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Oliver’s expertise in computing, printing and tech helps you get the most for your money
In this article
No one tests printers more comprehensively than us. We've reviewed around 150 printers from all the major brands: Brother, Canon, Epson and HP. Our testing experience reveals ink and toner running costs are vitally important when it comes to owning a printer and we don't shy away from calling out models that cost a fortune to run.
Most of our competitors merely test a handful of models, and rely on getting printers free of charge directly from manufacturers or their PR representatives. They also typically use an individual tester who will be biased to their own preferences.
But Which? is different. We buy every single printer we test. And we use a team of professional testers at our dedicated testing lab, with our test scores based purely on their independent measurements and ratings. This means there's no room for unconscious bias when we give an overall rating to a printer.
You can trust our results and compare any printer we test directly against other models – and know exactly which produces the very highest print quality without costing an arm and a leg in running costs.
Nobody goes to the lengths we do to uncover the best home printers.
We’re not influenced by third parties and we don't accept freebies from product manufacturers or retailers. As a not-for-profit organisation, we have no owners, shareholders or government departments to answer to, so we work entirely on behalf of you, the consumer – nobody else.
Read our full statement of editorial independence.
Some printers can be stronger at certain types of printing than others, so our tests cover all the bases.
From printing letters to spreadsheets and webpages with images, as well as office-style graphics with charts and graphs, plus desktop publishing and photos.
Our lab technicians assess and rate prints for colour accuracy, sharpness and overall print quality. We even check whether prints will smudge under a highlighter pen or smear if they rub up against something in your bag.
Testing printers year in year out, our lab experts are dab hands at spotting exactly the areas where a substandard printer will fall flat. Such as giving people unnatural skin tones that make them look ill or ruining the clarity of your graphs as it struggles with the shading.
Others can have such low precision that if you try to fit a spreadsheet on an A4 page, it comes out a garbled mess. A great printer will produce consistent results you can rely on, whatever you need to print.
Beware the common mistake when buying a printer: choose the wrong model, and ink or toner costs can be extortionate. With some models, even a single replacement set of ink cartridges can cost more than the printer itself.
We've even tested printers that cost more than £250 in ink a year – and that's printing only 20 text and 10 colour graphics pages a month, let alone photos.
Without our test results, it's impossible to know the true cost of running a printer, even if you check how costly the ink or toner is. That's because some printers are more wasteful with ink and toner than others.
For example, it's very common inkjets use more ink in their essential automatic cleaning cycles (these prevent the print head drying out) than you actually use with printing. Our tests regularly expose printers using more ink in their cleaning cycles than in printing, based on printing 30 pages a month. For the worst, 6ml of ink are wasted for every 1ml used in printing.
Our tests show some printers cost £250 a year to print 30 sheets a month. Others cost just £1 a year to print the same.
Our unique occasional printing test replicates ordinary printer use, and takes weeks to run. It captures the true cost of any ink used for automatic cleaning, so you’ll know which printers will genuinely be the cheapest to print with at home.
This occasional print test switches the printer off between uses – which, thanks to our in-depth consumer research, we know lots of people do. We've found that many printers run this cleaning cycle immediately after being switched on.
This can heavily rack up costs for ink cartridge printer owners:
All inkjet printers run cleaning cycles which use ink. Cartridges contain little ink: our tests show it's common more than half the ink is wasted in cleaning cycles.
By weighing ink cartridges before and after our printing tests, we can work out the amount of ink used for printing and lost on cleaning.
Some printers cost more than £250 in ink a year for typical printing. Our tests expose models wasting more than half your ink in automatic cleaning cycles.
We know the typical printer lasts around 10 years. So if you buy the wrong model, you could spend £2,500 on ink over your printer's lifetime (20 pages of text and 10 colour graphics pages a month). If you buy a model after checking out printer reviews, you could spend around £1 a year on ink instead.
Helping consumers set up their printers is one of the mainstays of our Which? Tech Support team – getting a printer set up correctly can feel like a dark art, and a poorly-designed printer will make it much worse.
Being able to print easily from a phone or tablet is the number one priority for UK consumers in our regular survey. So we test how well printers will work with your devices, including any dedicated printing apps they offer.
From connecting to your home network and printing from laptops, tablets and phones, to clearing the occasional paper jam, we assess how easy printers are to live with on a day-to-day basis.
