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Richard Baguley Contributor Opinions expressed by Forbes Contributors are their own.
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Reviewed By Christine Colby
Modern education is almost paperless: You submit coursework online, browse the course notes on the web and get your grades by email. But having a printer in your dorm room or apartment can facilitate all stages of your work, from scanning in handwritten notes, transforming them into revision guides and printing lessons out for easier recall. Printing on physical paper can help you to annotate or be able to turn in assignments with an old-school professor who prefers a physical copy. We think the best printer for students is the HP OfficeJet 9125e, due to its ability to easily do everything you need while taking up a small footprint.
Those who print lengthy documents (or write longer essays) might prefer a speedier (and slightly cheaper) laser printer, like the Brother HL-L2460DW. And for science students expected to print plenty of data projects, the cheaper-to-run Epson EcoTank ET-2850 printer reduces the cost per page to less than a cent. But there are other options, too, so check out our recommendations for the best printers for students available right now.
Best Printer For Students Overall: HP OfficeJet 9125e
Best Budget Laser Printer For Students: Brother HL-L2460DW
Best Supertank Printer For Students: Epson EcoTank ET-2850
Best Photo Printer For Students: Canon ImageProGraf PRO-300
Best Portable Printer For Students: Canon Pixma TR150
Best Printer For Students Overall
A Budget-Friendly All-In One
HP OfficeJet 9125e
Type: Inkjet |Features: Scan, copy, print, fax | Wireless: Yes | Size:13.5 x 17.3 x 10.9 inches | Color print: Yes |Tray capacity: 250 sheets | Ink:4 cartridges (black, cyan, mangenta, yellow)
Pros:
- Offers rapid printing, scanning and copying
- Flexible: can print color plus photos
Cons:
- Cost per page is higher than laser or megatank printers
- Who needs fax features these days?
The HP OfficeJet Pro 9125e is the master of all trades: It can print, scan and copy, all in a package that won’t take up too much desk space. It excels at all these features, producing sharp, clean prints with both black and color ink at about 18 pages per minute. That isn’t quite as fast as our laser pick, but it is fast enough for a last-minute term paper. The scanner works at resolutions of up to 1200 dots per inch (dpi), which is great for scanning complicated figures out of text books or other reference materials. It also copies as fast as it prints, so you can quickly take a copy of someone’s lecture notes without messing with their schedule. It also supports printing from Apple or Android mobile devices, or printing straight from USB devices.
I tested the HP OfficeJet 9125e for our roundup of the best home printers, and I was impressed with pretty much everything about it, from the clean, simple on-device interface to the excellent HP Smart software that allows you to print remotely from a PC, Mac or portable device. The only feature I wasn’t keen on was the quality of photo prints: Even on thicker photo paper, they looked dull and muddy compared to a dedicated photo printer.
Best Budget Laser Printer For Students
A Cheap, Fast Laser Printer
Brother HL-L2460DW
Type: Laser |Features: Print | Wireless: Yes | Size:14.2 x 14 x 7.2 inches | Color print: No |Tray capacity: 250 sheets | Ink:1 Toner (black)
Pros:
- Low initial cost and low running cost
- Simple to use
Cons:
- Only prints black
- No scanning or copying
The Brother HL-2460DW is a cheap laser printer, but it offers a surprising range of features for the price. For $160 you get a simple laser printer with great performance, outputting 36 pages per minute once it gets going. It’s far from perfect, though, because the interface on the printer itself is a single-line calculator-style LCD that is pretty much impossible to navigate. Fortunately, you can set up and control the printer using the Brother Mobile Connect print app, which is far superior. This is just a printer—no scanning, copying or other features here. The only thing to watch out for is the cost per page: Once you replace the included toner cartridge, you’ll be paying $85 for a new one, which works out to about 2.8 cents a page.
I tested the Brother HL-2460DW for our best laser printers article, and I found that it offers a lot for the price. The print quality is good, and it prints at a very decent speed of 36 pages per minute—much faster than the inkjet models. Setting up the printer on its own is a pain, though (think 1970s-era calculator LCD displays), but you can do most of that through the app.
