In this guide to the best large format printers, we take a look at printers that have been specially designed for printing large designs and graphics – such as posters and other promotional materials.
You may find that regular desktop printers just can't handle those kind of jobs, which is where our guide to the best large format printers comes in.
The best large format printers will help you with really large graphic files you need to print, which could be anything from portrait photos to posters, or technical data such as real-estate blueprints and maps for CAD or GIS.
The underlying technology for large format printers remains the same as your desktop in terms of using tiny inkjets to print the material you need, but large format printers aren't simply about scaling up the technology as much as preserving detail and making sure this remains crisp and clear, no matter how big the paper size you're working with.
However, once you start getting into ANSI F and A0 paper sizes to print, this takes you into a generally more expensive market than desktop.
So to help you out, here we'll list the best in large format printers, starting at the lower end of the budget range and building our way through to the more expensive models - with the caveat that we're focusing on large format printers for paper printing, rather than wide format printers that use vinyl for signage printing.
There are a number of budget models targeted at larger photo printing, but the Epson Expression Photo XP-15000 is definitely one of the stronger models out there and worth considering if you need to look around the cheaper range options.
As expected, the Epson brand carries weight and the company has made the effort to focus on delivering quality. Although it has a 200-sheet plain paper cassette at the back, it's probably the 50-sheet feeder up front for photo paper you'll probably be using, because this really is a photo-focused printer.
It has a wider range of ink colors for HD-quality color printing, including the new red and gray range, and can handle borderless prints of up 13" x 19" in size at an astonishing 5,760 x 1,440 dpi. While it can handle monochrome document printing, this would be probably be overkill, especially when considering the high-running costs involved in replacing the inks.
There are no card slots, which may put some people off, but this is a printer built to work wirelessly from your desktop or laptop, or even camera. For those used to working wirelessly this will definitely be a plus, as it means you don't have to juggle a collection of SD cards.
The HP DesignJet T120 is the entry-level workhorse for the Hewlett-Packard large format printer range. It can print from rolls as well as sheets of up to 24" wide in full color.
Although it does have a card reader, it's also a wireless printer with the added benefit of being able to print directly from a mobile device, such as an Android phone or iPhone, as well as a desktop. It also has a touchscreen for setting up options and controls.
Color range is good, provided by a standard CMYK set of cartridges, which can be easily replaced from the front. This makes the HP DesignJet T120 a good all-rounder, for printing photos as well as diagrams and documents across a wide range of needs. With a print resolution of 1,200 x 1,200 dpi, it can get print to a high enough quality for most needs.
The Canon imagePROGRAF PRO-2000 is where we see our featured large format printers become really serious in terms of both quality and price. This behemoth of a 24" printer offers sharp, professional colors, not least by using the Canon Lucia Pro ink set which offers eleven colors inks and a Chroma Optimizer.
It's also a big and heavy machine and likely to need to a couple of people to set it up in position. Once done, though, it can print from USB, Ethernet, or wirelessly. With a 320GB hard drive, it should be able to cope with most any filesizes you need to use.
While you could probably run it directly from cold, users could probably benefit from calibrating the settings to get the most out of the Canon imagePROGRAF PRO-2000. This is especially the case for professional photographers who will need to ensure print quality properly reflects lighting and setting.
However, in general terms this really is a quality machine aimed at the professional rather than casual users. While the Canon imagePROGRAF PRO-2000 prints can print up to 24" wide, it's larger siblings, the PRO-4000 and PRO-6000, can be treated as like the same machine with greater widths, being able to work with feeds of up to 44" and 60" respectively.
The HP DesignJet Z9+ leads the next stage up in large format printers, being able to handle prints of up to 44". It also comes with a touchscreen, 500GB harddrive, automatic rollfeed and cut screen feeder, and a set of 9 ink colors.
While the number of ink types isn't as high as the Canon above, HP cover this through advances in printhead technology and HP Pixel Control, which aims to ensure that print quality is rich and sharp in both color and detail. It also has its own in-built built-in spectrophotometer to reduce the need for reprints. The HP DesignJet Z9+ really does deliver on exceptional high-resolution prints.
However, the main aim of the DesignJet Z9+ isn't just to work with quality, but also work at faster speeds. It advertises a rate of 185 square feet per hour (71.4 m²/hr), which is much higher than earlier DesignJet series from HP and many competitors, though of course print speed will depend on print mode and media type. It also offers both wired and wireless printing, the latter through a secure connection.
As expected, this is a machine strictly aimed at professional studios and offices, where large format graphics are a real concern.
The Epson Surecolor range really excels when it comes to print quality, and the Epson Surecolor P20000 is no different.
Designed specifically to handle mammoth color prints of up to 64", it can work with everything from cut sheets to rolls, plain papers to photographic, and even poster boards.
This is a machine that's built for heavy-duty use, and can be left all day to get a queue of jobs done. It also comes with a fast print mode for printing at 600 x 600 dpi at around 44 square feet an hour 17.5m2/hr. While not as quick as the HP above, that's fast for a large format printer of this size.
As expected with the Epson SureColor range, print quality is excellent. The machine uses Epson UltraChrome Pro nine-color pigment ink, which work through a 10-channel PrecisionCore Micro print head to work at resolutions of up to 2,400 x 1,200 dpi. It's operated through a touchscreen pad that will probably be familiar to existing Epson users, with the menu options clear and easy to use.
Overall, this is a seriously heavy-duty machine for heavy-duty print work. And if 64" sounds a little too big for you, it has a smaller sibling, the Epson SureColor P20000, which works with print sizes of up to 44".
