Researching options can take forever if you let it. You’ll search forums and review sites, read magazines, and check out user reviews looking for alternatives. I personally like to do a quick search at a couple of hot deals forums and then look at PC World and Cnet’s top rated printer lists. Between those sites, I typically get a good feel for what the “pros” think and what the users think. If you’re in a hurry and have a fast internet connection, you can make a reasonably well informed decision in an hour or two.
Don’t be afraid of older or discontinued printers. Printer build quality has been falling for several years, and it’s quite possible you’ll get a better old printer for less than the cost of a newer equivalent printer. Printer technology just doesn’t change that fast that a printer model 2 or 3 years old wouldn’t be perfectly sufficient. On the flipside, some of the newest features (WiFi/Bluetooth and flash memory card printing) are only available on the newest printers so you may find yourself looking for the newest printer you can get in order to get those features.
Hot Deals Sites
The sites I frequent when getting a feel for printer deals are forums.anandtech.com (Hot Deals) and www.fatwallet.com/forums. Searching those forums for the word “printer” will bring up all the recent deals with the word “printer” in them. If a deal is posted on one of those sites, odds are that it is a pretty good bargain. However, the deals currently available may not fit what you are looking for so your mileage may vary. GotApex is another very popular deals site. It is quite possible that if you can find a good deal, and it’s still in stock, you can just do a quick Google search to dig up some reviews and buy right then. The better the deal, the faster it will disappear.
PC World
PC World has a number of Top 10 computers and accessories lists. They list the top 10 products in a given category according to PC World’s opinion. Even though their suggestions are rather questionable at times, printers are difficult to find mass comparisons so PC World is one of the only places to turn to. Unfortunately, they do tend to favor the newest products that come out, and they will drop discontinued printers off the list. Their top products lists link directly to reviews so you can get a decent review of each printer.
Top 10 lists
Inkjet printers
Inkjet multifunction printers
Photo printers
Color laser printers
Black and white laser printers
CNET
CNET is another site to turn to for reviews. They try to have nearly every printer listed on their site, although they might not have any information other than specs for any given product. The less popular a printer is, the less likely full reviews will be available. Also, they have a popular user reviews section for their products so if someone is using that printer, you’ll be able to read their opinions. I like to browse CNET in order to get a feel for what they think are good printers and cross reference that with PC World.
When it comes down to it, Google just works. It can be hard to actually find more printer options using google, but once you’ve found a printer that you want to learn more about, just google the model number and see what comes up. Searches like “dj960c quality”, “dj960c forums”, or “dj960c reviews” (where dj960c is the printer model in question) can dig up quite a bit of information. Unfortunately, there can be a lot of noise to filter through to find the nuggets of information you are looking for.
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