To determine the best inkjet printer for home we took into account that over the years, technology has improved while the cost has decreased. So we focused on core features such as multifunctionality, connectivity, print speeds, and enhanced features. Likewise, these days since people don’t want to be manually connected to their devices and appliances, we prioritized inkjet printers that at least supported wireless connectivity — and in many cases came with a proprietary app for remote access and management. We knew print speeds were important, but that people might want additional options like automated document feeds, automatic two-sided printing, and borderless printing for pictures. Because of all of these considerations, we selected the HP OfficeJet 3830 All-in-One Wireless Printer as our Top Pick and the best inkjet printer for home on our list. It’s a four-in-one model that includes scanning, copying, and faxing. But in addition to WiFi connectivity, you can use HP’s proprietary app to manage tasks and review printer maintenance from your tablet or smartphone. With a 35-sheet auto-feeder and commendable printer speeds of 8.5-ppm for black and 6-ppm for color projects, we feel the typical home user will be very pleased with this inkjet printer. Top 7 Best Inkjet Printer for Home Compared #1 HP OfficeJet 3830 All-in-One Wireless Printer - Top Pick WHY WE LIKE IT: A four-in-one inkjet printer that can print, scan, copy, and fax with wireless capabilities, a proprietary app, and quiet mode. A 35-sheet auto-feeder, borderless printing, a black 8.5-ppm and color 6-ppm speeds, and touch screen controls make it a top pick. You don’t have to pay a ridiculous amount of money to get a multifunctional inkjet printer. Our Top Pick is the HP OfficeJet 3830 All-in-One Wireless Printer that prints, scans, copies, and even faxes if you still need that technology. HP makes printing easier with wireless connectivity and a proprietary app that you can download to your smartphone or tablet to seamlessly send jobs to this printer from the palm of your hand. Pre-load as many as 35 pages into the auto-feeder, and expect to reach print per minute speeds of eight and a half pages for black text and 6 pages for color. This inkjet printer supports standard 8.5 x 11-inch paper as well as legal-size, 4x6, 5x7, and 8x10 paper. Best of all the crisp touch screen controls make it easy to toggle between tasks, check ink levels and manage connectivity. You might also consider all in one printers which will do more. #2 HP ENVY 5055 Wireless All-in-One Photo Printer - Honorable Mention WHY WE LIKE IT: A three-in-one inkjet printer that prints, scans, and copies with wireless connectivity and a proprietary HP app to remotely manage printing tasks. Auto two-sided printing support, 10-ppm black and 7-ppm color speeds, borderless printing, and a mono touchscreen make this an attractive home printer option. Our honorable mention choice goes to the HP ENVY 5055 Wireless All-in-One Photo Printer which is a three-in-one inkjet for printing, copying, and scanning. This home printer can be easily installed and connected to your WiFi network for easier access and comes with the proprietary HP app for smartphones and tablets. You can be economical and opt for double-sided printing to reduce your paper consumption. You’ll like the improved ppm speeds with 10 pages for black printing and seven for color printing. With pictures, you’ll enjoy borderless printing and this printer can support standard 8.5 x 11, legal, 4x6, 5x7, and 8x10 paper. Control your printer either through the app or the mono touchscreen. Plus the sleek black finish makes this attractive whether in an at-home office or anywhere in the house. It is a great best printer for home. #3 HP DeskJet 2622 All-in-One Compact Printer - Best Space Saver WHY WE LIKE IT: A convenient and compact three-in-one printer that prints, scans, and copies while supporting wireless access and remote printing through the proprietary HP app. An icon-based LCD panel, black 7.5-ppm and color 5.5-ppm speeds, and a folding output tray help to maximize space when it’s not in use. Even if you have plenty of space in your home, that doesn’t mean that you want every surface cluttered with clunky appliances and electronics. The HP DeskJet 2622 All-in-One Compact Printer is perfect for the person who wants to maximize space in their home. The output tray can be folded when not in use to create more space. But you’ll like that this three-in-one inkjet printer is designed to print, copy, and scan. You’ll get ppm speeds of seven and a half sheets for black and five and a half sheets for color. While it’s not rated for use with common photo paper sizes, you can use a range of envelope sizes including A4, B5, A6, and DL envelopes. You’ll also enjoy wireless connectivity and the proprietary HP app so that you can remotely print jobs or confirm ink levels from your smartphone or tablet devices. Also, have a look at our best printer for computer list. #4 HP OfficeJet 5255 Wireless All-in-One Printer - Best Value WHY WE LIKE IT: A four-in-one inkjet printer that prints, scans, copies, and faxes over wireless and Bluetooth connections or through the proprietary HP app. 35-page auto document feeder, auto