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printers That Fit Seven Business Personalities
A printer is usually the last place your important documents go before ending up in your client's hands. Whether you're a lawyer, researcher, editor, writer, accountant, salesperson, publisher, graphic artist, musician, or mass mailer, your printouts are often the main contact your clients have with you. The printing they see is your company. A piece of gear as important as a printer needs to be carefully matched to the tasks at hand and the programs you're using. Just because your sister is raving about her color ink-jet printer, doesn't mean it would be good for your database reports, mail-merged letters, or advertising slicks.
The truth is that different workstyles have different needs. To help you find the best printer for your business, we've identified seven different workstyles and recommended printers for each. "APM
If you are pinching pennies, want to set up an office quickly, and don't mind if your printing isn't perfect under a microscope, you're a classic bootstrapper. You could buy an inexpensive ink-jet printer (see "Presenter"), then add a fax machine, copier, and scanner. But why not get a multifunction peripheral instead?
These babies not only print at an acceptable ink-jet-quality 300dpi resolution, they'll also act as copiers, fax machines, and scanners. Teaming a computer with a multifunction peripheral is the quickest way we know to launch a high-tech office. We found three that we'd recommend for bootstrappers.
The Hewlett-Packard OfficeJet LX (415-857-1501 800-752-0900) combines a rugged case design with 600 by 300dpi resolution printing (using resolution enhancement). At a street price of $669 you can make excellent plain-paper copies, send faxes with error correction, and scan such images as logos and clip art. The 3ppm (pages per minute printing is less than half as fast as most laser printers but will cover basic office tasks. If you bought each componentscanner, copier. fax machine, and printer-separately, you'd be looking at well over $1,000 for comparable quality.
Like the HP OfficeJet LX, the $589 Xerox Document WorkCenter 250 (800ASK-XEROX) is a fax/copier/printer/ scanner combination package. It also prints at 3ppm, but has a less integrated and more flimsy case. To our eyes both the copies and scans made with the WorkCenter 250 are...