Printers: How to buy the best printer How to buy the best printer for your home office

Built in Wi-Fi is useful if you want to print from several different computers

Wireless printer

Many printers come with built-in wi-fi - wireless printers. A wireless printer enables you to share your printer between more than one computer – which is great if you often use a laptop but still have a desktop PC as your main computer.

e-printers

These are the next step on from wireless printers. Eprinters like HP's e-all-in-one range have their own email address, so you can email prints to the printer.

This is handy if you're using a different laptop or want to quickly print something from your smartphone . You can print via email rather than spending time trying to network the device to the printer. Check out our eprinters video for more information.

Ethernet vs USB

Ethernet connections are available on some inkjet all-in-ones and standard printers, as well as most mid to high-end laser printers.

Ethernet is preferred over USB as a network connection because with ethernet you don't have to have the host computer switched on to use the printer, so it's easier to share the printer (you'll also need to have a router for this). If you're only hooking up one computer to the printer, USB is fine.

Scanning and PDFs

All-in-one printers including a scan function let you scan documents and automatically turn them into PDF files. This can be useful if you want to email clients invoices or other documents you don’t want edited.

Auto-document feeder

An auto-document feeder (ADF) is useful for photocopying or faxing long documents.

Place your documents into the feeder, which is normally found on the top of the printer, and it will automatically feed the paper through the machine without you supervising it.

A fax can be a useful addition to a home office

Fax from your printer

Faxing is less popular nowadays, as most people email documents. However, if you need a fax, a few all-in-one printers we’ve tested still have one.

There’s little difference between the models we’ve tested when it come to fax performance, but features to keep an eye out for include the ability to store incoming faxes in the printer’s memory if you run out of paper, and an address book that can store your favourite numbers.

If a fax is essential for your home office, use our compare products tool in the full Which? printer review to find the models that would be suitable for you.

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