two-sided printing support, 10-ppm black and 7-ppm color print speeds, and mono touchscreen features make this a compelling choice. Some people like options when it comes to how they can connect to their inkjet printer. In addition to offering wireless support over your existing WiFi network, this HP OfficeJet 5255 Wireless All-in-One Printer can also support Bluetooth connections. Print, scan, copy, and fax with this four-in-one model. Or opt to use the proprietary HP app on your smartphone or tablet to remotely send tasks and monitor printer maintenance. The 35-page autoloader helps to streamline larger printing jobs, and you can reduce your paper usage with the auto two-sided printing feature. Reach printing speeds of 10 pages for black and seven pages for color jobs. For pictures, you’ll appreciate the borderless printing capabilities and the fact that you can print 4x6, 5x7, and 8x10 projects. Standard 8.5 x 11-inch and legal paper are also supported. What about specialization? Check out the best label printer. #5 HP Deskjet 1112 Compact Printer - Best Budget WHY WE LIKE IT: A streamlined budget-friendly printer that also saves space. Printing speeds of 7.5-ppm for black and 5.5-ppm for color pages, a wide range of supported paper sizes, and a fold-down output tray help prioritize this compact printer’s key features. If you simply need a printer that does just that, the HP Deskjet 1112 Compact Printer is the solution to your problem. This budget-friendly printer is all about saving space with a fold-down output tray. You’ll get ppm speeds of seven and a half pages for black printing and five and a half pages for color jobs. You’ll also like that you can print on a range of paper sizes with this simplified inkjet printer. Print standard 8.5 x 11 and legal paper as well as 4x6, 5x7, 8x10 and various envelope sizes. For Chromebooks, read best printer for Chromebook. #6 Brother Wireless All-in-One Inkjet Printer - Best Ethernet Printer WHY WE LIKE IT: A four-in-one printer that prints, scans, copies, and faxes while supporting wireless and ethernet connectivity. An automatic document feeder, native web printing with cloud services functionality, remote support for tablets and smartphones, automatic two-sided printing, a wide range of paper size and type support and print speeds of 12-ppm black and 10-ppm color. Choice is the best way to describe the Brother Wireless All-in-One Inkjet Printer. Connect to this four-in-one inkjet printer through a wired USB connection, WiFi or via ethernet. Complete any of four tasks — printing, scanning, copying, and faxing. But you’ll love the native cloud services support that gives you the flexibility to print from your preferred cloud service or scan new documents and save them in the cloud directly from the control panel. Other essential features like an automated document feeder, automatic two-sided printing and the ability to send print jobs from your smartphone or tablet are items we found important. With a print speed of 12 pages for black and 10 pages for color jobs and a large range of paper format and size support, Brother’s all-in-one inkjet printer is a solid choice. Compare it to other printers. #7 Canon PIXMA TS6220 Wireless All In One Photo Printer - Best PPM WHY WE LIKE IT: A wireless all-in-one printer that prints, scans, and copies with IFTTT support and a proprietary Canon app to give you mobile freedom while you can also connect via Bluetooth. Auto dual-sided printing, an auto-loader, print speeds of 15-ppm for black and 10-ppm for color pages, and a full-color touch screen help make this an intuitive inkjet printer. We close out our selections with the Canon PIXMA TS6220 Wireless All In One Photo Printer. If you print large documents frequently, you know that finding a speedy printer is going to be important. Of all the inkjet printers in our roundup, this Canon model offers a print speed of 15 pages for black and 10 pages for color projects. You’ll also like that while you can connect various devices and your computer to this printer through WiFi or Bluetooth technology, you also have the option to use Canon’s proprietary app or create automated commands using the IFTTT platform. This printer, copier, and scanner also make life easier with automatic dual-sided printing, an automatic document feeder, and a full-color touch screen. For more 3D printing read our best 3D printer list. How We Decided Inkjet printers are somewhat of a staple item whether you’re a student, small business owner, or just a casual user that needs to print from time to time. While the technology is by no means new, advancements have made it possible to find a quality inkjet printer that comes with enhanced functionality at a modest cost. Because of this, we looked at a range of factors — connectivity, multifunctionality, print speed (ppm), and enhanced features. A printer is one of the must-have computer accessories. Connectivity was a high priority as these days, people want to cut wires as much as possible. Except for our Best Budget selection, all of the other inkjet printer models on our list are wireless and — at a minimum — can connect to your computer via your existing WiFi network. But many models took it a step further. In particular HP and Canon both