Best Supertank Printer For Students
Very Low Cost Per Page
Epson EcoTank ET-2850
Type: Inkjet |Features: Print, scan, copy | Wireless: Yes | Size:14.8 x 22.3 x 10.2 inches | Color print: Yes |Tray capacity: 100 sheets | Ink:Tank (reservoirs for black, cyan, magenta and yellow)
Pros:
- Low initial cost
- Low ink refill cost
Cons:
- Photo prints lack vibrancy
Supertank printers, also known as “Ecotank” or “tank” printers, replace the usual ink cartridge with a refillable tank, with ink refills coming in bottles, pouches or other similar recyclable containers. This makes things cheaper, and these printers keep the cost per page low. Our top pick for the cost-conscious student is the Epson EcoTank ET-2850, which comes with enough ink to last most users for a year or two. Epson claims the included ink bottles are enough for about 7,500 black pages and 6,000 color prints. Refills are cheap when that does run out, with the Epson color ink costing $45 and the black only $20. Third-party inks are even cheaper.
The ET-2850 also includes a scanner and copier, making it a great option for the dorm room or study desk. It can also print two-sided documents, but it lacks an auto-sheet feeder, so if you want to scan multiple pages, you will need to put them on the scanner bed one by one.
Best Photo Printer For Students
A Flexible Printer For Arts & Graphics Students
Canon ImageProGraf PRO-300
Type: Inkjet |Features: Print | Size: 15 x 25.2 x 7.9 inches | Color print:Yes |Paper trays: 1| Ink:10 cartridges: Matte Black, Black, Gray, Cyan, Photo Cyan, Red, Magenta, Photo Magenta, Yellow, Chroma Optimizer
Pros:
- Excellent photo quality
- Borderless prints up to 13 by 39 inches
- Matte Black ink produces deeper, more vivid blacks
Cons:
- Slower to print
- Expensive to run
Students of photography, graphic arts and similar have specific needs: They need to be able to print photos and other graphics-heavy documents. Our top pick for these artists is the Canon ImageProGraf Pro-300, a dedicated photo printer that can produce stunning borderless images, and can do it at up to supertabloid size.
While most printers use four colors (cyan, magenta, yellow and black), the Pro-300 uses a total of ten Lucia Pro pigment ink cartridges, including two black inks and light and dark shades of the primary colors. This means it can produce a wider range of colors and more subtle color changes, creating a more realistic, natural feel. On top of this, a chroma enhancer ink can be added, which smooths out the surface of the photo paper to void any bumps caused by the paper swelling when ink is absorbed.
The downsides? Speed and cost. This is a slow printer, with a postcard-size print taking over two minutes. The PRO-300 costs about $900, and a complete set of the ten ink cartridges will set you back$122. That doesn’t sound too bad until you realize that each cartridge only has enough ink for between 10 and 15 8-by-10-inch prints, so you will need a lot of cartridges to mount your next exhibition.
Best Portable Printer For Students
Our Pick For Students On The Go
Canon Pixma TR150
Type: Inkjet |Features: Print | Wireless: Yes | Size:12.7 x 7.3 x 2.6 inches | Color print: Yes |Tray capacity: 50 sheets | Ink:2 cartridges (black, color)
Pros:
- Prints color on paper up to 8.5 by 11 inches
- Portable, optional battery
Cons:
- Slower to print
- More expensive per page
If you want to be able to print things out when you are learning on the go, the Canon Pixma TR150 is our pick for the best portable printer. It can print full color at sizes up to 8.5 by 11 inches and includes both Wi-Fi and USB connections and support for printing from Apple and Android portable devices. Add in the$99 LK-72 batteryand print up to 330 pages away from any power source. It isn’t the fastest printer—taking about a minute to print a page—or the cheapest, with the$20 ink cartridge managing about 100 pages, for about 20 cents a page. But if your studies take you out and about, it’s an excellent pick for printing notes in a literal field.
