Consumer Reviews -- Best Wireless Multifunction Printer

Long gone are those days when our offices were cluttered with a gazillion devices – a printer for our printing needs, a scanner to scan documents, a copier machine to copy and that ubiquitous fax machine. Over the last few years we have seen the rise of multifunction printers. Also known as the all-in-one printer, these devices are schizophrenic in nature, carrying out the roles of a fully functional printer, a scanner, a copier and a fax machine when required. They go a long way in removing the clutter from your offices and saving a lot of space; plus, though they cost more than a stand alone printer, the cost finally works out economically when compared to the prices of the individual devices that they replace.

Let us take a look at three of the best multifunction printers in the market today, compare them with each other and find out which is the best of them all.

This is one of the best multifunction printers out there today. It has really impressive specs, printing 35 pages per minute of black and 34 pages per minute of color, can bring out excellent scans with up to 2400 x 4800 dpi in color which can then be directly stored to a folder on the network. It also supports conversion of scanned documents to various other formats such as PDFs, Word, Excel and so on. This one has built in networking and makes wireless networking a breeze to setup. As far as faxing goes, up to 100 faxes can be stored, junk faxes can be blocked and faxes can be stored in memory during power outages. It also features automatic duplexing, has a 50 sheet automatic document feeder and can print borderless photos directly from memory cards and other compatible sources. The L7780 has a monthly duty cycle of up to 7500 pages and at around $350, is a feature-packed all rounder at its price.

This next offering from HP also delivers on all fronts. It supports up to 34 pages per minute of black and 33 pages per minute of color printing. It supports high quality borderless photo printing directly from memory cards and also is equipped with automatic duplexing. Of course, it has full featured scanning, copying and faxing. It also has built in wireless and Ethernet. The C7280 has a maximum duty cycle of 3000 pages, and the only gripe we could find with it is its paper tray’s limited capacity of 100 sheets of paper, which ideally could have been higher. At $220, this is certainly of the better buys out there.

This all-in-one printing solution from Lexmark is a worthy opponent to its two competitors from Hewlett Packard. It prints black at 32 pages per minute and delivers 27 pages per minute of color printouts. It also supports direct photo printing from memory cards, has inbuilt Ethernet and WiFi networking and supports automatic duplexing. The X9350 is equipped with a 50 page automatic document feeder and had a maximum duty cycle of 5000 pages per month. It also supports full featured scanning, faxing and copying. The only downside of this printer is its print quality, which is not terrible, but certainly could have been better. It retails at around $250.

The bottom-line is, the Lexmark X9350 and the fellow HP printer, C7280 offer stiff competition, but the HP Officejet Pro L7780 All-in-One Printer is the clear winner, being an excellent performer and packed to the brim with features at a competitive price.

http://www.lexmark.com

http://www.shopping.hp.com

http://reviews.pricegrabber.com/printers/m/48576118/