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We may live in a largely digital world, but it’s wise to keep a printer in your home. You never know when you’ll have to print out a concert ticket, boarding pass, a copy of your resume, or keep a hard copy of an important document you can access offline.
If you’re a student, having a printer in your dorm room will save you the hassle of waiting in the computer lab with everyone else who finished their 10-page term paper. Trust me, this is a life saver.
For years you had to keep your printer plugged into your computer via a USB cable for it to work, but printers have caught up to the rest of the tech industry and gone wireless. Wireless printers can connect to your home WiFi network, and allow you to print (or copy, or scan) from a computer, tablet, or phone without having to plug them in. There’s no software to install, and you don’t need a special type of wireless router to connect it to the internet.
Wireless printers were designed to work with Macs, PCs, iOS, and Android devices out of the box. Some may have apps to access more advanced features like photo tweaking when you make a scan, but you’ll be able to do the basics the moment the printer is connected.
To connect your printer to the internet, you’ll need to access a Wireless Networking setting on the printer’s touch screen. If you have a long password, this will be a little tedious, but you only have to do it once.
After it’s connected, you’re good to go. Another benefit to connecting a wireless printer to your WiFi network is that the company will send it firmware updates, which may introduce new features, or import effects to boost its performance.
What You Need to Know Before Buying a Wireless Printer
There are many factors to think about when choosing the right wireless printer for you; below are the most important ones, which we considered while we were researching this list.
Pages Per Minute:If you’re printinga lot,you’ll want a printer with a high PPM (pages per minute) count. The ones on this list are all over 10, which means they can print one page every six seconds. That should be good enough for general home use — printing letters, essays, or fliers — unless you’re in charge of a small club or organization that needs to get the word out a lot.
Double-sided printing:If you’re eco-friendly, you’ll want a wireless printer that can print on both sides of the page. It won’t save you any ink, but you won’t run out of printer paper as frequently.
All In One:The printers in our guide are “all-in-one” models that can print, scan, copy, and in some cases fax documents without plugging them into a device. It’s nice to have the option to do each of those things in a pinch.
