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Buying Guide: How to Buy an All-In-One for a Small Office
Contents
- How to Buy an All-In-One for a Small Office
- Brother MFC-9440CN
- Canon imageClass MF4270
- HP Officejet J6480 All-in-One
- Ricoh Aficio SP C222SF
- HP Color LaserJet CM1312nfi MFP
When you're talking about printers—whether single-function printers or all-in-ones (AIOs)—it's always tempting to divide them into categories based on office size. So let's be clear from the start: This roundup is not about small-office AIOs; it's about AIOs for small offices, which isn't quite the same thing.
Your starting point for picking any printer should be how many pages you print, not how big your office is. You should be able to find the number of pages based on how much paper you buy. Your small office may actually print more than some large offices or less than some home users, which is why it's generally a bad idea to pick a printer based on office size. The right printer for your small office may be listed on the manufacturer's Web site as anything from a home AIO to an enterprise workgroup AIO. As a general rule, on the other hand, the smaller your office, the fewer pages you're likely to print, so the AIOs covered here are designed for relatively light-duty printing.
The printers in this roundup include inkjets, monochrome lasers, and color lasers. All of them offer the essential features of an office AIO. They work as standalone fax machines and copiers as well as printers and scanners; they include automatic document feeders to handle multipage documents easily; and they can all connect to a network. Beyond these basics, there are plenty of differences to choose from, including street prices that range from about $200 for the inkjet-based HP Officejet J6480 All-in-One to about $850 for the color laser Ricoh Aficio SP C222SF .
The Brother MFC-9440CN color laser AIO is the heaviest-duty printer in the group, with a 35,000-page-per-month maximum duty cycle. At the light-duty extreme, the HP Officejet J6480's maximum duty cycle is 5,000 pages. If 5,000 pages sounds like a lot, keep in mind that the maximum duty cycle doesn't tell you the maximum you should print on a regular basis. It tells you how much you can print without driving up repair costs, which is to say without damaging the printer.
The recommended maximum pages per month for a printer is always far lower than the maximum duty cycle—just 500 to 3,000 pages for the MFC-9440CN, for example. (HP doesn't publish a recommended maximum for the J6480.) This is the number that tells you how many pages you can print without wearing out the printer in a matter of months. In some cases it also takes into account factors like paper capacity and how often you'd have to add more paper. If you're not sure whether you print enough pages to care about duty cycles, assume that you do and stay away from printers—mostly inkjets—that don't have published duty cycles.
If space is at a premium in your office, you'll also need to be concerned about size. Inkjet and monochrome laser AIOs have an advantage on that score. The HP Officejet J6480 All-in-One measures just 10 by 18.7 by 18.6 inches (HWD) and weighs just 16.9 pounds. If you don't need color output, the monochrome laser Canon imageClass MF4270 will give you laser speed in a 17.9-by-15.4—by-17.4-inch AIO that weighs less than some inkjets, at 27.6 pounds. Among color laser AIOs, the HP Color LaserJet CM1312nfi MFP is one of the smaller and lighter choices, at 19.1 by 19.6 by 19.3 inches and 54.5 pounds.
Beyond these basics, you'll also want to check the usual criteria for any printer, including paper handling, print speed, and output quality. And be sure to judge the text, graphics, and photo quality separately, since printing one kind of output well doesn't necessarily mean that the printer will do well on others. The five printers in this roundup give you a wide selection to choose from.
Featured in this Roundup:
Brother MFC-9440CN ($700 street)
Although the Brother MFC-9440CN's output quality isn't the best available, it's more than good enough for most business needs, and it's paired with the fastest speed yet for a sub-$1,000 color laser AIO. Unless you have an unusual need for small size text, it's a winning combination for a small office.
Canon imageClass MF4270 ($299 direct)
Best understood as a personal monochrome laser AIO that you can share over a network for printing and faxing, the Canon imageClass MF4270 will scan only over a USB connection. Fortunately, scanning to only one computer is all that many small offices need. The AIO also delivers fast speed, reasonably high-quality output, and capable paper handling, with a 250-sheet paper tray and a built-in duplexer for printing on both sides of a page.
HP Color LaserJet CM1312nfi MFP ($499.99 direct)
The HP Color LaserJet CM1312nfi MFP is relatively slow for a laser, at 12 pages per minute (ppm) for monochrome and 8 ppm for color, but it's loaded with features that make it a bargain for the price, such as a 50-page ADF, memory card slots for printing photos, and high-quality output across the board, including near-photo-quality on HP's laser photo paper.
HP Officejet J6480 All-in-One ($199.99 direct)
Most office inkjet AIOs in the HP Officejet J6480 All-in-One's price range are designed for the lightest of light-duty printing. The J6480 goes beyond the norm with relatively fast speed, relatively high-quality output, and relatively heavy-duty paper handling, with a 250-sheet input tray and a built-in duplexer.
Ricoh Aficio SP C222SF ($850 street)
The Ricoh Aficio SP C222SF color laser is one of six related color laser models, including three printers and three AIOs. It doesn't do any one thing spectacularly well, but it's faster than most sub-$1,000 color laser AIOs, its output quality is good enough for most business needs, and it offers most, if not all, the AIO features that a small office needs.