Top 10 Home Office Printers — Top 10

Product review

The MFC-L3780CDW is the most complete color laser all-in-one in this class: 31 ppm in color and black, a 50-sheet feeder that scans both sides of a page in one pass, and a 250-sheet tray plus a 30-sheet multipurpose tray for envelopes and letterhead. Brother's TN229 high-yield toner keeps mono pages near 3 cents, and nothing about the machine requires a subscription — Refresh is offered, never forced.

• Single-pass two-sided scanning at up to 29/22 ipm (black/color)
• Full-speed color and mono printing at 31 ppm
• Dual-band Wi-Fi, Gigabit Ethernet, Wi-Fi Direct and NFC badge authentication
• High-yield TN229XL cartridges (3,000 pages black) keep running costs moderate

• The priciest machine on this list at $569.99
• Starter toner is a partial set (about 1,000 pages black, per Brother)
• Big and heavy for a desk at roughly 48 lb

The company

Brother International Corporation is the US arm of Brother Industries of Nagoya, Japan, headquartered in Bridgewater, New Jersey, with a large US service-center network. This model carries a 1-year limited warranty, and Brother publishes a US support line (1-877-276-8437).

Product review

The MF465dw II is the speed pick: 42 ppm printing and a one-pass duplex scanner rated up to 100 ipm in black and white, fed by a 50-sheet ADF and 350 sheets of standard paper capacity that expands to 900. Canon's Toner 070H cartridge yields about 10,200 pages, and the 3-year limited warranty is the longest standard coverage on this list.

• Fastest printer and scanner combination here
• 3-year limited warranty, double or triple most rivals
• Toner 070H runs about 10,200 pages for a low cost per page
• 5-inch color touchscreen with customizable home screen

• Black-and-white only — no color printing
• Canon's $540.99 list price makes the value case depend on street pricing
• At about 35 lb it wants a stand or a sturdy desk

The company

Canon U.S.A., Inc. is headquartered in Melville, New York and is the US arm of Canon Inc. of Tokyo. The imageCLASS MF465dw II carries a 3-year limited exchange/carry-in warranty, and Canon publishes toll-free US support at 1-800-652-2666.

Product review

The ET-4950 is Epson's current top mainstream EcoTank for home offices: refillable tanks instead of cartridges, a full set of 502 ink in the box, a 250-sheet tray, and an ADF that copies and scans two-sided automatically. At 18 ppm black it is much quicker than earlier EcoTanks, and replacement ink works out to well under a cent per mono page — the running-cost benchmark the lasers on this list cannot match.

• Cheapest cost per page here — 502 black bottle yields about 7,500 pages
• No cartridges, no cartridge chips, no ink subscription required
• Two-sided scanning and copying through the ADF
• Ink for up to 3 years included at typical home-office volumes

• Still slower than any laser here on long documents
• Inkjet output on plain paper is less crisp than laser text
• No single-pass duplex scanning — the ADF flips each page

The company

Epson America, Inc., headquartered in Los Alamitos, California, is the US arm of Seiko Epson Corporation of Japan. The ET-4950 carries a 1-year limited warranty with US-based support; Epson publishes its US support line at 1-800-463-7766.

Product review

The MF753Cdw II brings Canon's business color laser engine down to home-office money: 35 ppm in color and mono, one-pass two-sided scanning, a 5-inch touchscreen, and paper capacity expandable to 850 sheets. Toner 069H high-yield cartridges keep color pages reasonable, and the in-box black cartridge is a full standard cartridge (about 2,100 pages), not a token starter.

• One-pass duplex scanning plus 35 ppm color printing
• 3-year limited warranty matches Canon's mono flagship
• Full-size starter black toner (about 2,100 pages)
• Optional 550-sheet cassette grows capacity to 850 sheets

• Canon's $702.99 list price is steep when it is not on sale
• Color toner set replacements are a significant running expense
• Roughly 49 lb — a two-person lift onto a stand

The company

Canon U.S.A., Inc. is headquartered in Melville, New York and is the US arm of Canon Inc. of Tokyo. The Color imageCLASS MF753Cdw II carries a 3-year limited warranty, and Canon publishes toll-free US support at 1-800-652-2666.

Product review

The DCP-L2640DW is the value anchor of this list: a compact mono laser that prints at 36 ppm, scans through a 50-sheet ADF, and costs less than half the color flagship above. Brother's TN830XL cartridge (about 3,000 pages) keeps mono pages near 3 cents, and the machine works with no account, app, or subscription. It gives up fax and a touchscreen to hit the price — most home offices will not miss either.

• 36 ppm printing with a 250-sheet tray at $209.99
• 50-sheet ADF for multi-page scans and copies
• TN830XL high-yield toner keeps cost per page near 3 cents
• Compact footprint for a laser all-in-one (16.1 x 15.7 in)

• No fax and no color printing
• ADF scans one side at a time
• In-box toner is a small 700-page starter

The company

Brother International Corporation is the US arm of Brother Industries of Nagoya, Japan, headquartered in Bridgewater, New Jersey. This model carries a 1-year limited warranty, and Brother publishes a US support line (1-877-276-8437).

