Are printers in the sub AU$100 space actually worth buying? We check out four low-cost printing options in our Australian review.If you've wandered into any IT store recently, you've probably seen a stack of forlorn printers with a big 'Manager's Special' sticker on them, along with a sub-AU$100 price point. The natural reaction to this kind of largesse is to become suspicious -- surely a printer that cheap must come with some severe limitations, or be end-of-line fodder for the less cautious? We were curious to see exactly what kind of performance you could expect from these budget line units, so we've lined up four models from the four major consumer printing vendors.
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Common accepted knowledge is that with really cheap printers, what you actually pay for is the ink, in the same way as with razorblade manufacturers, where the handles are cheap but the actually useful part -- in that case the razors -- will cost you a bucketload. While it's undoubtedly true that the inexpensive nature of these units makes ink comparatively expensive, we've uncovered units with ink replacements that cost as little as AU$13.95, so there's clearly some room to move in terms of ink supplies. Page yields for cartridges do still remain on the lower side, however, and if you're used to more expensive units having cheap running costs, the cost per page of some budget units may leave you in a little shock. Ultimately, these are units best purchased by casual printers rather than anyone who needs a consistent and heavy printing output.
The real price pressure in the inkjet market is undoubtedly coming from one area -- cheap multifunction devices. These are inkjet units that incorporate scanning, copying and faxing functionality into cheaper and cheaper packages. As consumers see these units tumble well below the AU$200 price point, the pressure on units that only print continues to grow.
Buying a budget printer is all about compromises. While all of the printers in our roundup are what could be deemed 'photo capable' (although none of them are genuine photo printers), none of them are capable of borderless printing. One of the units on offer comes without a paper output tray, while two others are notably noisy in operation. The best approach to take is undoubtedly to work out which compromises you're prepared to live with, and purchase accordingly.
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A Canon wins and the ads on the site are for Epson? Ya gotta love that.