In this vast and ever-expanding world of computer peripherals, new hardware devices and their updated drivers flow in into the market regularly. Printer and Printers supplies are some such hardware devices, having established themselves in the market, as a major hardware commodity. Printer and Printers accessories, having started as a necessity to publishing houses, are now stretching out into every sector. It is very common today to find a printer in every home. While businessmen and offices use printers to infuse style and professionalism into their documents, students gain from their use in making projects and writing term papers.
The present-day market is being flooded by multiple brands - HP, Okidata, IBM, Panasonic, Samsung, and Brother Printer and Printers accessories, to name a few. And the products released by every brand are further more. And more the variety of printers available in the market, more are the chances that you can choose one that matches your needs and suits your budget. But before you browse the market for printers, you must know what you're looking for in the printer you're going to buy. Broadly speaking, printers differ depending on how or what they print. Some of the major classes of printers are:
Laser Printers: In such models, there is a roller charged with electricity, and a laser beam is employed to remove the charge from parts of the charged roller. When the paper comes in contact with the roller, powdered ink from the toner adheres to the areas that were hit by the laser. This ink is then transferred onto the paper. Laser printers are fast, and they can operate at great speeds. Laser printers may either be color, or they may be black-and-white.
Inkjet Printers: To print, inkjet printers spray drops of liquid ink onto the paper. These printers are fast and they produce good image quality. However, the images formed by them tend to smear when they get wet.
Dot-matrix Printers: In these printers, a print head runs across the page. A set of pins are responsible for producing the text or graphics on the paper. These pins hit the ink-ribbon against the paper to produce dots, and every image or character is a combination of such dots. Although they are slow and noisy, they are cheap and durable; some businesses still use them, primarily to print bills.
Multifunction Printers: These printers vary in the set of tasks they can perform, but as the name suggests, they are more versatile than the previously discussed types. The common functions encompass printing, scanning, fax, e-mail, photocopying, and so on.
