Thursday, August 5, 2010

Color Wireless Printers: Advantages And Disadvantages

By Dennis Rosenberg

Color wireless printers dominate today's market, and no matter whether you have in mind a color laser printer, an inkjet printer or a photo printer, some decisions need to be made.

Printers are an important part of the office equipment of most businesses. In the not too distant past, typewriters would be used to create printed documents and typing mistakes would result in the entire document needing to be re-created from scratch. Now, errors can easily be fixed on the computer and documents simply resent to the printer. The printer hardware has developed and evolved over the past few decades. Currently, one of the most important decisions when evaluating new printers is whether to buy a wired or wireless printer. This article will describe some of the major advantages and disadvantages of each of these choices.

The color wireless printer has many things to recommend it. The biggest and most obvious advantage is that there are no wires. Wires create a large mess on desks, so having a printer that doesn't use any wires can clean things up quite a bit. Another big advantage is that they can be placed anywhere in the office or home and still be accessible by computers in other rooms or even outside. Connections are easy to establish, so they are extremely reliable. Set up is typically quite simple and easy. Speeding the process even further is the lack of wires needing to be run from the computer to the printer, which can often be the most time consuming part of installing a new printer.

There are some cons to having a color wireless printer as well. Since it runs off a wireless signal, it can be affected by all the other wireless signals out there, such as signals that come from cell phones and microwaves. The time it takes for the information to get from the computer to the printer is longer when compared to a wired printer. Another drawback is the higher price of a wireless printer compared to a wired one.

Now, considering the other choice, a wired printer also has its pros and cons. One good thing about wired printers is that they are extremely fast. In addition to the speed, the reliability of the connection is greater with a wired printer because all of the outside radio interference is eliminated. Typically, it is less expensive to buy accessories, and get service and parts for a wired printer as well. However, a wired printer isn't perfect. Connecting one printer to one computer via wires is no longer a viable choice in most modern offices. Usually more people want access to the computers. The wires that carry the signals are usually limited to about 100 feet before the signals are too weak. Also, when running a business, it costs a lot to have many wired printers all installed in the business facility, sometimes on separate floors.

Accessibility of the printers by different office staff or family members is another consideration when choosing wired or wireless printers. Even though it is possible for all users to connect to any printer, the choice of a wireless printer is sometimes a simpler one when you are trying to pick the easiest method to have everyone be able to access one or more printers.

Hopefully this article has been helpful in clarifying some of the trade offs between printer choices.

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