Readers' Choice Awards 2022: Printers

As computing becomes more than mobile and screen size and resolution increases, it may not be equally of import or fifty-fifty as practical to impress as many documents and photos as we have in the past. Even so, there's still often no good replacement for the convenience and readability of paper documents and printed images.

In this calendar month'south PCMag Readers' Option Awards survey, nosotros asked you lot to charge per unit the printers that you use most oftentimes on a diverseness of satisfaction-related criteria.

For the well-nigh office, you have three major press technologies to cull from: inkjet, monochrome laser, and color laser. Inkjet printers tend to exist the best solution in a domicile and pocket-sized role because of their relatively low cost and the ability to impress text-based documents and photographs. More than two-thirds of the printers reported on in this survey are inkjets.

Monochrome light amplification by stimulated emission of radiation printers are a good choice for inexpensive, high-book document press if you lot don't demand color. Twenty percent of the printers rated were mono lasers. 1 in x were color lasers, which take speed and convenience like to mono lasers, merely with the added do good of being able to print colour graphics, text, and photos—albeit at a higher cost for the printer and printed page.

RC17-Printers- Types Rated

Of course, calling all of the rated products "printers" is something of a misnomer. More than three-quarters of the rated products are all-in-one devices with built-in scanners for scanning and copying. Some all-in-ones can also be used for faxing because, yes, apparently that's still a thing.

Respondents told us that most of their printers (69 percent) were shared on a network allowing any networked computer and, in many cases, any smartphone or tablet, to impress. 60-two per centum of the networked printers were shared using the printer's congenital-in Wi-Fi, while 23 percent used the printer's wired Ethernet connection. Even if your printer doesn't have networking congenital-in, you tin can withal use the printer sharing congenital into your OS or your router; 10 and 5 percent of respondents with networked printers chose this choice, respectively.

To improve empathize the different options in press, read PCMag's roundup of All-time Printers. To best understand which brands of printers are consistently delivering the virtually satisfying experience to their customers, read on.

The PCMag Readers' Choice survey for Printers was in the field from June 26, 2022 through July 17, 2022. For more information on how the survey is conducted, read the survey methodology.

Each person who completed the survey was entered into a drawing to win an Amazon.com souvenir carte du jour valued at $350.

You tin win! Sign up for the Readers' Choice Survey mailing list to receive invitations for hereafter sweepstakes.

Looking for expert opinion? Read The Best Inkjet Printers of 2022 and The Best Laser Printers of 2022.

LINK from WINNERS Page

Reader's Option Printers

Once once more, as it has done every year since 2022, Blood brother wins the PCMag Readers' Selection Award. Information technology'south had a good decade.

The company'southward formula is very straightforward, though evidently not so easily replicated by its competition: brand easy to fix, reliable printers that produce excellent output and don't cost a lot to operate. This yr, many of Brother'southward satisfaction ratings got even better—if only slightly—from the year before.

Brother received an overall satisfaction rating of eight.six on our scale from 0 (extremely dissatisfied) to 10 (extremely satisfied). Only Xerox equaled that score, just neither Xerox nor any other company were well-nigh every bit likely to be recommended by users as Brother. Likelihood to recommend is a very important measure out of customer satisfaction and Blood brother's rating of eight.7 was one-half a point better than the three closest competitors: Xerox, HP, and Catechism.

RC17-Printers- Overall

Blood brother likewise had the highest rating for ease of setup (8.8) and reliability (8.ix); only Samsung had a smaller percentage of printers needing repair in the last 12 months. Two percent of Samsung printers needed repairs compared to 3 percent of Brother printers. Canon also had only 3 percent needing repairs. At the opposite stop of the spectrum, 12 per centum of Xerox printers needed repairs— although that'south a distinct improvement from last year'southward 18 percent.

Respondents are rarely happy with the price of their printers' consumables (ink and toner), but Brother customers are more satisfied than customers of other brands, rating satisfaction with the company's consumables at half-dozen.four. No one else rated above 6.0. Canon fell below 5.0 this year to 4.seven. On the other hand, Catechism rated best for quality of photos printed using the company's own consumables (8.4).

Virtually a quarter of respondents turn to tertiary-party consumables to salve money. Brother also rated best in satisfaction with the cost of tertiary-party consumables (eight.3). With most brands and printer categories, less than half of respondents employ third-party consumables, so nosotros were surprised to run across that 62 percent of respondents with Canon monochrome light amplification by stimulated emission of radiation printers and all-in-ones don't apply the company's toners.

Blood brother had the highest satisfaction with the quality of output for everyday documents printed using the visitor'due south ain consumables (9.1) and third-political party consumables (8.vii). Samsung also rated 9.1 for satisfaction with press using its own consumables.

Catechism'southward technical support continues to generate the highest satisfaction marks, this year receiving a vi.9, down slightly from a 7.1 in 2022. Brother was correct behind this year, rating 6.8. Epson's support satisfaction ratings jumped up from an manufacture low of v.6 terminal twelvemonth to 6.half dozen. HP, on the other hand, remains under half dozen.0 with a satisfaction with technical back up rating of v.viii.

Blood brother's dominance in printer satisfaction continued into many of our category groupings. Information technology received the highest overall satisfaction rating for printers less than a year old (viii.8), home printers (8.vii), inkjet all-in-i devices (eight.4), monochrome laser printers (8.9), and mono laser all-in-ones (eight.eight). Brother and HP were the only companies to receive at least the requisite minimum responses to be included in the color laser all-in-one category and they tied in overall satisfaction (8.4)—although HP had a slightly higher likelihood of recommending rating (viii.5 to 8.iv). HP besides rated better than Brother in overall satisfaction in the colour light amplification by stimulated emission of radiation printer category (8.8 to 8.6).

A small-scale number of respondents use a photo printer as their main printer. Our survey described a photo printer as a printer primarily designed to print pictures, non text. Simply Epson and Canon had enough responses in this category. Epson rated substantially better in overall satisfaction (eight.vii to 8.2) and likelihood to recommend (8.eight to 8.3), though conspicuously the reason for the divergence was non the quality of the photo output. Both companies received fantabulous and identical ratings of 9.ane for satisfaction with the quality of photos printed on their photo printers.

Related Story See all of our survey results for printers.

WINNERS: PRINTERS

Readers' Choice 2022 Award

Brother International
Brother continues to fire on all cylinders, winning its eighth directly Readers' Option Honour for printers. Well-nigh every mode you piece information technology from overall satisfaction to satisfaction with reliability and the price of inks and toners, Brother rates the best.