How to Choose the Best Printer for Your Homeschool

How to choose the best printer for your homeschool can be a big question that requires a lot of research. The basics of choosing the best printer for your homeschool comes down to three factors: cost, quality, and features.

Which type of printer you should use for your homeschool isn’t as important as finding a printer that lines up with those criteria.

Guest post by Dave from ThePrinterJam.com

As homeschoolers we don’t have an IT department down the hall to assist with any issues that come up. We wear many hats and Google is our friend. While there are entire websites designed to help with computer problems, I thought I’d share some printing tips I’ve learned along the way. I know firsthand that printers can be an indispensible workhorse in the homeschool.

Choosing a Laser Printer or an Inkjet Printer

Asking which type of printer is best is like asking which kind of car is best. It will depend on your purpose. If you need a car for daily commuting then a fuel efficient car is best. If you’re hauling a lot of children around then a car with space and comfort will be a priority.

The same logic applies to printers, the best type will depend on your purpose. Inkjet printers have the best print quality while laser printers are better at large volumes of printing.

Inkjet printers are commonly used to print photos or artwork. Laser printers are commonly used in schools since they are good for distributing large volumes of information. I think homeschoolers tend to fall in the distributing large volumes of information category, even if it is to a smaller group of people.

Laser print quality is passable for anything you will print for homeschooling. A tank type inkjet printer has the best of both worlds since it has better print quality plus is very cost effective.

Tank Type vs Other Printers

Tank type inkjet printers tend to have a higher initial price and fewer features. They do have excellent color print quality and low operating costs, traits which make it ideal for homeschool purposes.

Regular inkjet printers may cost less but they have much higher operating costs, making them a poor choice for homeschooling.

A monochrome laser printer is the only other printer that comes close to low operating costs of a supertank inkjet printer. That’s fine if all you print is B&W documents. However, the ability to print color is a necessity for any school.

That means a color laser printer or tank type inkjet are ideal for homeschooling.

The main difference between a laser printer and tank printer is speed and durability. Laser printers tend to be at least 20 pages per minute or more. A laser printer can handle larger volumes of printing over its lifetime.

Tank printers don’t get much faster than 15 ppm B&W and 10 ppm for color. They have limited duty cycles compared to laser printers. A duty cycle of 5,000 pages per month is about the limit for tank printers. Whereas most laser printers can go 20,000 or more per month.

You can expect 50,000 to 100,000 pages from a laser printer before feed rollers wear out. Fusers last 120,000 or more. After 50,000 pages the inside of any inkjet printer gets pretty messy, which can cause ink to track on pages, color alignment issues, or even paper feed issues.

If you want to invest some parts and maintenance a printer can last much longer. However, repairs tend to cost as much as a new printer.

Cost Comparisons

The difference in costs is complicated. Inkjet printers are priced lower than laser printers. Also, ink cartridges are less expensive than toner cartridges.

While laser printers cost more initially, their operating costs are less. The average laser printer costs about 3 cents per B&W page and around 12 cents per color page. Compared to an average inkjet printer at 7 cents per B&W page and over 15 cents per color page.

At a low print volume the cost per page difference only amounts to several dollars. Not enough to justify getting a higher priced laser printer.

However, after thousands of pages those inexpensive ink cartridges rack up more expenses than the expensive toner cartridges. A break even point is reached around four or five thousand pages. From there on the laser printer operating costs more than make up the higher price difference.

There is one exception: a tank type inkjet printer. They are so inexpensive to run, their cost curve remains relatively flat. The Smart tank, Megatank, and Ecotank printers crush other printers with a cost of less than a penny a page for B&W and roughly 3 cents a page for color.

How to Choose the Best Printer for your Homeschool

For the needs of your homeschool, a laser printer or a tank type inkjet printer is the best choice. These type of printers are cost effective and well suited for the needs of a homeschool.

You can have guilt-free printing with either type of printers. You shouldn’t have to stress about whether you’re printing too much for homeschooling. By choosing one of these kind of printers you won’t hesitate to print. If it helps kids learn it wasn’t wasted.

