Top 10 Best Printers for Home Use & Buying Guide

Having grown used to printer idiosyncracies—even the infamous “replace cyan cartridge” message —we’ve learned to adapt to their quirks. The best printer brands for home use, each manufacturer targeting a slightly different need, doesn’t ever derail our home office hours, no matter the problem. They process home office spreadsheets, spit out perfectly composed school reports, and layer color after color on properly inserted photography paper, turning treasured digital-only media into physical photos. 

It’s all down to breaking down what each brand does best. Instead of assuming a needle-in-a-haystack approach, looking through masses of printers on Amazon, manufacturer-blind and aimless, sifting through endless options and features, we’ve intelligently spotted the printer vendors who best satisfy particular media output expectations. After all, life really is too short to argue over whether cyan is that essential, no matter how feature-rich the manufacturer has made the device.

The cyan incident is something of a storytelling device—it does happen, though—pushing you out onto the thin ice that could catch you if you don’t intelligently scour the web for the best printer brands for home use. Follow along now as our review team does all the work, choosing the right device for the right printing job based on their vendor-specific strengths. Buckle up, we won’t be stopping for snacks, just touching down occasionally to benchmark certain models and see whether they’ll do all that’s needed. Name dropping now, Hewlett Packard has long boasted that degree of print versatility.

What to Look for in a Home Printer Setup

A wired or wireless connection ranks highly among consumers. If you’ve got a standard home office setup, a desk and computer ruling the furniture layout, consider staying with a USB connection and cable. The layout is a little more restrictive, but it takes the load off of a potentially overburdened router. For widespread use and access for all, a wireless home printer is good for printing, home businesses, and everything between.

Strangely enough, other than a home computer, which invariably comes with an intuitive operating system anyway, a tough learning curve often accompanies that slender device. Even wireless setups don’t bow to simple home electronics conventions. Simple wireless is likely to be built in, but then there are USB connections, ethernet, and Wi-Fi Direct as well. For the last one, think network-less connectivity, no router required.   

Our advice, then, is as follows: keep the manual nearby, or download an online copy. Install the drivers released for the machine, never relying on generic Windows or Mac copies, which are bound to lack features anyway. From here, seek out a machine that fits your needs. If it’s just for office work, plain black and white, a fully-featured laser printer is the logical choice. Buyer beware, color laser printers can be expensive, but they’re fast and built to output sharply rendered text.

Inkjet technology is the buzzword you’ll hear most when buying a printer for the home. The devices work in color and black and white—but then we’re back to cyan issues—and they’re affordable, leaving plenty of room for all kinds of desirable extras, like all-in-one functionality, duplex printing, and photo printing. Just as a quick by-the-way, duplex printing is simply the process involved in putting print on both sides of a sheet of paper.

A lot more equipped now to deal with brand-specific pros and cons, let’s see which manufacturer matches your home needs. Your family, whether for homework or recipe printing, will also be interested in our results, so pull up a couple of extra chairs or text them the link to this post. A household name in printing, HP is our opener brand. 

Best Printers for Home Use – Highly Rated and Recommended

HP Smart Tank 7602 

If HP printers felt inexpensive in the past, owners soon came crashing down to ground when they realized the ink cartridges ran low far too quickly. No longer an issue, sustainability oriented models like the HP Smart Tank 6001 and HP Smart Tank 7602 all-in-one printers offer an insight into the brand’s commitment to eco-friendly paper handling. The sales literature on both of these scanning, copying, and printing machines promises two years of ink.

HP LaserJet MFP M234sdw

Technically, the company was split in two some time ago. Their enterprise level concerns are still known as Hewlett Packard, whereas their computer and printing services are now branded HP, inc. The best printer brands for home use can be found in their inkjet catalogue, but there’s also a number of affordable LaserJet models as well. We tested the LaserJet MFP M234sdw, a device often found on sale for less than $200. It has 30 ppm b&w printing, duplex functionality, and built-in wireless Wi-Fi 802.11a/b/n. Along with Bluetooth convenience, speed and range keeps everyone in a sizable household reliably connected.

Why HP stands out – Diverse options range from small inkjet printers to capable small home office laser jet devices. Color laser jets are also an important part of the HP catalogue, keeping speed, quality, and productivity to the fore. Typical bundled talents include duplex printing, photo printing, reliable Wi-Fi and Bluetooth connectivity, mature drivers, and mobile app workflows.

The OfficeJet series reviews as a more small office oriented machine, with their faster print speeds and work team configured print management systems, but home offices can also benefit from these speeds and workflow improvements, perhaps leaving an hour long window of opportunity open for junior to print out his school project. Affordable in the extreme, HP certainly packs a lot into a small footprint, and now their attention has fallen on ink conservation, earning their popular brand name sustainability clout.

