Second Hand Printers, Scanners & Copiers | Second Hand Electrical Appliances

An office in today's world would not be complete without printers, scanners and copiers. Before any purchase is made, it's clear that you should be aware of various factors.

Printers
Most purchasers try to strike a balance between speed, print quality and price when choosing a printer.

If we shift our focus to laser printers we find that the print quality has become so good that it's very difficult to distinguish between a page printed by an offset printing machine and that produced by a humble office laser printer! And, with increased memory and the introduction of multiple paper trays, laser printers have become faster than ever. The price of colour laser printers are also heading southward so more and more people are now being able to print in colour.

Inkjets or Lasers
If your print load consists mainly of text, that is, office letters, then a laser printer is the best bet. They produce sharp quality prints and at reasonably fast speed and, per page costs never exceed a few pence.

If your requirement is such that a lot of charts, graphs and diagrams need to be printed, you should go for colour laser printer. The cost of colour laser printers have dropped so much that you can go for it even when your requirement for colour printing is not that frequent. There is hardly any difference in the cost of printing in black-and-white on a colour printer or on a monochrome one. Further, a colour printer gives you the flexibility of printing colourful brochures and photos if and when the requirement arises.

If you have a small office and need to print an assortment of photos, texts and combinations of these, an inkjet printer is a good option, if you are prepared to compromise a little on quality and speed. You will also have to be prepared to work your way around the different quality of papers you will need to print different outputs. This at times becomes a hassle as you have to keep an inventory of different qualities all the time.

All said and done, laser printers have more options than inkjets printers. Average monochrome printers have the capacity to hold 500 pages while some of the high-end ones can hold up to 900 pages. Colour laser printers can hold up to 1200 pages. In some of the models there is an option of adding trays which increase the capacity of the printer to hold as much as 5000 sheets.

Almost all laser printers have at least 64 MB of memory and some of the latest models have the option of incorporating additional hard drives so that complex pre-processed images can be stored beforehand for speedy retrieval when necessary. A few models also have the capacity to print directly from USB flash drives.

Whichever printer type you choose, it is worth bearing in mind the cost of consumable items, such as print cartridges and/or toners. These need to be factored in to your budget when comparing different options.

Scanners
A scanner has now become an inseparable peripheral of a computer. Suppose you have taken a snapshot with a film camera and would like to send it to a friend through email. What do you do? Simple; scan the photograph, load it in your computer and mail it.

Or, you may need to edit a large mass of printed text and don't have the time to type it out in a word processor on your computer. What do you? Again, scan the text, load it in your computer and edit it.

Features to Look for in a Scanner
The most important aspect of a scanner is optical resolution. For scanning text using optical character recognition, a resolution of 300 dots per inch is enough and for scanning a photograph of size 3 inches x 5 inches or 4 inches x 6 inches, an even lower resolution, a mere 100 dpi would do. If you will be scanning larger pictures it would be advisable to choose 2400 dpi - the highest resolution widely available in the market. The higher the resolution though; the more is the requirement of hard disc space. So, go for an optimum balance between the two aspects.

The other important feature you should look into is colour depth. It is measured in bits per pixel. For normal office and domestic use, 24 bits per pixel external colour depth is sufficient.

For the majority of scanners available in the market CCD (charge-coupled device) sensor technology is used. This technology is also used in digital cameras and produces very good results. However, CIS (contact image sensor) technology is a recent innovation and available on some models. Though the picture quality is not as sharp as in CCD types, these scanners use less power and are smaller in size.

Most of the scanners come equipped with simple image editing software and some of the high-end versions also provide Adobe Photoshop with their product. Don't forget to confirm about optical recognition software before you decide on a purchase.

Copiers
Just as in the case of printers, you have to strike a balance between copying speed; crispness of copies and cost of the machine before you zero in on a copier. Similarly, you have to analyse your copying requirements into colour and black-and-white copies to choose between a colour copier and a monochrome one.

The other features of a copier which need to be looked into are duplexing, collating and finishing.

Duplexing is the capability of the printer to print both sides of a document without manual reversal of the paper.

Collating is another name for arranging copies as they come out of the copier. This is a very useful feature in the case of multiple-page copying that is done in large volumes.

Finishing is a typical add-on in modern copiers and involves automatic stapling, three-hole punching, saddle stitching and folding. These features come in very useful when a large volume of multiple copies are required very quickly.

Conclusion
A modern office cannot be imagined without a printer, a scanner and a copier. There are numerous brands and options available to a purchaser. Evaluate your current needs carefully and then choose the models which are most suitable for you.