Before all-in-one printers, people used individual machines, including a printer connected with a parallel port, a fax machine connected to a telephone line, scanner linked to the computer, and a separate copy machine. Not only was this inconvenient, it was expensive. You can get everything you need by paying between $100 to $300 for an HP all-in-one machine.
Instructions
1. Select the features. Some HP all-in-ones only have two or three out of the possible four features (print, scan, copy, and fax). Determine which features are most important to you and figure out how much each additional feature is worth when comparing prices.
2. Examine the printer features. Is it a color or black and white printer? What is the maximum resolution for printed pages? Anything around 4800 x 1200 dpi is considered good. Is it a Laser or InkJet printer? Figure out which operating systems the printer is compatible such as Windows, Mac OS, or Linux. Does the printer connect with a high speed USB connection, or with a parallel port? Can it be matched with a router for use as a wireless printer? Determine how many pages the printer can churn out in a minute (PPMs). Finally, look at the type of paper that the printer can handle, such as photo stock, cardstock, or light linen resume paper.
3. Determine the optical resolution of the scanner. The resolution determines how clear and precise the scan will appear. The higher the resolution the better. Does the scanner come with OCR (Optical Character Recognition) software so that you can edit scanned-in text?
4. Compare the copy features across each HP All-in-One machine. How many pages can you copy per minute? Can make a color copy or only black and white, and determine the copy resolution? Figure out how many sheets of paper the printer can hold when doing a large copy job.
5. Look at the faxing capabilities. How much memory does the fax machine have? This will tell you how many pages can it store in memory. Can you send and receive your faxes in both color and black and white? You also want to look at the transmission speed, which is measured in seconds, so that you'll know how long you will have to wait to receive or transmit a fax. Fax machines also have the ability to block out unwanted junk faxes.
Tags: black white, many pages, color black, color black white, parallel port, with parallel, with parallel port
