MAINSTREAM
As a mainstream buyer, you're probably a not-infrequent printer. You might want a printer that's capable of high-quality borderless photos, or able to print a fair bit of documentation. Either way, the market is filled with devices to choose from.

Photographic output
If you want high-quality colour, then an inkjet is really your only choice. With good photographic paper - which has a glossy finish and is specially coated to prevent the ink from bleeding, keeping colours impressively vibrant and colourfast for years - you can print out photos that look as good as those you'd get professionally.

Look for a printer with a resolution of around 1,440 dots per inch (dpi). This is a measurement of how many ink droplets a printer can squeeze into a give space - the higher the number, the higher the quality of the printout. Be warned, however: higher resolution printers use more ink, so when you're printing draft copies, be sure to switch it to a lower resolution mode.

Check the features of the printer you're buying. If you'll be doing a lot of photographic printing, look for a model that supports 'borderless printing.' This feature allows you to print right up to the edges on 6x4 photographic paper, avoiding the white border that many home printed photographs show.

All-in-ones or multifunction printers (MFPs)
If you're a home office worker looking for an all-in-one device, there are plenty to choose from in the mainstream market - but be warned: the printer component in an all-in-one is typically several models down from an equivalently-priced stand-alone device, so if you're unlikely to be scanning or copying documents don't be tempted by the 'convenience' of a feature you'll never use.

If you're not going to be printing photographs, consider a laser or LED printer. While typically more expensive than an inkjet, they print faster and have significantly lower running costs. Documents printed on a laser or LED printer are sharper, clearer, and don't 'bleed' into cheap copier paper - but for photographs, an inkjet is definitely the way to go. If you'd like the occasional high-quality photograph, consider buying a laser for the bulk of your printing and using an online service for photos - the cost is often around the same as printing them at home.

Whether you choose an inkjet, a laser, or an LED printer, always look at the cost of replacement cartridges. While cheap colour lasers are currently available for bargain-basement prices, a full set of toners - cyan, yellow, magenta, and black - can set you back several times the cost of the printer. Double-check to see if compatible cartridges are available, too: a good-quality refill could halve the running cost of any printer without having a discernible impact on print quality.

Whether you're buying an inkjet, a laser, or an LED printer, you should budget around £70 to £150 for a good-quality model. An all-in-one printer with good quality photo functionality should set you back no more than around £150.

PREMIUM
As a premium buyer, you're likely to have some esoteric requirements: perhaps you need to print on paper sizes bigger than A4, or you need to churn out large quantities of documents at very high speed.

Strangely, spending more than around £100 on a printer doesn't usually increase the quality. Instead, you'll pay extra for the features: duplex modes, automatic document feeders for the integrated scanning function, or support for large-format paper sizes such as A3 or even A2.

Large format
If you're looking to print on A3 paper, you have the choice of a colour laser or an inkjet - but once you go to A2 and above, the choice reduces to just inkjet models. Either way, you can expect to pay a significant premium for the facility: large-format printers are usually the reserve of professional users, such as architects and poster printers, and manufacturers charge accordingly.

Large-format printers like Epson's Stylus Photo R3000 handle A3 and above - at a price.

High volume
If you're a high-volume printer user, spending more will usually give you an increased number of paper trays. This allows you to both increase the amount you can print between refills and also allows you to print on multiple paper sizes and types automatically. Two paper drawers are commonplace on office laser printers, but three or more can be had - for a price.

If you're buying a workgroup printer - typically a digital photocopier with network printing functionality, rather than a dedicated printer - you can expect to find 'finishing' options such as an automated stapler or saddle-stitching unit for creating folded booklets and collated sheets.

There's really no upper limit to how much you can spend in the premium category - but unless you have specific requirements for something more robust, faster, or with features that are missing from the mainstream market, you'd likely be better off saving your money and opting for a more reasonably priced device. With the money saved, large or special print runs can be sent to an external printing house.

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