Best printers 2021: the best home office printers tested

Do you want an inkjet printer vs a laserjet? Do you need to print in colour, or do you just need to run off documents, and therefore only need a mono printer? Do you need something that can print photos on glossy paper? Do you want a scanner and a copier with your printer, or do you just want a standalone printer? All or none of the above? Still confused?

If yes, then that’s no problem – here, we’ve handpicked a range of the best printers out there to suit all buyers, homes, and situations. If you’re not fussed about high-end functionality, we’ve got entry-level budget options and all-rounders. If you need something a little heavier-duty because you’ve had to shift business operations to your home thanks to the lockdown conditions, then we’ve got the best options for you here, too.

Here, we explain in detail how we tested everything and why we’ve picked the models below.

Jump to:

• How to choose the right printer for you
• Best printers at a glance
• Best printers to buy in 2021
• How we test printers

How to choose the right printer for you

Which printer has the cheapest ink? – Generally speaking, HP has some of the best bottom-line prices on ink cartridges going, with the HP 305 black ink and tri-colour (cyan, magenta, yellow) cartridges used by the HP Envy Pro 6420 and the HP DeskJet Plus 4120 costing £10.99 apiece. That's cheaper than the £16.49 you'd pay for an equivalent Canon cartridge. That said, the Epson 102 black ink and colour ink bottles that the Epson EcoTank ET-2750 uses cost £13.99 and £8.49 each, but go a lot further in terms of how many pages’ worth of ink you get. This is why it’s best to look at the overall cost-per-page of a printer, as well as the up-front cost, and weigh that up with how frequently you print something to determine how cost-effective a printer actually is. The best printer deals can be found in our round-up.

Which ink subscription is best?

As most printers these days can be connected to the Internet, a lot of them come with an optional service whereby ink levels are automatically scanned so that your printer can ‘tell’ the supplier to automatically pop a couple of new cartridges in the post before you run out. HP Instant Ink and Epson ReadyPrint Go subscription prices are based on how many sheets of paper you print in a month. They both operate in the same way and are priced as follows:

HP Instant Ink subscription prices

Epson ReadyPrint Go subscription prices

Why is printer ink so expensive?

The science behind printing is quite complicated. When you send a document or photo to the printer to be printed, the software breaks down your file into a series of instructions which tell printheads with incredibly tiny nozzles to fire thousands of droplets of ink at specific areas of a page in matters of milliseconds, all while the paper is being pulled through as quickly as possible.

Laserjet printers work slightly differently, in that they electrostatically charge specific areas of a page, which then attracts toner – finely ground powder as opposed to liquid – to the page before the paper is heated to seal everything in, which is why printouts sometimes feel warm to the touch when they emerge from a laserjet. More than anything, what you’re really paying for is engineering, not ink or toner. We’ve found out where to buy printer ink here and detailed the best money-saving deals.

Which printer is the fastest?

In our tests, we found the Brother MFC-L3710CW to be the fastest, printing 20 pages of plain text in just over a minute, significantly faster than any other printer. We’re mainly chalking this up to the fact that the MFC-L3710CW is a laserjet printer.

Generally speaking, laserjet printers are faster than their inkjet counterparts since toner can be more quickly applied to paper than ink can. The fastest inkjet printer we’ve tested to date is the Epson XP-7100, which produced 20 pages of text in 1m 14 seconds. We’ve compared inkjet vs laserjet printers here.

Which printer is the most economical to run?

In our tests, we found the Epson EcoTank ET-2750 to be the most economical to run, owing to the relatively low cost of the bottles of ink and high number of pages each bottle yields. However, it’s also one of the more expensive printers we’ve tested, so if your budget can’t accommodate that initial asking price and the number of pages you print every month is in the low tens, as opposed to hundreds, then this might not be cost-effective for you. Something like the Canon Pixma TS205, which has a very low asking price, might be a better option.

