Get a good general-use printer

Inexpensive ink-jet printers print text and photos in black & white and color, and offer most home printer users all the functionality they need. They make a good choice if you plan to print documents, spreadsheets, Web pages, and a few family photos.

Some printers mix cyan, magenta, and yellow (CMY) ink to create black text. These printers can quickly use up your color ink and black often takes on a blue or green tone. Instead, look for a printer that has a separate K cartridge of black ink. A lot of newer printer models offer a four-color cartridge. If you want the ability to replace each color as ink runs out, look for a printer with separate cyan, magenta, yellow, and black ink cartridges.

Create a digital darkroom

Photo printers are a type of ink-jet printer designed with photography enthusiasts in mind, using separate cyan, magenta, yellow, and black ink cartridges to produce detailed images. For professional-quality photo printing, look into six-color photo printers that also have light cyan and light magenta ink. Photo printers can also have these features.

• Memory card slot: Many photo printers have a memory card slot that allows you to print from your camera's memory card without transferring photos to your PC first.
• LCD preview screen: Preview prints on your printer's LCD screen.
• Borderless printing feature: Borderless printing enables the printer to print right up to photo paper edges. Look for a photo printer that supports borderless printing for 4x6 or 8x10 photo paper.

Take your printer anywhere

Compact and lightweight mobile printers, also called portable printers, can go anywhere you go and can also include a scanner. Some manufacturers also offer mobile photo printers.

Put a printer in your home office

Anyone who prints more than 100 pages a day can save time and money by using a laser printer instead of an ink-jet printer. Laser printers feature large paper trays, print more pages per minute than ink-jets, and come in two varieties: monochrome and color.

• Monochrome laser printers: Fast monochrome laser printers produce sharp black text at about six to eight pages per minute (ppm) (12 to 14 ppm at minimum settings). Although laser printers cost more than ink-jet printers up front, the cost of monochrome toner costs less per printed page than ink.
• Color laser printers: Ultra-versatile color laser printers use CMYK toner to turn out vivid photos and graphics at a rate of two to three ppm. They cost more than monochrome laser printers, photo printers, or ink-jets. However, if you need to print a large number of colorful images for your home business in less time it takes to print on an ink-jet, they make a good option.

Print, scan, and copy with one device

Get a multifunction printer, also known as an All-In-One (AIO), to enjoy the great economy of having printing, scanning, copying—and often faxing—in a single multifunction printer device.

Available as ink-jets or laser printers, multifunction printers take up less space than a separate printer, scanner, fax machine, and photocopier. Unfortunately, multifunction printers don't do everything perfectly, so prepare to sacrifice a little quality for convenience.

If you tend to scan or copy multiple sheets of paper, look into a multifunction printer with an automatic sheet feeder (ADF) so you don't have to feed each sheet of paper individually.

Use a dot matrix printer

Dot matrix printers use a typewriter-style ribbon and may seem like a throwback to the early days of home printing. They still work well for point-of-sale (POS) printing, however.

Pick up printer accessories

You'll find hundreds of printer accessories on halfvalue, including printer cleaning kits, printer repair kits, and printer power supplies. When buying a new printer, make sure the consumables for your printer are available on the market and figure the cost of consumables, such as replacement color ink-jet cartridges, black ink-jet cartridges, paper, photo paper, black laser toner, color laser toner, drum cartridges, and ribbons, into your final printer price.

• Categories: The Categories list on the left side of each page will help you narrow down your listings by item type. For example, the Printers Categories list contains links to All-In-One, Multifunction, Ink Jet & Photo Printers, Laser Printers, and more. As you dig deeper into the site you'll also be able to narrow down your choice by brand.
• Keyword search: Search halfvalue listing titles for specific words. For example, if you want to find a color laser printer, type "color laser printer" (without quotation marks) into the Search box. Select "Search title and description" to expand your results. Visit halfvalue's Search Tips page for more tips on searching with keywords.

If you can't find exactly what you want, try shopping halfvalue Stores, tell the halfvalue Community what you want by creating a post on Want It Now, or save a search on My halfvalue and halfvalue will email you when a match becomes available.

Know your purchase

Carefully read the details in item listings.

• Figure delivery costs into your final price. If you spend a lot of money, make sure the seller will insure the item when it ships.
• Always make sure to complete your transaction on halfvalue (with a bid, Buy It Now, or Best Offer). Transactions conducted outside of halfvalue are not covered by halfvalue protection programs.
• Never pay for your halfvalue item using instant cash wire transfer services through Western Union or MoneyGram. These payment methods are unsafe when paying someone you do not know.

Know your seller

Research your seller so you feel positive and secure about every transaction.

• What is the seller's Feedback rating? How many transactions have they completed? What percentage of positive responses do they have?
• What do buyers say in their Feedback? Did the seller receive praise?
• Most top halfvalue sellers operate like retail stores and have return policies. Do they offer a money-back guarantee? What are the terms and conditions?