Product review

The 3101fdw is a quick, compact mono laser all-in-one — 35 ppm, a 50-sheet ADF, fax, and HP's polished app and Wolf Pro security tooling. The trade-off is in the fine print: this is a dynamic-security printer that blocks cartridges without an HP chip, and firmware updates maintain that block, which limits third-party toner options and is reflected in its accountability subscore.

• Fast 35 ppm printing with first page out in about 6.6 seconds
• Print, scan, copy and fax with a 2.7-inch touchscreen
• Generous in-box toner (about 1,500 pages)
• HP Wolf Pro security settings for small-office networks

• Dynamic security blocks non-HP-chip cartridges; updates can disable cartridges that once worked
• 1-year warranty is the minimum on this list alongside most rivals
• ADF scans one side at a time

The company

HP Inc. is headquartered in Palo Alto, California. The LaserJet Pro MFP 3101fdw carries a 1-year limited warranty; HP routes US support through its support site and app and does not publish a general support email address.

Product review

HP's flagship Smart Tank pairs refillable ink tanks with a 35-sheet ADF, fax, and Ethernet — the fullest feature set of any tank printer here. The box includes bottles rated for up to 6,000 black and 8,000 color pages, and refill bottles keep pages at a fraction of a cent. It trails the Epson ET-4950 on scan features (no two-sided ADF scanning) and costs more, which sets its rank.

• Largest included ink supply on this list
• Fax, ADF and Ethernet — rare in a tank printer at retail
• Very low cost per page from 32XL/31 refill bottles
• Self-healing dual-band Wi-Fi is genuinely reliable

• $469.99 HP list price is the highest of the inkjets here
• ADF scans one side at a time
• HP heavily promotes its All-In subscription on this model — ownership still works without it, but expect the pitch

The company

HP Inc. is headquartered in Palo Alto, California. The Smart Tank 7602 carries a 1-year limited warranty; HP routes US support through its support site and app and does not publish a general support email address.

Product review

The ET-2980 is the entry point to Epson's current EcoTank line: the same 502 bottle ink system and up-to-3-years in-box ink as the ET-4950, in a smaller body with a 100-sheet tray and flatbed-only scanning. It prints a respectable 15 ppm in black. What you give up versus the ET-4950 is the ADF, fax, Ethernet, and two-sided scanning — fine for a one-person office that mostly prints.

• EcoTank running costs — well under a cent per mono page
• Up to 3 years of ink included in the box
• 50 percent faster than the ET-2800 it replaces
• Compact and light at about 11.5 lb

• No ADF — multi-page scans go one sheet at a time
• No Ethernet and no fax
• Epson's store price ($329.99) sits oddly above its $299.99 MSRP

The company

Epson America, Inc., headquartered in Los Alamitos, California, is the US arm of Seiko Epson Corporation of Japan. The ET-2980 carries a 1-year limited warranty with full-unit replacement, and Epson publishes its US support line at 1-800-463-7766.

Product review

Canon's MegaTank G6020 undercuts every other tank printer here while still including a full ink set — plus two bonus black bottles — rated for up to 6,000 black pages. Two paper sources (a 250-sheet cassette and a 100-sheet rear tray) and Ethernet are unusual at this price. The compromises are speed (13 ipm) and the lack of an ADF or fax, and the design is a generation old.

• Lowest hardware price of any supertank on this list
• Two bonus black ink bottles in the box
• Rear tray handles photo paper and envelopes without swapping the cassette
• GI-20 refill bottles keep mono pages near 0.3 cents

• No ADF and no fax
• Slowest color printing here at 6.8 ipm
• Small non-touch display and an aging design

The company

Canon U.S.A., Inc. is headquartered in Melville, New York and is the US arm of Canon Inc. of Tokyo. The PIXMA G6020 carries a 1-year limited warranty with Canon's InstantExchange program, and Canon publishes toll-free US support at 1-800-652-2666.

Product review

The B225 is Xerox's entry business all-in-one: 36 ppm mono printing, a 50-sheet ADF, duplex printing, and proper PCL/PostScript support in a compact body. It lands last here because the running costs work against it — the starter cartridge is good for only about 700 pages, and even the extra-high-yield replacement runs about 6,000 pages at a street price that keeps mono pages near 3.5 cents.

• Business-grade PCL 6 and PostScript 3 emulation
• Fast 36 ppm engine with a 30,000-page maximum duty cycle
• 50-sheet ADF and scan-to-email/USB built in
• Straightforward setup with Xerox Smart Start software

• Highest mono cost per page on this list
• No fax (that is the B235) and no touchscreen
• Starter toner lasts only about 700 pages
• Smaller US retail and review footprint than Brother or Canon

The company

Xerox Corporation is headquartered in Norwalk, Connecticut. The B225 carries a 1-year limited warranty, and Xerox publishes US support at 1-800-835-6100.