Best printers at a glance

• Best value colour printer: Canon Pixma TS205
• Best value all-in-one printer: HP DeskJet Plus 4120
• Best quality all-in-one printer: Canon Pixma TS7450
• Best family all-in-one printer: Epson XP-7100
• Best all-in-one printer that uses the least ink: Epson EcoTank ET-2750
• Best printer for speed: HP Envy Pro 6240
• Best printer for a small office: Brother MFC-L3710CW

Best printers to buy in 2021

Canon Pixma TS205 review, £35.49

Best value colour printer

Pros:

• Very cheap to buy and run
• Good overall print quality
• Easy to set up and use

Cons:

• Slow printing speeds
• Ink smudges easily
• No Wi-Fi or mobile app support

If you’re in the market for the absolute cheapest printer you can buy, you’re only going to be printing things once in a blue moon, and you don’t need a device that can scan and copy, then the Canon Pixma TS205 is your best bet.

Super-simple and no-frills, the Canon Pixma TS205 is a very cheap and lightweight colour printer that works with Windows and Mac desktops and laptops and costs under £40.

While there’s no support for mobile apps or even Wi-Fi – meaning you need to use a USB cable to connect the printer – it’s very easy to install and get set up.

Ideally suited to running off boarding passes, letters, and the occasional essay, the Canon Pixma TS205 is not a heavy-duty machine, and it will therefore take a long time to print off big multi-page documents. And while photos printed on plain A4 are not great, photos printed on glossy paper are actually very good, a lot better than you might give a £40 printer credit for.

Running costs here are about the same as most printers, not especially cheap, but not expensive either, and if you’re the kind of person the TS205 is aimed at – in other words, someone who doesn’t print hundreds and hundreds of pages – this will likely not matter.

The only thing to really be mindful of is that ink takes a while to dry, and pages are very prone to smudging as soon as they’re deposited on the out-tray.

Read our full Canon Pixma TS205 review.

The Canon Pixma TS205 is available from:

• Amazon
• BT Shop

HP DeskJet Plus 4120, £59.99

Best value all-in-one printer

Pros:

• Good at printing graphics and photos
• Lightweight
• Easy to install

Cons:

• Text quality is middling
• Alignment issues
• Not cheap to run without Instant Ink

The HP DeskJet Plus 4120 is one of the cheapest all-in-one colour printer, scanner, copiers going. Capable of printing on glossy photo paper as well as plain A4, and able to accept print jobs from iOS and Android phones over Wi-Fi, as well as Windows and Mac desktop and laptop PCs over Wi-Fi and USB, it’s as versatile as it is inexpensive.

Photos look good on both plain and glossy paper, and graphics are nice and bold. While text doesn’t look rich and sharp on the Normal print setting, it’s good enough – if you really need to crank things up, use Best, although that, of course, uses more ink. Occasionally, you’ll need to realign the printheads to prevent text and images from coming out skewed, but this is easily actioned via any of the HP Smart mobile or desktop apps.

A market average running cost is tempered by the fact that the DeskJet Plus 4120 is covered by HP’s Instant Ink subscription plan, which means you can sign up for a price plan that’ll see you able to get fresh cartridges for less than if you bought them outright.

While it’s not the speediest home printer out there and is therefore not as well suited to large print jobs as other printers here, the HP DeskJet Plus 4120 gets things done quietly, and it doesn’t take up huge amounts of desk space, either.

Read our full HP DeskJet Plus 4120 review.

The HP DeskJet Plus 4120 is available from:

• Amazon
• Argos
• Cartridge People
• John Lewis
• Ryman

Canon Pixma TS7450, £79.99

Best quality all-in-one printer

Pros:

• Excellent overall print quality
• Fast printing and scanning speeds
• Reasonably cheap to run

Cons:

• Photos need to be printed on glossy paper
• Double-page printing is slow
• Only economical with XL cartridges

The Canon Pixma TS7450 is the best all-around all-in-one colour printer we’ve tested, offering buyers a lot of features and functions for a low, sub-£100 price while producing good quality results at acceptable speeds. It’s also easy to install, despite it being larger and heavier than many all-in-ones within this price range.

Thanks to Wi-Fi and USB connectivity, getting this set up and connected to devices on your home Wi-Fi network is simple, and thanks to support for Apple AirPrint, Mac devices can send print jobs to the Canon Pixma TS7450 wirelessly in a matter of seconds.

Capable of printing on photo paper as well as plain, the Canon Pixma TS7450 has enough capacity for up to 200 sheets of plain A4 and 20 photo sheets, so it’s well-suited for large print runs. Quality is also high, with text and graphics looking very sharp and photos looking deep and rich – provided that they’re printed on photo paper and not plain.

