Ink Jet Printers: More Than Pretty Pics

Affordable and versatile, ink jet printers offer plenty for the money. You can be your own photo lab, print lots of office documents, or put a multifunction printer on your desk and avoid trips to the copy shop.

Top Ink Jet Printer comparisons (charts):

All-Purpose and Photo Printers

Multifunction Printers

The $199 HP Business Inkjet 1100d comes standard with a built-in duplexer, and the vendor optimistically estimates it can handle a monthly duty cycle (workload) of 6250 pages--impressive for an ink jet. Similarly productive, despite a price of under $100, the Epson Stylus C84 boasts a monthly duty cycle of 5000 pages.

Multifunction printers keep getting better. The Canon MultiPass MP730 and the Lexmark X6170 performed best overall in our tests. For more-attractive photos, however, you should select a dedicated photo printer. The Epson Stylus Photo 900 and the Canon i9100 Photo Printer may equal your local print shop in output quality; plus, the Epson can print onto coated discs, and the Canon makes big prints--up to 13 by 19 inches.