The holiday season is fast approaching, and by the time our next newsletter comes out, it might be too late for Christmas shopping, so we’ve come up with a couple of recommendations for people looking at buying a new printer. Yes, we do realize it is a little early for all this and this is sort of like how stores put out Christmas candy the day after St. Patrick’s Day, but hopefully you’ll forgive us.

These recommendations are based on our knowledge combined with ratings from CNET and PC Mag, along with price, overall popularity and customer feedback at places like Amazon and CompUSA. Some of these printers may be a little older or only available to order online, but you can still get them. We’ve picked our recommendation for best inkjet printer, best photo printer and best multifunction printer and here they are:

Best Inkjet Printer

Picking the best inkjet printer these days is kind of hard because very few printers are classified as just inkjets. Every inkjet printer these days is called a photo printer, so we are going to limit our choice to a true inkjet printer. Based on that, we recommend the HP Deskjet 6980.

The Deskjet 6980 is not the cheapest Deskjet model you will find (it’s usually about $150), but that’s a good thing because a lot of the sub-$100 HP offers these days aren’t very good. This model, which came out about a year ago, is rated at a blistering 36 pages per minute for black prints and 27 for color. It has all the usual connectivity options and it has the ability to produce double-sided prints. It probably won’t blow you away with its photo quality, but the Deskjet 6980 is a bit of a throwback model, similar to the Deskjets HP used to produce before they flooded the market with a bunch of crappy $30 models.

The one downside to this printer would be the ink costs, since the cartridges that work with this printer are very small. You can save on ink costs by swapping out the cartridges based on the type of printing you do, but it is still something to be aware of.

Amazon Inkjet Sales Rank - 13th
Amazon Customer Reviews - 4/5 (based on 15 reviews)
PC Mag Review - 4/5 (Editors’ Choice)

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Best Photo Printer

As we just mentioned, these days the term “photo printer’ is applied to basically any inkjet that can print photos. Since technically all inkjets can print photos in one way or another, printer manufacturers use the term very frequently. Also, compact photo printers have become more common these days, so there are just tons of photo printers on the market. But, in our opinion, there are only a few true photo printers, and out of those we recommend the Canon PIXMA iP4200.

We definitely had to take price into consideration on this one because there are a lot of good photo printers out there, but a lot of them are above $300. For most people, that price is just not very practical, so that’s why we went with the $130 PIXMA iP4200. This printer, which came out in the Summer of 2005, is pretty fast at 29 ppm for black, and it has a very good print resolution at 9600 x 2400 dpi. It can do double-sided printing and it comes with a second paper tray to increase your paper options. The print quality is good, and since it’s a Canon, the ink costs will be relatively low.

The only downside to this printer is that it is not the highest quality or fastest photo printer on the market. But for what you pay, it’s one of the best, and its performance will be very suitable for most home users.

Amazon Inkjet Sales Rank - 15th
Amazon Customer Reviews - 4/5 (based on 82 reviews)
PC Mag Review - 4/5 (Editors’ Choice)
CNET Review - 7.5 (very good)

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Best Multifunction Printer

Like with photo printers, there are a ton of multifunction choices on the market today. The number has exploded over recent years as more people have started working out of their homes, but unfortunately the increase in multifunctions has flooded the market with some truly bad machines. Most of the entry level multifunctions on the market, especially those from Lexmark, just are not very good and people need to stay away from those. One model you don’t need to stay away from is our recommendation, the Canon PIXMA MP830.

Canon made this choice pretty easy because they currently dominate the multifunction market and because you can always count on the quality of their machines. So after looking through their current offerings, we chose the PIXMA MP830 based on the reviews given to it and the interest in it from our customers. This $250 printer is relatively new, having come out about six months ago, and in that time a lot of people have come to our site specifically looking for info on this printer or cartridges for it. It is rated at 30 ppm black and 24 color, which is a good speed for an all-in-one and it has a lot of features for a printer in its price range. Those features, including an automatic document feeder, are not usually found on a printer in this price range. When they tested it, PC Mag said that overall, the MP830 was the fastest multifunction they had tested by a pretty big margin.

If there is any downside to this printer, it is the price. It is a little higher than other manufacturers may charge for their multifunctions, but it is worth the price. This machine is ideal for a single user in a home office or small business.