It’s only really economical to run if you invest in the bigger XL cartridges, something that’s true of practically all inkjet printers, but more so in this case, as the bigger cartridges here have a slightly higher yield than much of the competition. The only real downside here is that automatic duplex printing – printing on both sides of A4 – is noticeably slower than on other printers.

Read our full Canon Pixma TS7450 review.

The Canon Pixma TS7450 is available from:

• Amazon
• Argos
• Currys PC World
• eBay

Epson XP-7100, £149.99

Best family all-in-one printer

Pros:

• Prints, scans, and copies quickly
• Compact, space-saving design
• Economical to run

Cons:

• A rather noisy customer
• Very heavy for its size
• Replacing five cartridges could get pricey

As the Epson XP-7100 is excellent at printing text, graphics, and photos, it can print on glossy paper and plain A4 and has a large, inviting touchscreen display built into its control panel well-suited for family use.

The five cartridges it uses also offer a higher yield than those used by a lot of printers in this price range, although there are five of them, and so replacing them all at once might be hard on your wallet. Luckily, the Epson XP-7100 can be covered by one of Epson’s ReadyPrint Go subscriptions, which could be cost-effective for busy families. Thanks to the easy-to-use control panel and mobile app support, it’s easy to keep tabs on ink levels.

It’s a fast printer, too, capable of producing text and images quickly, and it’s no slouch when it comes to double-sided printing either. Print quality is also good on the default setting, although for the best results, printing family holiday photos or final versions of documents, you’ll need to crank it up a notch. As with the Canon Pixma TS7540, if you want your photos to really shine, you’ll need to invest in some glossy photo paper for the best results.

A downside of the Epson XP-7100 is that it’s quite noisy – when it’s printing, you’ll know about it, and there’s a chance that your neighbours will, too.

Read our full Epson XP-7100 review.

The Epson XP-7100 is available from:

• Amazon
• Cartridge People
• Currys PC World
• Jessops

Epson EcoTank ET-2750, £349.99

Best all-in-one printer that uses the least ink

Pros:

• Incredibly cheap to run
• Simple set up process
• Good overall speed and quality

Cons:

• High upfront cost
• No automatic document feeder

Like the Epson XP-7100, the Epson EcoTank ET-2750 is a capable all-in-one colour printer, but the real big selling point is the fact that instead of cartridges, the ET-2750 features a large internal ink tank which you refill with bottles, which is a much more economical solution as cartridges will typically give you a few hundred pages worth of ink, while a full set of bottles will give you thousands.

This makes the ET-2750 very cheap to run, which will appeal to anyone running off multiple copies of scripts, newsletters, posters, as well as families and busy households, anyone who will be wanting to print lots and often.

Print quality is also high, with text, graphics, and photos all looking rich and colourful, and the ET-2750 can print on glossy as well as plain sheets of paper. It's not quite as fast to print as others, so if speed is of the essence, then consider looking at the Canon Pixma TS7450, the Epson XP-7100, or the Brother MFC-L3710CW.

While the Epson ET-2750 is incredibly cheap to run and good value overall, the upfront cost is high, so this printer really only makes economic sense if you’re printing off hundreds of pages every month – copies of manuscripts, essays, reports, newsletters, and the like. Buyers on a tight budget with more modest printing requirements will be better off looking elsewhere.

Read our full Epson EcoTank ET-2750 review.

The Epson EcoTank ET-2750 is available from:

• Amazon
• Argos
• Cartridge People
• John Lewis
• Ryman

HP Envy Pro 6240, £89.99

Best printer for speed

Pros:

• Fast print speeds
• Excellent text and graphics quality
• Low, compact design

Cons:

• Occasional paper jams
• Problems printing on glossy paper
• Expensive without an Instant Ink subscription

The HP Envy Pro 6420 is one of the fastest inkjet all-in-one printers we’ve tested, and it boasts a very stripped down and minimal profile. This makes it a good choice for people working in a small home office with limited desk real estate.

While it’s not terribly cheap to run if you just buy the HP305 colour and black cartridges on an as-and-when basis – this yield 100 to 120 pages’ worth of ink respectively, so you could run out quickly – the Envy Pro 6420 is covered by HP Instant Ink, so with the right plan, you can make big savings and not have to worry about running out, or ordering fresh cartridges.