We check whether printers can automatically print double-sided to the same standard as single-sided prints, without changing the format of your documents. And to avoid the frustration of being left with half of a printed report when a cartridge runs out, we check whether you can still print using the other cartridges while you wait for a replacement.
A poor printer can take hours to set up correctly. And when you do eventually get there, you'll find setting up basic printing - whether via the app, printer driver or physical controls on the printer itself - far more convoluted than they should be.
With an easy-to-use printer, you'll be done in just a few, stress-free taps of the finger.
Our friendly team can help you fix tech issues, stay safe online, and get more from your devices. Get 12 months of tech support and buying advice for only £24.50. We’ll help you take control of your tech.
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We extensively assess the scan and copy functions of a printer. Our tests show that scanning will produce different quality prints from copying on almost all home printers. We've found the differences can be vast, with printers having different software for the scan and copy functions.
We check every single type of document you might want to scan, from letters to magazine pages and photos (including via the Automatic Document Feeder, if it has one). We repeat the entire process again for the copier, so no stone is left unturned.
We also check they don’t chop off any part of the original. Plus time how long different types of page take to scan and copy - from black text to photos.
In the best models, the scan will be effectively indistinguishable from the original. The worst scanners and copiers will have incorrect colours and lose so much detail they look like a low-resolution version.
Some will also be so slow to operate you'll have forgotten to remove the document from the Automatic Document Feeder by the time it completes – we've found some take more than a minute and a half to scan a single magazine page.
A sluggish inkjet may produce wonderful photos, but nobody wants to plan their schedule around their printer.
Some printers can be three or four times faster than others, and that time can really add up for printing longer documents. Our testing shows a printer doesn't need to be slow to produce top-quality prints.
Our consumer surveys also reveal printers tend to slow down over time, due to software updates.
And since our research shows most keep people keep their printer for 10 years or more, buying a printer that's lathargic at launch can become a serious problem in the long run.
Our tests have uncovered printers that take well over ten minutes to produce a single A4 photo.
To make sure you don't end up with buyer's regret, we time the print speed of different types of documents and how long a printer takes to turn out the first page after you switch it on.
Our tests show a slow printer can take more than two minutes to turn on – let alone actually print anything.
Our tests have uncovered printers that take well over ten minutes to produce even a single A4 photo, while the best inkjets need barely a minute and don’t compromise on quality.
If you're looking for pure speed, one of our best laser printers can take be as little as 10 seconds.
See our expert pick of the best cheap printers to buy and run. Plus we reveal the best cheap printer ink cartridges
Jacob Compton, Which? scientific advisor, says:
'There's no doubt high print quality is essential for a great printer, but our regular surveys of the UK population and Which? members tell us ink and toner costs are exceptionally important too.
'No matter how great a printer is, if it's costing you hundreds of pounds in ink a year then it's not worth buying.
'This is why while we don't factor the upfront cost of the printer into our product test scores. Instead, we include printer ink or toner running costs as these are what really matter when you own a printer.
'We've discovered models with a higher price tag that basically pay for themselves in rock-bottom running costs, compared to cheaper models that will cost you hundreds of pounds a year to run.
'This is why our printers lab conducts one of the most extensive tests we perform at Which?. Our technicians assess the print quality, plus weigh the ink or toner cartridges to analyse how wasteful the printer is.
'On top of all this, we also conduct a separate test of third-party ink brands to help you choose a good quality ink that will help you save money. Discover which brands we recommend in our best ink cartridges guide.'
The Which? overall test score is a percentage. This score only takes into account the results of our tests – not any manufacturer claims. This means that all printers are tested exactly the same way on the same scale, so you can compare any printer at any price, and know how it measures up against its rivals in key areas.
Here's how we weight our printer scores, regardless of the type of printer:
Printers reviewed before October 2024 are on our previous test programme. This means that the score and star ratings for these printers aren't directly comparable to those given to newer models, although we’re happy to still recommend them as good products. If comparing test results to newer models, disregard minor differences (three versus four stars, for example).
For these, this is how we've weighted their scores:
To make sure our printer reviews are 100% independent, we never accept free product samples from manufacturers or brands. Instead, we invest nearly £15,000 every year buying printers directly from major retailers.
