The Right Printer For School
A student need to have access to a printer in college. Having access to a network printer at school is great, but you also need to have access after hours, to ensure overall success in your studies. Late night projects, and last minute handouts for your dorm meeting make having printer access a must.
When your working in an office, printer sharing makes sense. The printer isn't far from an employee's desk, and everyone's job is made easier if your office buys one, or two fast quality printers, instead of several cheap smaller printers. In a college dorm, such a set up is way less convenient. Choosing an ideal location for all the students, makes network printing impractical, due to the distance one may have to travel. Imagine having to run up and down stairs, or going from room to room getting your printouts, just to realize you have to start over again - due to a missed period, or a misplaced apostrophe!
I always strongly suggest to any student bringing a computer to college, that they also bring an cheap personal printer. Ink-jet printers are a great choice for college applications. They offer excellent print quality, quiet operation, and ink cartridge replacements are reasonable considering the convenience they give you. A personal laser printer is also an option, but one must take the cost into account. Sure laser produces higher quality print, and the cartridges last longer - thus reducing your cost per printed page, but...they can cost hundreds more to begin with, and take up a great deal of space for a college dorm setting.
Another consideration is what the student plans on printing: A law student may want to print out flashy, eye-grabbing text to impress their professor (as mentioned - lasers give the best quality text printouts). If graphics, or photos are going to make up the majority of prints, there are two things you need to know: 1) Both color ink-jet and laser printers produce excellent graphic prints. 2) For frequent, or occasional photo printing, a high quality ink-jet will be required - as lasers are designed for quality text prints or simple graphics.
Always look for a printer's output quality, particularly for text (higher dpi = better quality). If you have room, and extra money for a laser printer - and the printer's main use will be text printing - go for a laser. If you plan to print lots of photos - or you're budget conscious - go for an ink jet printer.
Written on Tuesday, 23 March 2010 17:51 by Laptops For College
