Printer Types

1. Printer Types Laser toner cartridge • Laser – uses a big toner cartridge like a photocopier. High end on price, especially for color • Ink Jet – spits out little ink dots on the paper using little ink cartridges. Low end on price, but often high cost per page. Check price per cartridge and pages per cartridge to know cost per page and maintenance. • Thermal Transfer (wax or solid ink) – heats wax onto the paper using wax sticks. Can print on any type of paper. High end on black and white price, but reasonable on color. • Dot matrix – pounds the paper like an old typewriter; used for multiple copies in business; uses the feed paper with holes on the side. Ink jet cartridge Wax stick replacement Dot matrix ribbon

2. Printer Qualitieswhat to look for in any type of printer • Resolution – dpi (900 magazine; 2400 books) • Print Speed • Cost to Purchase • Cost to Run (monthly pages & maintenance)

3. Resolution – dpi • For a magazine, you would want at least 900 dpi; • To publish a book, you would want 2400 dpi • DPI measures the number of dots a printer can put out inside a square inch of paper: The more dots the better quality. • Pictures need great dpi, but text does not. • Less expensive printers have a lower dpi • All printer types (except dot matrix) can have high dpi • Color dpi is often lower

4. Print Speed • Print Speed measures how many pages a printer can print in a minute. (ppm) • If you will be printing 100 page documents, you will care about this. • Laser tends to be faster, but all types can be fast – look at their ppm • Color is slower

5. Cost to Purchase / Cost to print • Ink Jets tend to be less expensive than any other printer, especially if you want color. • Low end ink jets may use expensive ink cartridges yielding a high cost per page • Black and White Laser printers tend to be competitively priced with mid-range ink jets • Color laser printers tend to be competitively priced with very high end ink jets • Cost per page on laser printers tend to be lower

6. Cost to Run (monthly pages & maintenance) • Monthly pages (also called duty cycle) is the number of pages the printer can print each month without breaking. Going over this number will cause maintenance problems. • Consider how often you want to change the printing substance to help you decide on ink jet, laser or wax

7. Printer type comparison (from 2007)

8. Printers to buy • Office that produces lots of large black and white manuals. • Office that produces lots of marketing material. • For a college student to do schoolwork and to print pictures from a camera • For a college student to print spreadsheets and papers

9. Monitor qualities • Graphics card to give a boost • CRT (large, all angles, smaller screen, cheaper) / LCD (small, full screen) • Resolution – dpi • Viewable image size • Color depth or bit depth (true color is 24)

10. Uninterruptible power supply • Short time protection • Brown out protection • Not too expensive

11. Modems • Cable – usb, ethernet • DSL – usb, ethernet • Phone – serial

12. Networking equipment • Router – outside • Hub – connection inside • Some routers have hubs built in

13. Network Basics • Computers must be connected • Same Workgroup • Share disk