We test several dozen new printers a year. If any consumer printer is available at a big UK retailer, we'll be aiming to test it.
We also test models aimed at a range of budgets – not only the ones with the fanciest features. So whether you're after a £50 printer for occasional use or a £400+ workhorse for cutting-edge performance in your home office, we've got you covered.
Joe Healy, Which? market analyst, says:
'We aim for a near-complete coverage of consumer printers available at the big UK retailers, including all inkjet and laser models from the big printer brands Brother, Canon, Epson and HP.
'We even cover some more business-oriented laser brands like Kyocera and Xerox too, when we think the models might also appeal to general consumers.
'Our target is that if you see a printer at major retailers like Amazon, AO, Currys, John Lewis or Very, we'll have tested and reviewed it.
'That doesn't just include the flagship models printer brands want to promote – I track all new printer launches, market trends, consumer search habits and sales data, so our printer reviews and printers advice are the most comprehensive in the UK.'
Our recommendations help you easily narrow down a shortlist so you can choose the best model for you. Make sure you still check our full expert reviews for the full picture, so you can ensure that a printer is exactly right for your specific needs.
71% or more
Best Buys are given to printers that impress us the most in our tests. A printer that scores 71% or more is a Best Buy and comes with a firm overall recommendation from us – although you should still read our printer reviews to check for any factors that might impact your buying decision.
They are the best at turning out high-quality prints and won’t cost you a small fortune on ink or toner. So, over time, your money will go further with a Best Buy printer.
60% or more
How much buyers are willing to spend on a printer varies, so that’s where our Great Value recommendation comes in.
They're also at least 20% cheaper than the average price for that type of product in our tests. Great Value models are the ones to go for if you’re looking for a bargain.
To earn our Great Value badge, a printer must:
This means our Great Value printers are a balance of low upfront cost and moderate running costs. If you print a lot, you may find you can save more choosing a printer that's more expensive upfront but has very low running costs (such as a tank printer). If that's the case for you, do also consider our Best Buy printers, as some models could save you more in the long run.
We also do not recommend HP cartridge inkjet or HP cartridge laser printers as Great Value, since HP uses technology it calls dynamic security to block third-party ink cartridges without original HP circuitry. Original cartridges typically cost more than third-party cartridges, which limits how cheaply you can run these HP printers.
60% or more
If you want to make the most sustainable choice when next buying a printer, an Eco Buy is for you. Eco Buy printers will have a lower impact on the environment over their lifetimes than other printers.
We calculate the impact in three ways: how energy efficient it is, how little ink or toner it uses, and if it can auto-duplex. To become an Eco Buy, a printer must:
Only between 5% and 10% of the printers we test are sustainable enough to be Which? Eco Buys.
45% or less
Printers that score 45% or less are Don’t Buys and should be avoided.
Don't Buy printers aren't worth your money. They're a pain to set up and are often let down by fiddly controls, low-quality prints, grainy copies and high running costs.
Discover which models impressed in our lab - go to our expert printer reviews and use the Best Buy, Great Value and Eco Buy filters to find the right model for you.
Which? runs an annual printer ink survey, where respondents tell us about their experiences with the printer ink they use. The highest-rated inks are then shortlisted to undergo a lab spot check, where we buy the inks for select printers to verify their quality under testing conditions.
The brands that perform well at our lab test are made Which? Recommended Providers. See which these are in our guide to the best cheap printer ink.
Printer ink can be very expensive, and third-party ink isn't always significantly cheaper than original ink. That's where our Great Value provider recommendation comes in. This tells you which printer ink providers offer quality at the most competitive price.
The inks rated highest by actual printer owners in our annual survey are shortlisted to undergo a pricing analysis. We then assess the price of the inks at the time of checking for the most popular printer reviews on which.co.uk. The brands that consistently offer the cheapest inks for these printers are candidates to become a Which? Great Value provider for their inks.
Running our test projects is a group effort, with several people from across the team involved to make our printers test happen.
Our tests also aren't stuck in the past: we comprehensively review our testing processes every single year to be certain it's as useful as it can be, plus regularly ask the Which? community and wider UK population to give us their latest insight on what matters most to consumers when buying and using their printers.
Find out more about the team that delivers our printers test:
Our comprehensive testing ensures you get a printer that doesn't catch you out – see our printer reviews to find your perfect model.