Types of Printers- major features of printers including copy, fax, and Colour features

A printer can be described as an output device which is capable of producing texts and graphics on a piece of plain sheet of paper. All the printers in the world can be classified into Impact printers and Non-impact printers. Impact printers work by producing texts and graphics when print heads strike the ink ribbons provided by simply coming in contact with the paper, non impact printers on the other hand works by producing texts and graphics on a paper without any form of striking of the paper.

The print technology on printers can also be used in classifying them. The most popular printers around include; Inkjet printers, Laser printers, Thermal printers, and dot-matrix printers. Aside dot-matrix which is a type of impact printer, all other types of printers are non-impact printers. These basic four printers are the most popular types of printers available, however there are some groups of printers which are referred to as specialty printers, these include; Photo printers, Multi-function printers { all in one printers}, and Portable printers.

Inkjet printers are the commonest types of printers found today. They belong to the non-impact group of printers, an inkjet works by spraying tiny droplets of liquid ink unto the surface of a paper; this is a simple printer that is normally found in homes. Inject printers available today make use of either the thermal inkjet, or the piezo-electric inkjet technology. A heating element is often used in a thermal inkjet printer to heat up liquid ink, which turns into vapourized bubbles and the ink droplets are forced unto the paper through the nozzle. Commercial inkjet printers are mostly made up of thermal inkjet technology. Connecting your desktop or laptop, you can easily print files by using inkjet printers.

The piezoelectric inkjet is the type of technology found mostly in industrial inkjet printers, rather than making use of heating elements for their printing, they rather make use of piezoelectric crystals in their nozzles, and these crystals will change the size and shapes of printing materials based on the electric current passing unto them. Tiny droplets of ink are forced unto the pages of papers through the nozzles.

In thermal inkjet printers, aqueous ink {a mixture of Glycol, water and dyes}, are used, they are inexpensive types of inks and can be used on any paper or coated materials. On the other hand, piezo-electric inkjets make use of a wide range of inks including dye sublimation inks, and UV curable inks. Piezo electric inkjets have an advantage of being able to print on a wide range of uncoated materials. Most inkjets are designed for simple home use, however there are some which has been upgraded and designed for much greater industrial tasks. Advertising graphics and technical drawings as a matter of fact are don with industrial inject printers

There are numerous pros and cons to the use of inkjet printers; they are cheap, but are capable of producing fine and smooth details { high quality outputs}, inkjets are easy to use and are reasonably fast, they are ideal for printing in vivid colour, and good quality pictures. Inkjets does not need a warm up time, and they do not make noise like dot matrix printers.

Looking at the bad side of inkjets, one can say that one of the most visible problems here is that of the clogging and damage to the print-head, this makes the print head less durable. The ink cartridges are much more expensive to replace, and generally speaking, the inkjet is not ideal for high volume of printing. In some printing expenditures, the ink in inkjet may be carried sideways causing blurred effects on some papers {this is referred to as ink bleeding}. The aqueous inks used in this form of printer are sensitive to water as a small drop of water in them may result in blurred images on the paper. Inkjets are very cheap {you can get one for as low as 100$ but replacement cartridges are more expensive}.

Laser printers have come to be a good replacement for inkjet printers, they print at higher speeds, they operate with high quality resolutions of between 600 to 1,200 dpi and unlike inkjets, and laser printers make use of toner which is made up of black or coloured powder. The major components of laser printers are; the drum cartridge, rotating mirror, and toner cartridge. The function of the drum cartridge is to rotate the paper as it is fed through, and the mirror deflects the laser beam across the drum, the toners will stick to the drum through the charges created by the laser beam, and the toner is transferred from drum to paper, creating images. There are some coloured laser printers that add colour toners to the pictures printed here.

In terms of colour qualities, Laser printers produce better colour qualities than inkjets. Some other advantages of Laser printers include; High resolution and print speeds, printouts or outputs here are no sensitive to water, high volumes of printing jobs can be performed, there are no smearing found here and the cost of printing per page is smaller compared to what obtains in inkjets.

There are some disadvantages here too, one of them is the fact that laser printers are much more expensive than inkjets, and jus as inkjets, the cost of toner and drum replacements are very high. Looking at the size of the laser printers, one can vividly see that is occupies more space than inkjets, thus it is bulkier in size. Unlike inkjets, a warm up time is needed in the operations of a laser printer {this is a feature that many do not like}.

Aside for the high end machines, you should not expect much output from the laser printers as they print less vivid colours and high quality images such as photos.

The laser or ink-jet all in one has been designed to include other features such as fax and scan. These are multi-functional printers which contain integrated fax modem, and scan software like Windows 7. With the dedicated fax machine included in these multi-functioning printers, you can receive or send fax messages, and they can also help you print good qualities from a camera. The qualities of colours here are much better and vivid that those found in individual inkjet or laser printer.