Consumer Reports Best All in One Printers
Finding the right all in one printer is all about compromise. You have to find the model that offers the best price, has affordable operating costs in terms of ink, prints quality pages and has plenty of speed. Of all the 50 printers that were tested, the ones below offer the best of all worlds. All are loaded with plenty of features, some even have nice extras like a built in LCD screen as well as built in fax, direct CD printing and wireless.
Don’t Need All in 1 Features? Check out these Regular Inkjets Under $100
Top Rated All in One printer: The CR top rated all in one printer was the HP PhotoSmart C6380. This printer was not only affordable, it also had everything the more expensive printers had, including LCD screen, Wireless Networking and media card support. The C6380 was tied for the lowest cost per 4X6 print at only 35 cents. Page print costs were also low at 3.9 cents per page. This was by far the best value because it was over $100 cheaper than the Epson and just $20 more than the OfficeJet 6500 which has no LCD and no wireless. Overall, this is the best All in One values on the market. $119.98 Best Price at Amazon.com
Top 3 CR Best Buy All in One printers Sorted by Price
HP OfficeJet 6500 with Built in Networking
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The HP OfficeJet 6500 was rated a Consumer Reports best buy because it offers excellent speed (up to 32 pages/minute black, 31 color) , a cost per page of only 3 cents and cost per print of only 35 cents. This printer has built in networking capabilities and built in faxing/scanning for all in one convenience. In addition, the printer was the most energy efficient of the bunch. Another cool thing about this printer is that it offers the capability to scan directly to a memory card making it easy to take scanned documents and pictures on the go. Best of all, this all in one can be had for under 100 bucks and while you don’t get an external LCD screen, this printer has all the functionality of costlier all in ones.
Features:
- up to 32 pages/minute black, 31 color
- Up to 4800 x 1200 optimized dpi color
- All in one conveninece for one stop scanning/faxing/printing/copying
- Ethernet networking
- Media card port for direct scan to medica card
- Flatbed size 8.5 x 11.7 in
- Optical scanning up to 2400 dpi and enhanced up to 19,200 dpi
$99.99 Best Price at Amazon.com
HP Photosmart C6380 All-in-One Printer
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The HP PhotoSmart C6380 is a Consumer Reports best buy. This printer has all the features of the 6500 in addition to an external LCD screen for quick photo previewing. As with the 6500, this printer also has built in wireless for cordless printing. This printer is also fast, capable of printing up to 33 pages per min in black , 31 in color and will crank out a 4×6 print in as little as 18 seconds. Cost per page is also pretty good at just 4 cents per page and about 35 cents per 4×6 photo print. All in all, this is one of the best values in the group because it has all of the features of the cheaper 6500 in addition to an LCD screen, wireless networking, 2 times the printing resolution and 2 times the optical scanning resolution.
Features:
- up to 32 pages/minute black, 31 color
- Up to 9600 x 2400 dpi optimized
- All in one conveninece for one stop scanning/faxing/printing/copying
- Wireless networking
- Media card port for direct scan to medica card
- Flatbed size 8.5 x 11.7 in
- Optical scanning up to 4800 dpi and enhanced up to 19,200 dpi
$119.98 Best Price at Amazon.com
Epson Artisan 800
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The Epson Artisan 800 is the final of the CR best buys. This was the fastest ratest printers of the bunch, printing both color and black/white pages at up to 38 pages per minute. The printer will also crank out a 4X6 print in as little as 10 seconds. One of the coolest things on this printer is that it has a 7.8″ color touch panel for the user interface, while high on the cool factor, it does make this one the most expensive of the 3. One of the downsides of this printer is that it has the highest cost per prit at 50 cents per page and the highest cost per page at 4.2 cents. As with the C6380, this printer also has a built in LCD screen and wireless networking capabilities.
Features:
- up to 38 pages/minute black, 38 color
- Up to 5760 x 1440 optimized dpi resolution
- All in one conveninece for one stop scanning/faxing/printing/copying
- Wireless networking
- Touch panel interface and LCD screen
- Media card port for direct scan to medica card
- Flatbed size 8.5 x 11.7 in
- Optical 48 bit scanningup to 4800 dpi and enhanced up to 19,200 dpi