From mono text documents to picture-perfect glossy photo prints, there's an desktop printing technology to suit, often with the offer of plenty of versatility under the bonnet.

Step 1: Deciding what you want

Do you just want to print documents?

For straightforward text printing, mono laser printers are now available for as little as £100 or so, typically offering print speeds of around 15 to 20ppm, reasonable running costs of about 2p per page, and wonderfully crisp, sharp output.

The only real problem with mono page printers is that pretty much all of computing nowadays is in full colour, documents included, so it's a pain to have to see everything as a black and white issue on paper. By contrast, colour laser printers are relatively expensive, big, bulky and heavy, making inkjet printers by far the most popular and versatile solution for the home and small office.

Do you want to print photos?

Some inkjet printers are much better than others for printing regular colour documents, such as those in Epson's DuraBrite range. However, with the advent of digital photography, most of us want to print photos as well and, for inkjet printers, this is a much more movable feast.

To get good levels of contrast, tonal range and colour space (the spectrum of colours that a printer can generate), six inks or more are usually necessary, typically adding light cyan and light magenta to the conventional CMYK colour mix. Top level photo printers often go a step further, with eight or even nine inks in their arsenal to enable an even wider colour space.

For photo printing, it's also worth checking that the printer can produce borderless photo prints in popular sizes, include 6x4 and 7x5-inch, as well as full A4. Another consideration is print longevity, with Canon historically lagging behind the performance of most Epson and HP inkjet-generated prints, although the fade-resistance of Canon's new ChromaLife100 inks should be considerably better.

Is direct photo printing important to you?

It's often convenient to leave computers out of the photo printing equation altogether. Most photo-minded inkjets now have a PictBridge port built in, so that you can print direct from any compatible camera.

A more elegant solution is offered by printers that also feature a built-in memory card reader, as well as a colour menu and preview screen, so that you can simply slot in the memory card from your camera and create photo prints on the fly. Some direct photo printers have the added versatility of enabling cropping, red-eye correction and other image enhancements in standalone print mode.

Dedicated six-ink photo printers are generally slow and poor in quality for mono text output, producing very greyish text. If you want a single printer that handles all your document and photo printing requirements, it's worth considering one that enables you to swap the 'photo' cartridge for a mono cartridge, changing between six-ink and four-ink printing as and when you need to. Most HP Photosmart printers excel in this respect.

Do you want a single printer that does it all?

Alternatively, Canon's novel five-ink printers, like the PIXMA iP4200 and iP5200 printers, contain both pigment-based and dye-based black inks, to give extra contrast in photo prints as well as solid, fast mono text performance.

How much should it cost to run?

Very cheap sub-£50 inkjet printers often come with a sting in the tail when it comes to running costs, with a pair of ink cartridges costing as much as the printer itself. Printers that generate a 'process black' by mixing cyan, magenta and yellow inks together, rather than having a separate black ink tank or cartridge are also notoriously expensive for mono text printing, with page costs of up to 8p per page (based on the usual five per cent ink coverage).

Printers that use separate cartridges can be cheaper to run than those that use tri-colour cartridges, but normally only if you repeatedly use large amounts of a single colour. The flip side is that, with printers that use tri-colour cartridges rather than individual ink tanks, you generally get a brand new print head with each and every cartridge you buy, making running costs and print quality more attractive in the long term.

Step 2: Seeing what's available

For less than £100, you should be able to find a great printer to suit your specific requirements, ranging from mono laser printing to direct photo printers with all the bells and whistles. Here are some of the printers that we recommend:

  • HL-2040, £95
  • PIXMA iP4200, £70
  • PIXMA iP6220D, £70
  • Stylus D88, £60
  • Deskjet 5940, £60

For more printer reviews, plus Multi-function devices and scanners, visit our Printers and Scanners reviews section in our TechTested channel.

Our advice

For £95, the Brother HL-2040 mono laser gives a brisk 20ppm output, with toner costs of just 1.4p per page. Another nice factor is that you only have to change the toner cartridge every 2,500 pages or so.

However, for high quality photo printing combined with fast mono and colour document printing, we particularly like the five-ink Canon iP4200 inkjet printing. The HP Deskjet 5940 is equally versatile for general purpose and photo printing, but requires you to swap the black cartridge for a tri-colour 'photo' cartridge for different print jobs.

The Epson D88 is most at home with document printing, with resin-based inks that are practically dry and smudgeproof, even as they hit the paper, although photo performance is a little lacklustre.

Finally, as a dedicated photo printer (though it's poor for mono text), the Canon iP6220D offers stunning quality, with the advantage of PictBridge connectivity as well as a card reader and colour menu/preview screen. Matthew Richards