Epson Expression Photo XP-8700 Wireless All-in-One

Reviewers rated the previous brand as extremely easy to configure and use. Since paper and ink can be premium consumables, any degree of intuitive use is very welcome. Epson printers emulate this usability factor, using touchscreens to simplify onscreen instructions so that we were up and running, churning out office brochures before a rapidly approaching lunch break brought everyone to a standstill—lunch is a big deal in our offices, especially when it’s pizza Friday.

The model we chose to represent the Epson brand was an Epson Expression Photo XP-8700 Wireless All-in-One. It’s their top photo printer, and we had images, fresh off a recent photoshoot, that we wanted to convert to physical copies. We use a mirrorless Sony Alpha 7CR, a model that takes full-frame 61MP photographs, and wanted a photo printer that would do the images credit. Capable of printing 5760×1440 dpi images on a six color photo print system, the XP-8700 pulled every detail out of our photos.

Epson EcoTank ET-2850 all-in-one

Why Epson stands out –  proving the company takes their Green credentials seriously, we checked out the EcoTank series. The ‘Kiss Expensive Cartridges Goodbye’ tagline implied a real desire to end those annoying flashing messages that pop up when a driver hungrily asks for ink that’s no longer in the tank. Indeed, the Epson EcoTank ET-2850 all-in-one we pulled in for our review had four bottles of ink waiting to be unboxed. 

The online instructions for the ET-2850 promised mess-free refilling, plus certain happy knock-on effects as well. Most notably, we saved out of pocket expenditure by refilling instead of buying new cartridges. We’re not too proud to admit it, saving some money is almost as important to our reviewers as saving the environment. The printer also copies and scans, using micro-piezo print technology to create crisp text and graphics. Quality aside, home printing convenience is provided courtesy of high-speed USB, 802.11a/b/n, and Wi-Fi Direct.

Review concluded, Epson’s printers nailed every home printing job we could throw at them. From the cost-efficient EcoTank series to the photo-perfect Expression models, the best printer brands for home use could very well be part of the Epson collection.

Canon Pixma Pro 200

Because of their high-end cameras, we tend to think of Canon printers as photography workhorses. The Pixma Pro 200 only serves to reinforce this argument, delivering vibrant hues and ultrasharp detail. Even when the selected paper media is less than ideal, the ChromaLife100+ ink reproduces a wide color gamut, as monitored on an easy-read 3.0 inch LCD display. Determined to break out of this box, though, Canon printer designers have engineered a whole other lineup of high-end home printing devices.

Canon Color ImageClass MF753Cdw

An office printer dwells in a dusty corner of our office. It’s the Canon Color ImageClass MF753Cdw, an all-in-one machine that offers super-fast 35 ppm B&W and color scanning, copying, and printing. For home duties, we’d recommend something equally capable, like the wireless Canon ImageCLASS MF462dw. The office model, the MF753Cdw, has the edge, printing faster, and in color, whereas the home model, the MF462dw, prints in B&W. These are both laser printers, both 802.11a/b/n wireless, although the office model also incorporates Wi-Fi Direct.

Why Canon stands out – The office printers and laser home office devices are one thing, but we were more impressed by the less expensive Pixma and MegaTank Pixma range. For example, the Pixma printers are inexpensive but fully wireless and fast enough to keep a home student or small business productive. The MegaTank variants added 2 years of ink in four bottles—even that semi-precious cyan ink, contained in a big plastic bottle.

Canon MegaTank Pixma G3290

We benchmarked the MegaTank Pixma G3290. Apart from the notable in-box bottles of ink, saving money and environment, the printer is equipped with all-in-one functions, print, scan and copy. It’s also cleverly incorporated with in-front display windows. Refill the ink and watch the levels climb and fall, visually and easily, all the better to avoid unpleasant low-ink surprises. Completing the package, a beautiful 2.7 inch touchscreen display manages features and hosts common print actions.

The 4800×1200 dpi quality, wireless 802.11b/g/n/a/ac, and 49dB quiet operation on the Pixma G3290 creates the foundation for a powerhouse series of text and image prolific devices. They’re also competitively priced, and they’re built to meet the latest industry sustainability standards as well.

Brother MFC-J5855DW INKvestment inkjet printers

Initially, we found the Brother sales strategy a little bewildering. Their main products lines do lean towards printer technology, but then there’s also a bias towards embroidery and sewing machines, label makers and crafting machines. It was only after looking closer at their INKvestment tank color inkjets that we felt their competitive spirit rise to challenge the other ink slinging machine brands on this tightly matched list.