In addition to being quick to print, text and graphics quality is also high, boasting sharper and bolder results than what the HP DeskJet Plus 4120 produced. It’s also capable of printing on both sides of A4, and it does this a lot more quickly than most of the other inkjets we’ve tested.

A downside is the fact that despite the spec sheet telling you that the HP Envy Pro 6420 can print on glossy photo paper, we tried with a variety of different weights of photo paper, and we were unable to do so. There may be a problem with the specific unit we picked up, but either way, we can’t comment on photo printing abilities of the HP Envy Pro 6420. It may be the case that, if you just want a fast colour printer, scanner, and copier for your home office set up, this is not a dealbreaker anyway, and so if low space requirements and high printing speeds are top of your agenda, the HP Envy Pro 6240 could be just the ticket.

Read our full HP Envy Pro 6240 review.

The HP Envy Pro 6420 is available from:

• Amazon

Brother MFC-L3710CW, £349.99

Best printer for a small office

Pros:

• Very fast in all operations, printing, scanning, copying
• Easy to set up and use
• High-yield cartridges are good value

Cons:

• No auto duplexing
• Can't print on glossy paper
• Cartridges are expensive

The Brother MFC-L3710CW is the sort of all-in-one printer you should look at getting if you need something heavy-duty for your home office set-up. For your money, you get a very fast, reliable, and capable printer.

To look at, the Brother MFC-L3710CW very much resembles a kind of scaled-down version of your typical office printer, scanner, and copier. There’s more room for paper storage here – the in-tray has enough room for 250 sheets of A4, so if you’re running off lots of copies of multi-page documents, the Brother MFC-L3710CW will quietly and confidently get on with the job and won’t be barking at you for more paper every five seconds.

The fact that the cartridges are good for around 1000 pages’ worth of printing means you won’t have to replace toner as often as you would with an ink equivalent. The TN-243 and TN-247 cartridges aren’t cheap, mind, so you will want to shop around for a good deal and buy in bulk if you can.

As this is very much a printer for a small office or home office, and therefore very much a business-first printer, the Brother MFC-L3710CW isn’t well-suited for printing family photos. While colour prints of graphics and photos are indeed very good – smooth, detailed, and vibrant – the Brother MFC-L3710CW wouldn’t print on any of the glossy paper we used in testing.

Read our full Brother MFC-L3710CW review.

The HP Envy Pro 6420 is available from:

• Amazon
• AO
• Argos
• Cartridge People
• Currys PC World
• John Lewis

How we test printers

We rank printers based on their initial cost and ongoing running costs, ease of use, printing speed, and print quality.

We compare the upfront cost of each printer and examine the cost per page of each printer by taking the price of each cartridge or ink bottle (using prices are they are listed on each manufacturer’s site) and dividing that by the number of pages you can expect to get from a single cartridge. Where larger, better value for money cartridges are available, we list the prices too, so you can easily compare running costs.

When setting up each printer, we briefly detail the process you go through and how long it takes, roughly, to get each device set up and running. Any issues we encounter are detailed here. If a printer works with any mobile apps or desktop software, we mention that and briefly explain how to best use those and if there are any problems with the apps themselves.

Print speed is calculated by printing a series of test files. We print text documents of varying size, ranging from one page long to five pages, to 20 pages, to simulate the experience of printing letters, boarding passes, essays, manuscripts. We print documents that feature a mixture of text and graphics, such as pie charts and bar graphs, to simulate printing out reports and contracts. We also print off graphical images to test how long it would take for a printer to run off copies of a PowerPoint presentation. If a printer can print photos, we run off copies of the same royalty-free image on plain A4, glossy A4, and glossy 6 x 4-inch paper to test how long it would take for holiday snaps to be printed. We print off the same files every time to ensure consistency of results. Print speed times are worked out by dividing the number of pages by the total time in seconds and multiplying the result by 60.

When comparing print quality, we look for any instances of smudging, bleed – where ink on text, for example, has leaked into other areas of the page, causing certain letters, too, look jagged and messy – and if text and images are aligned correctly, as well as generally remaking on the accuracy of colours and the overall impact of the results.

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