feature proprietary apps that can be downloaded onto your tablet or smartphone and give you the ability to remotely control printer tasks, connect to third-party cloud services, or check ink levels. This leads us to multifunctionality. Except for the Best Budget option, all of the other inkjet printers on our list are multi-use printers. Some are four-in-one meaning that in addition to printing they can also scan, copy, and fax documents. And the remainder are three-in-one with scanning and copying capabilities. You may have noticed that there are a fair amount of similarities between printers manufactured by the same brand. For example, our Top Pick, Honorable Mention, #3, #4 and #5 are all HP inkjet printers. So, with the exception of #5 which is also our Best Budget choice and only supports printing, you’ll note that these printers are quite similar. Often the main feature that separates them is whether they are 4-in-1 versus 3-in-1 models, whether they integrate with the HP proprietary app, or if they feature auto-feeding. Printing speed is going to be important if you’re a frequent printer. While inkjet printers are historically slower than laser printers, you can still find inkjet printers with commendable printer speeds that are measured in pages per minute (ppm). Typically, color printing is significantly slower than printing just black text. We’ve made it a point to outline the ppm rating for both black and color printing for every printer on our list. And finally, we considered enhanced features. This can represent a range of functions that generally help to streamline the printing process or make your printer more efficient. Popular options we highlighted included auto-document feeders, two-sided printing, and borderless printing. An auto-document feeder means you won’t have to manually feed individual pages into the printer and automated two-sided printing. Two-sided printing will be especially important if you’re trying to conserve paper. Rather than manually printing one page at a time and flipping the paper, you’ll see an option appear during the print dialogue box with a choice to turn any print project into a dual-sided one. And borderless printing is important if you’re printing full-scale color images as it guarantees that you can print color to the edge without an artificial bleed or margin. Inkjet Printer Buyer's Guide The Most Important Features to Consider Connectivity These days, there’s more than one way to send a printing job to your inkjet printer. At a minimum, most people prefer printers that can connect to their local WiFi network because it gives them the freedom to send print jobs from around their home or office without needing to be physically connected to it with wires. But connectivity can go farther these days and include the ability to print directly from the web with cloud services such as DropBox or Google Drive. And this means that you can print from any connected device, not just your computer. Additional options include printing directly from a USB drive or SD card. Look for models that feature these ports. Multifunctionality While every printer can perform the basic function of printing a document or picture, some printers are marketed as “all-in-one” options. This means that they can perform a range of features that often include scanning, copying, and potentially faxing. These days, the cost of a quality all-in-one printer isn’t as expensive as it used to be. So, it’s possible to find a multifunctional printer that doesn’t cost much more than a basic printer. Photo Printing Many people opt for inkjet printers because they’re specifically better at printing photos than laser printers. It’s important to note that most inkjet printers will produce full-color photos at a much slower rate than they print standard text documents. However, some models can offer borderless printing for specific picture sizes such as 4x6 images. If this is important to you, look for models that either has a dedicated tray for smaller paper sizes or that offer adjustable feeds. Ink Costs It’s inevitable that at some point, you’re going to need to replace the ink in your inkjet printer. Normally, this involves buying specific ink cartridges that are compatible with the make and model of your printer. If you’re a casual printer, this may not be a big deal for you as it could be a year or more before you need to replace the ink. But if you print regularly — defined as at least 35 pages a month — you may find yourself replacing the ink far more often. To save money, you can consider purchasing supertank inkjet printers that allow you to simply refill a tank versus repeatedly buying fresh cartridges. These types of printers are pricier than traditional inkjet models, but you’ll see cost savings within two years of purchase as you spend less on ink. Print Speed Keeping in mind that inkjet printers will produce text content faster than color pictures, this can be an important factor for some people. If text pages are your priority, a good benchmark range is an output of roughly five to 18 pages per minute. If pictures are your focus, then depending on the size of your image, printing speeds can range from a minute and a half to four minutes for one full-color 8x10 picture.