Amazon Inkjet Sales Rank - #2
Amazon Customer Reviews - 4/5 (based on 78 reviews)
PC Mag Review - 4.5/5 (Editors’ Choice)
CNET Review - 7.2 (very good)

**As with any products, there are going to be some differing opinions. There is sure to be someone out there who had a bad experience with one of these printers and will curse us for days upon end for recommending it. All we can say is that we took a lot of things into consideration when choosing these printers and we based our information on our own experiences, those of our customers, and those of other customers out there. So, use this information, along with all the reviews and feedback we’ve linked to and you should be able to come up with the best printer for your needs.

HP has teamed up with the WWF (the World Wildlife Fund, not the WWF that most of us used to know) to cut its greenhouse emissions by 15% over the next four years. In addition to that, HP will work with the WWF to improve the efficiency of their products and they will also “fund a project to study the effects of climate change on the wildlife and habitats of North America’s Bering Sea.” Seems a little random, but oh well. It will hopefully do some good.

Since we never really have too many nice things to say about HP, I must add that this news should be taken with a grain of salt. This announcement comes during a time when HP is being investigated by state and environmental agencies under the Superfund Act. Of course, this is just a coincidence and the WWF announcement has nothing to do with them being investigated.

HP promises to cut back on greenhouse gases [CNET]

Office Depot has the Deskjet 5440 on sale for $30. This is a regular sale so there is no mail-in rebates. They have had it as this price for a couple of days, so they might be running out. Currently their stock indicates “low availability.” If you just order the 5440, you will have to pay shipping because you need to get up to $50 for free shipping. You can put in your zip code to see if they have this printer at your local store, but it’s likely that you’ll have to order it online to get the deal.

The Deskjet 5440 is a “photo printer”, but it is no more of a photo printer than any other standard inkjet. You should not go in thinking that this printer will give you good photos, because it won’t. If you use the right photo paper, the quality probably won’t be all that different from mid-level HP photo printers, but the speed will definitely be a lot slower.

HP rates the Deskjet 5440 at 22 ppm for black and 21 for color, so it’s a pretty fast printer. It’s got a resolution of 4800 x 1200 and it can supposedly print a 4 x 6 pictures in 27 seconds. Supposedly you can use this printer to print up to 8.5 x 24″ prints, which rather unique for a standard deskjet.

This is the second time in a month that Office Depot has had this extremely low price, so it’s safe to say that they are trying to get rid of their inventory and this printer is being phased out. So, you’d better hop on this bargain now or suffer the grave consequences. Oh ya….if you need HP Deskjet 5440 ink cartridges, you can go to our site, or if you own this printer already you can leave a comment.

Buy.com has the HP Photosmart 8250 on sale for $95. There is no shipping and tax in only a few states, so for a lot of people that will be the final price. Right now it’s selling for $120 on Amazon, so this is a pretty good discount.

The two main draws of the Photosmart 8250 are its speed and the fact that it uses individual ink cartridges. HP introduced these cartridges last year but there still aren’t that many printers that use them. This is too bad for people who use HP printers because the cost of their ink goes up almost every year, so individual ink cartridges would be a big bonus.

HP rates the 8250 at 32 ppm for black and 31 ppm for color. They call it the world’s fastest photo printer, but then they also make a point of noting that the official speeds are specifically from text printing, something that most other printers do not note. It’s usually just 32 ppm black, but for the 8250 it’s “32 ppm black text”. HP claims that it can print a 4 x 6 photo in as little as 14 seconds, which kind of sounds like hogwash, but who are we to argue? It’s got all the usual connectivity options, two-sided printing, a special 4 x 6 photo paper tray for dedicated prints and a 2.5″ LCD. It is also a wide-format printer which can print up to 8.5 x 24.

Here is a fancy picture on how its ink stystem works. AWESOME!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Newegg has the HP LaserJet 3055 on sale for $220 after a whopping $250 mail-in rebate. There is a $21 shipping fee, so the total is about $240. Amazon also has this printer on sale for $250 with the same rebate, so if you prefer ordering from there you can fork over the extra $10. The rebate is good until 10/31.