A printer is a tool and like any good tool it will enhance your homeschool. Using digital curriculum on computers is great as far as it goes, but having a printout or hard copy comes in handy at times.

A printer should be seen as an investment in our children’s education, not an expense to economize on. This is one time opting for the $50 printer on sale isn’t the wisest move. It doesn’t mean the $1200 printer is a good fit for home use either.

Once you get above the $250 range, it opens up a lot of possibilities. There are also some very decent color laser printers in the $400-$600 range.

In my experience the more you pay for a printer the lower the operating costs tend to be. The least expensive printers tend to have the most expensive or lower yielding supplies. Getting the most expensive printer isn’t the best either. They could have features that would be overkill for any homeschool.

Getting a step above the cheap ones or a step below the most expensive printers is a good choice. These printers tend to have the most bang for the buck.

My current homeschool printer recommendations are:

Inkjet Printers:

• HP Smart Tank 7301
• Epson EcoTank ET-2850

Laser Printers:

• HP Color Laserjet Pro M283cdw
• Brother HL-L3290CDW

HP Smart Tank 7301

At Best Buy!

At Amazon!

If you’re looking for an easy to use, cost effective printer for homeschooling the HP Smart Tank 7301 fits that bill. Setup is simple with HP’s Smart app. You can also do copy, print, and scan functions through the app.

The app is great for Android or iPhones too. It isn’t yet compatible with Chromebooks. Still, Chromebooks can natively print and scan to the HP Smart Tank 7301.

The HP Smart app has some useful printables built in or you can make your own. Print a calendar for each month to keep organized or to track goals. If you need a quick activity there are many activity printables you can print with just a few taps. Who doesn’t appreciate quick printables?

Another item with few taps is the operation panel on the printer. I suppose it makes copy and scan operations simple, just press start. If you want to choose the scale, resolution, or other operations you have to use the Smart app.

Scan to email is not possible with the HP Smart Tank 7301. You can scan to a file destination via the web interface or, you guessed it, HP’s Smart app. There isn’t a USB or SD card port for scan or print either.

But email scanning or faxing aren’t necessary for homeschooling. Having multiple paper drawers is debatable. This printer is streamlined for simplicity, which is reflected by the lack of control panel buttons, limited features, and single paper drawer.

If you want an easy, cost effective printer then the HP Smart Tank 7301 will be a good fit for your homeschool needs.

Epson Ecotank ET-2850

At Best Buy!

At Amazon!

If you’re looking for an entry level printer for your homeschool consider the Epson Ecotank ET-2850. This is one of the least expensive all-in-one printers you should get for homeschooling purposes.

Epson’s setup and use falls on the easy side of the scale. Epson’s app isn’t the greatest compared to HP’s Smart app. You can use the Mopria print app as an alternative to Epson’s app for phones and tablets.

For desktops, Epson’s print driver is actually pretty good. It has useful features such as a job arranger, print preview, and 2-up printing.

Job arranger is good when you need to combine a few pages from several PDFs and Word documents into one print job. 2-up is good for printing a few copies of the same form or activity on one sheet.

While saving paper is fine, this printer is extremely cost effective. You can print without worrying about whether you’ll run out of ink or how much cartridges cost. Bottles of ink last for thousands of pages and are inexpensive.

The Epson Ecotank ET-2850 has duplex, USB, and WiFi. If you prefer wired ethernet than wireless, the Epson Ecotank ET-2760 is a good alternative.

The WorkForce series aren’t bad for homeschooling either. Although those are geared more for business use. The Ecotank series have everything you need for homeschooling and are more cost effective.

HP Color LaserJet Pro M283cdw

At Best Buy!

At Amazon!

Moving on to a laser printer, the HP Color LaserJet Pro M283cdw is an excellent choice for homeschooling. A laser printer is durable enough to handle several thousand pages or more a year.