The Brother MFC-J5855DW INKvestment inkjet printers kicks off our review. Brother is most definitely in the running for best printer brand for home use, and we’d credit this machine with much of that consumer buzz. Its price sits in a nice sweet spot, affordable but suggestive of quality. The all-in-one device, besides the usual stream of in-built features like duplex printing and dual-band wireless, uses chip-to-head Maxidrive Technology to accelerate output while maintaining crisp text edges and non-bleed graphics. Then there’s the eco features, supplying one whole year of ink so that users aren’t constantly finding their tank needles hitting empty, like a fuel-guzzling automobile.

Brother MFC-J1170DW Wireless Inkjet

Why Brother stands out – Inkjet print technology gets a lot of exposure, but Brother doesn’t seem to favor one technology over any other. Their Brother MFC-J1170DW Wireless Inkjet features a 2.7 inch touchscreen control and fast color printing, yet it’s available for a sub $200 investment. Moving over to their Laser range, there’s a color laserjet on offer at around $300, one that prints reasonably fast 27ppm color stock. Brother Mobile Connect, installed either on Android or iOS increases appeal.

That appeal extends to youngsters. If a student doesn’t want to leave their rooms, they hook up their smartphones and print their homework directly through the home wireless connection, rippling out pages upon pages of paper stock, each filled with sharply rendered text and graphics. Wi-Fi Direct and NFC (Near Field Comms) are installed by default on many models, allowing users to skip past overloaded routers.

Brother printers have carved out a space in the home printing market by balancing cost and performance. From the versatile MFC-J5855DW to the speedy MFC-L2710DW, they’ve built a machine to satisfy practically every home printing scenario.

Lexmark C3326dw

Expect to find Lexmark printers in offices where every scrap of productivity counts. The Lexmark C3326dw Go Line Color Laser Printer was loaned for this review. We benchmarked the device and pushed it hard, intent on seeing just how office tough it could perform. Not at all disappointed, the elegant little block of hardened plastic printed at speeds of up to 26ppm, even when knocked by a passing intern. We could imagine the same being true in a busy household, this time with an energetic teen providing the bumps and knocks. 

A steel frame underlies the streamlined form factor on the Lexmark C3326dw, and it’s fitted with fast Ethernet and wireless connectivity, again implying a more complex office setup. This is also the first non all-in-one model in our list. For AIO capable printing ,we switched to the Lexmark MC3224dwe, a printer with fast copy and scan capabilities. Yet again, we were looking at a comprehensively equipped color laser device, a machine built to handle high-output small business print jobs.

Why Lexmark stands out – They’re a superb alternative for moderately affordable office quality color laser printing, but we’d hesitate to recommend the brand as a general-purpose device; the printers simply have a bias towards business applications, leaving versatility just that little bit lower on their priorities list. To justify selecting this business oriented brand, you’d likely have to find a refurbished multifunction printer that’s recently exited their current catalog.

However, assuming you do have a home business and want a secure connection and fast, high-quality output, then there are few other machines that can compete. In this aspect alone, we consider Lexmark one of the best printer brands for home use. Security protocols to expect are SNMPv3 and IPSec, among others. Perhaps overkill as a home printing solution, we could well imagine Lexmark printers finding their way into banks and government facilities.

Make Your Home Print Central

Any of the HP or Canon models will perform with distinction. We tested the HP Smart Tank 7602 exhaustively and found its print quality and speed entirely on point. It printed and scanned, even made us a cup of coffee on command. Not really, not with the last one, but surely it’s just a matter of time. The Canon Pixma TR8620a was also added at the last minute. Its sharp 4.3 inch LCD touchscreen and 4800×1200 dpi print resolution took care of professionally written documents, complete with creatively added letterheads. It’s also an all-in-one device, so it can do all the usual copier and scanning work, such as document enlargements and reductions, 1200×2400 dpi optical document scanning, and far more besides.

The only other feature we researched but didn’t put high on our priorities list when looking for the best printer brands for home use was input and output capacities. Large media sizes naturally suited the Lexmark printers. The Lexmark C3326dw came fitted with a 100 sheet output bin and a 250-page input. On the other hand, the paper trays on the Pixma and AIO models were smaller and a little more flimsy when it came to build quality. Plan accordingly if higher outputs are likely.

The brands listed here—and these are the headliners— offer reliable options that are tailored to a variety of needs. Whether for home photo editing, document printing, or general home office work, you’ll find a budget-friendly model to meet your unique needs. Premium all-in-ones are, of course, the logical fit for the home, reducing device footprints, but we suggest selecting one brand and sticking with it. 

HP and Canon are always going to hit all the right notes; it’s difficult to argue against the sheer number of versatile options available from these brands. For more particular applications, perhaps security-sensitive print work, consider Lexmark, but be prepared for a slightly steeper learning curve.