Print Smarter, Not Harder: What to Ask When Shopping for Office Printers

Every office deserves a printer so good it makes all the corporate neighbors jealous, but choosing the right machine can induce feelings of despair. At A&B Business Solutions, we want to help you with that decision because we understand the importance of reliable printing solutions that make office productivity skyrocket. We are excellence certified and offer a wide range of office printers from top brands known for their dependency and efficiency.

What to Ask When Shopping for Office Printers

To find helpful answers, you have to ask the right questions. Here are a few ideas:

• Do I need quality color printing?

For many businesses, a simple black and white printer is satisfactory. For example, if you’re mainly using your device to print black and white agendas and potluck signup sheets, a high-quality color printer may be excessive. But if your agendas usually include a color-coded chart, or if your potluck signup sheets always have a bright border of beets, a color printer might be a better choice. And if you need to print marketing materials like brochures and posters, a high-quality color printer can seriously up your game.

• What sizes of paper do I print with?

Most office printing utilizes standard 8.5×11 sheets of paper. But some offices produce posters, packaging, or other larger documents in-house, and purchasing a printer that can easily handle paper of greater dimensions could eliminate tensions in future budget meetings because you won’t need to outsource printing or purchase another machine. When shopping for printers, make sure to look at the maximum paper size to see what each machine can handle, and if you frequently print banners and large posters, consider investigating our wide format printers.

• Does my office print at high volume?

It’s always great to blame the printer for an overdue project since it doesn’t have a soul and won’t take offense. But if the printer is actually getting backlogged and slowing down tasks, a machine with a high page-per-minute (PPM) rate will be valuable. Some offices don’t print much, so purchasing a lower capacity printer would save money without affecting office workflow. However, if your office prints documents with many pages, a printer that keeps up can be crucial. Laser printers tend to have higher PPM rates than inkjet printers and are more cost-effective. A&B sells Ricoh printers that can print as many as 90 pages per minute.

• How many people will be using this printer, and where will they be sending documents from?

Investing in a printer with connectivity options—think wi-fi, cloud services, and USB—will increase accessibility for your team, allowing them to print from tablets and smartphones as well as computers, and introducing integration across devices. Advanced connectivity often prevents issues and makes printing easier. Printers that reduce energy consumption—by, for example, automatically hibernating between uses—can also be very cost-effective.

• Do I need to do more than just print?

Multifunction printers are the superheroes of the office world. They do everything except wear a cape—they print, copy, scan, and fax. Some can even hole-punch your papers and (with additional software subscription services) track user activity, so you know it’s John who’s using all the ink by printing 179 pages of carrot cake recipes every day (sorry, John). By investing in a multifunction printer, you can save office space and reduce costs without compromising quality.

So which printer do I buy?

Now that you know what questions to ask, you can start shopping! A&B Business Solutions is certified to distribute Ricoh, Toshiba, and HP office printers and has the largest and best-trained service department in the region. And since we are committed to excellence, we don’t just sell the best office printers—we help our customers decide which printer is the best fit for their unique office and equip them for excellence once our service technicians set up their printing system. Through our managed print services, we can maintain machines, answer your printer-related questions, and even automatically track your toner and send you a refill before you notice it ran out.

If you like what you’re hearing (or if you have more questions), talk to one of our experts today by filling out the form at the bottom of this page, or check out our product library.