The HP Color LaserJet Pro M283cdw also uses HP’s Smart app. In addition to easy setup, the app has useful printables. Unlike the HP 7301, the HP M283cdw has a small touchscreen for operations. Whether you use the app or control panel, the HP M268cdw is easy to use.

If you’re new to using a laser printer changing cartridges is somewhat different than changing ink cartridges. Still, the HP M283cdw is one of the easiest toner cartridge changes I’ve ever done. It’s actually easier than an ink cartridge.

The color print quality of the HP M283cdw isn’t quite as good as an inkjet, but unless you’re printing photos it’s hard to tell the difference. For homeschooling the color print quality is more than acceptable. Text quality of the HP M283cdw is much better than an inkjet. It isn’t fuzzy and comes out dark.

Print speeds are 22 pages per minute. Duplex printing slows it down some. Other features include a self healing WiFi and ample connection options.

The HP M283cdw has top notch built in security. This shouldn’t be an issue since most home printers aren’t exposed the way they are at an office.

If you’re looking for an easy, reliable printer to handle all your printing needs the HP M283cdw is a good option.

Brother HL-L3290CDW

At Best Buy!

At Amazon!

Another printer worth considering is the Brother HL-L3290CDW. It’s less expensive than the HP M283cdw but has similar features, quality, and speed.

The Brother HL-L3290CDW toner cartridges are separate from the drum unit, which means the toner cartridges are less expensive than the combo unit found in HP’s. However, a drum unit will need replaced every 18,000 pages.

If you’re mechanically inclined you won’t have any problems changing the cartridges on the Brother HL-L3290CDW. Not that it’s hard, just that the HP M283cdw is as easy as it gets. If you can do ink cartridges you can do toner cartridges. They’re like big ink cartridges.

The Brother has quick print speeds at 25 pages per minute, which is much faster than any tank type inkjet. Color and B&W printing are the same speed as with any laser printer.

Color print quality is average, close to the HP M283 (though this is actually a LED printer). The only difference between a laser and LED printer is how the drum is exposed. Everything is the same except the laser unit is replaced by a smaller LED unit.

The difference in quality between a LED and laser is very subtle. On the one hand LED prints look sharper. On the other they aren’t as good with gradients. Color transitions are grainy but edges are well defined. Laser printers are better with photos. But compared to inkjet printers, neither are as good.

The Brother HL-L3290CDW has features such as WiFi and duplex, but lacks a document feeder. Scanning multiple pages hasn’t been something we need very often. If you need to scan a 60 page document you can usually find a copier at a library.

If you’re looking for an inexpensive, quick printer the Brother HL-L3290CDW is worth checking out.

Compatible Cartridges

If you want to save some money with compatible toner, beware — you get what you pay for. The cheap $20 toner cartridges could have a starter chip or print quality issues. You should expect to pay somewhere above $30 to get good cartridges.

These companies make good compatible cartridges: Static Control, LaserImage Plus, Hyperion, and Katun.

Choosing the Right Printer Paper

Another tip is paper is cheaper in bulk. Buying a ream or two at a time might be easier, but buying by the case is more cost effective. Even if it takes a while to get through 10 reams of paper it will save some money in the long run.

The next most cost effective is buying by the pallet. Though, I can’t imagine anyone wanting a semi pulling up to their house and unloading 40 cases of paper in their driveway. Even office-supply-loving homeschoolers might have trouble finding storage for that.

With 20+ years in the copier/printer industry and 15 years as a homeschool dad, I can definitely say that choosing the right printer for your homeschool can make a big difference in your education journey.

FAQ

~ Dave at The Printer Jam

Dave has been the Copier Guy in his career for over 25 years now. He is the father of three homeschooled girls and husband to Sara, owner of Heart and Soul Homeschooling. He has worked on scanners, printers, copiers, and faxes over 23 years. When he’s not fixing them he’s writing about them. He launched The Printer Jam to help people get the most out of their printers with tips, how-tos, and helpful reviews. You can follow The Printer Jam on Pinterest and Facebook.