The LaserJet 3055 is an all-in-one printer that is rated at 19 ppm. It prints, faxes copies and scans and can produce its first page in about eight seconds. It has a resolution up to 1200 x 1200, a 50-page automatic document feeder and a 110-page fax memory. It has a lot of internal memory to handle tasks and it features duplex printing.

This printer isn’t that old, but based on the gigantic rebate, HP is either phasing it out or trying to spark some sales. If you need some LaserJet 3055 toner cartridges, you know where to go.

Office Depot has the Deskjet 5440 on sale for $30. This is a regular sale - no mail-in rebates. If you order it online, you will have to pay shipping because you have to spend more than $50 to get free shipping. So maybe you can buy this printer and like some pencils or something.

The Deskjet 5440 is called a photo printer, but that is really in name only. It is a standard inkjet model that is capable of printing photos. It doesn’t speciliaze in photos, but that should be pretty obvious from the $30 price tag. HP rates it at 22 ppm for black and 21 for color, so it’s a pretty fast printer. It’s got a resolution of 4800 x 1200 and it can supposedly print a 4 x 6 pictures in 27 seconds. They must be talking about a 4 x 6 of three dots.

If you need HP Deskjet 5440 ink cartridges, you can go to our site, or if you own this printer already you can leave a comment.

Amazon has the HP Photosmart 428 GoGo Photo Studio on sale for $100 after rebate. The sale price is $130 and then there is a mail-in rebate that’s good until 9/30.
The GoGo Studio thing means that it is a photo printer and a digital camera. So this package includes the Photosmart 420 and then the M517 5.2-megapixel digital camera. The M517 camera features 2″ LCD display to edit your pictures without a computer, which is basically the idea of having this whole mini studio. When you aren’t using the camera, you dock it on the printer and it charges.

To be honest, this isn’t the greatest camera ever created, but you are basically getting it for free with the printer, so there isn’t too much to complain about. This is a relatively recent model and it is has received good reviews from Amazon users, so it sounds like a good bargain. If you need Photosmart 428 ink, you know where to go.

Another day, another article about people using alternatives to the manufacturer’s ink. The article notes that customers who buy refilled or remanufactured cartridges currently only make up 25% of the market, but that obviously that number is growing. As usual, they mention how lots of new stores like Office Depot and Walgreens are offering refill services. They also mention the fact that buying a couple new sets of printer cartridges will cost you more than a new printer (for most moderately-priced inkjets, it’s between 2-3 sets of cartridges).

Then they get into how much money HP makes from ink and toner:

Take Hewlett-Packard Co. In its most recent fiscal year, HP earned more than half of its $6 billion operating profit from its imaging and printing group. And some analysts believe that number understates the importance of ink and toner to HP because the imaging group includes printers, which HP sells at little or no profit.

In past years, estimates for how much HP makes from their ink were as high as 75%, but in recent years it has gone down a bit. Because HP doesn’t break down exactly where their profits come from, everyone is left to just guess. Here is a nice quote though:

HP doesn’t break out results for individual items, but ink and toner “are both nicely profitable,” says Pradeep Jotwani, the company’s senior vice president of imaging and printing.

Isn’t that nice?

Ink-refill firms aim at printer giants [Boston Globe]

Amazon has the Photosmart 3210 on sale for $154. This is a regular sale so there is no mail-in rebate, but there is also no way of knowing how long it will last. The usual price is over $200, so this is a pretty good deal. It’s one of those deals that’s so crazy that Amazon makes you add the item to your shopping cart to even see the price.

The Photosmart 3210 is rated at 32 ppm for black and 31 ppm for color and it can supposedly print a 4 x 6 in 14 seconds. When it was released, HP dubbed it the world’s fastest all-in-one printer. It has a 2.5″ LCD and all the usual connectivity options for standalone printing. This printer uses a six-ink system, which is pretty rare for HP. The HP 02 ink cartridges used in this machine were the first individual color cartridges HP offered for inkjets when they were released last summer, and even know only a handful of machines use them.

This printer has received so-so reviews on Amazon, so if anyone wants to offer their thoughts about it they can leave a comment. If you are looking for Photosmart 3210 ink, then you know where to go.

How do HP printers compare with other brands? How expensive are they? What are the negatives of HP printers? For answers to questions like these, check out our new page on frequently asked questions about HP printers.