MORE FROMFORBES VETTED
Why Trust Forbes Vetted
The Forbes Vetted team has years of experience reviewing and writing about the latest and greatest in all things tech and electronics. This includes hand-on testing and thorough research on the best printers for your home, from lasers to photo and 3D printers.
- The author of this story, Richard Baguley, is a technology expert who has been writing about home electronics for over three decades. He is a wearables and smart home expert with bylines at CNET, Wired, Tom’s Guide and more. He has tested more printers, scanners and digital cameras than you have had hot dinners.
- Rebecca Isaacs is the consumer tech editor at Forbes Vetted. She oversees this article and approved all of the recommendations.
- We stay on top of new releases and product launches through relationships with some of the biggest tech brands and industry experts. Since the tech world moves fast, this story is revisited frequently to ensure it’s as current and accurate as possible. It was first published in September 2024.
How We Chose The Best Printers For Students
To find the best printers for students, we considered all of the printers available from the major manufacturers, evaluated their features, and consulted online reviews.
- Baguley and the Forbes Vetted tech team bring impressive expertise to the table, along with previous printer-testing experience.
- Each printer we considered was evaluated based on its value, features, speed and design.
- We included models for students with various needs and printers for every budget.
- We consulted published reviews by experts as well as real consumers like you. We only included models with overwhelmingly positive reviews.
How To Choose The Best Printers for Students
Picking the best printer to aid you in your studies comes down to three factors: features, cost and flexibility.
Features
Before choosing a printer, consider what features you might need. Do you need a scanner to keep copies of reference materials or your notes? Most scanner-equipped printers can also copy documents, which is useful if you want to grab a copy of another students notes for a lecture you missed. Will you need to print quickly or produce a large volume of pages? Will the ability to print photographs be useful? Considering your specific needs will help narrow down the best options for you.
Cost
The cost of a printer is about more than just the up-front cost: Consider the cost to use the printer. This is measured in cost per page (cpp), which reflects the cost of the ink or toner used on a typical page divided by the yield, the number of pages that the consumable will last for.
Flexibility
Most students will only need a printer that can output black text onto letter-sized pages: That’s all you need for essays or notes. Some students might need more flexibility, such as the ability to print in color, or to print to larger paper sizes. Art students may also need a printer that can print to glossy photo paper or to very large sizes of paper, such as tabloid-size, for posters or other artwork. Additionally, consider where the machine will live and if portability is important to you.
Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)
Which Printer Is Most Suitable For A Student?
Our top pick for students isthe HP OfficeJet9125e, a very flexible all-in-one printer that prints in black and white and color, scans and copies. We chose it because of the combination of low cost, flexibility and great print quality. It isn’t the fastest or the best printer in our tests, though:The Brother HL-2460DW is more rapid at about 36 pages per minute, andthe Canon ImageProGraf Pro-300 produces much higher-quality photo prints. But those printers lack the flexibility of the OfficeJet, which is affordable and good enough for many tasks for most users.
Is Buying A Printer Worth It For Students?
Most students will have access to printers through the place they learn, from printers on dorm room floors to larger printers in libraries that can print, collate and even bind things. So, if you can access these, why would the modern student need their own printer?
One word: availability. All of the resources that a school or college offer have to be shared with the other students, who probably have the same deadlines that you do. That means you could be waiting in a print queue for hours during busy times.
Plus, these printers can be tied up by malice, mischief or good old-fashioned muddle-headedness. Printers can crash from corrupted files or get jammed when a print goes wrong, which could require a technician to fix.
So, buying a cheap printer as a backup when you are a student is a sound plan: Even if the library printers fail or go offline, you can still print and submit your coursework. And it beats knocking on dorm doors at two minutes before midnight because the library printer is down and you need to submit your term-end coursework.
What Type Of Printer Is Most Cost Effective?
If you are printing a lot, don’t forget the cost per page: how much each page of print costs you. The most cost-effective printers are laser printers that use cheap toner, likethe Epson EcoTank range, which costs less than half a cent per page. The cost is lower because they sell the toner in cheap, recyclable bottles rather than complicated cartridges that hold only a small amount of toner.
Richard Baguley
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