re looking to keep your desk setup looking as visually appealing as possible.

The extra money you’re spending over the budget models gets you speeds that are a little quicker and quality that’s a little better. The cost of upgrades is going to increase as you print more. You can refill the ink tanks visible from the front of the printer. This allows you to simply add more ink, rather than changing the cartridges.

It’s easy to set up, easy to maintain, and offers plenty of useful features like automatic two-sided printing and a host of connectivity options to choose from. The 250-sheet capacity of the bottom tray is impressive, as well as scanning and copying performance.

Best Printer for General Use: Canon Pixma MegaTank G7020 ($380)

• Dimensions: 15.9 inches x 14.6 inch x 9.3 inches
• Color print speed: 6.8 pages per minute
• Mono print speed: 13 pages per minute
• Connectivity: USB, WiFi, Ethernet Canon Mobile Printing, Apple AirPrint Mopria Print Service
• Type: Inkjet
• Available for: $380

The Canon Pixma MegaTankG7020 is somewhere in between the high-end printers and the budget printers. It has many strengths and may be the best value for money. With a front-facing control panel and top-quality prints, in both color and black and white, it is well worth its mid-range cost.

This printer is an excellent choice for home use, with its 350-sheet paper capacity and the automatic 2-sided printing as well as the scanning and copying features. It’s not the fastest but it’s not the slowest either, and you’ll get several thousand pages out of the ink that’s included in the box—something to bear in mind when working out costs.

It’s actually the ongoing costs of the Canon Pixma MegaTank G7020 that’s perhaps most likely to convince you to buy it. It’s great in terms of how many pages you get versus how much you have to spend on ink, and in part that’s down to the refillable ink tanks used by the printer—you can see from a glance at the front of the device how much ink is left.