Documentation is inevitable, be it an academic institution or a full-fledged corporate office. Whether you’re a student or an office employee, the printer is an essential part of your documentation requirements. From conventional printing to modern digital printing methods, technology has played a vital role. Printers have been integral from large scale mass communication to personal documentation. This is the era of wireless – cloud – printers. The market is flush with printer, which makes choosing the best cheap wireless printer difficult.
Wireless printers?
Wireless printers use a wireless network to connect the device of your choice to the printer. They offer mobility, as you can move them around without the bother of wire length and physical connectivity issues.
One should remember that, a cable powers the printer. The source of the internet comes via a wired connection.
Best Cheap Wireless Printer 2020
1. HP LaserJet Pro M227fdw – Best All-in-One Wireless Printer 2020
The LaserJet Pro M227fdw is a classic Multifunction Printer, which can print, scan, fax and copy. This device supports connectivity through an Ethernet port and Wi-Fi and an extra port to connect using USB. The upper paper tray is a 35-sheet Automatic document feeder.
This wireless printer comes with an impressive fine print. The black texts on a white paper are impeccable, at a rate of 28 pages per minute. This HP printer can print up to 30,000 pages from one cartridge.
The HP software can help you configure the device, to print from emails. The companion app allows supports scanning, printing, and cleaning print head from mobile devices. It is best suited for small offices.
- The printing is smooth and quiet
- It features a user-friendly touchscreen panel
- Strong support from the companion app
- Supports Apple’s Air print and Google cloud print
- 50 sheet ADF
- Known for its sharp print quality
- It is a monochrome printer
- The device is expensive with costly toner cartridges
- It is a bulky unit and occupies a lot of space
2. Brother MFC-J5330DW – Cheap Wireless Printer, Scanner, Copier + Fax Machine
As a four-in-one MFP, this Brother printer acts as a printer, scanner, copier and a fax machine. This design is a perfect fit for small to medium business with both Ethernet and Wi-Fi connectivity. The printer supports Wi-Fi Direct bypassing the necessity of a router.
The companion app allows you to print and scan wireless from a smartphone. The Brother iPrint & Scan application is available for iOS and Android-powered devices. The MFC device offers printing speeds of up to 22 ppm (pages per minute) in monochrome. This printer supports duplex printing.
- The internal cable management is slick
- This A4-sized MFP is capable of printing A3 sizes
- Companion app comes with an ink level indicator
- Speed of printing colour pages is slower than 20 ppm
- The firmware update doesn’t happen via Wi-Fi
- Initial setup is time-consuming
- Capacity to print A3 paper makes this a bulky printer
3. Canon Pixma iP8720 – Cheap Wireless Printer With AirPrint & Cloud Compatible
The iP8720 is a photo printer. The colours offer better quality while printing shades and monochrome prints. Considered as a photo printer, it doesn’t disappoint with standard printing. At the standard setting, it prints at a speed of 14.5 pages per minute. It supports Wi-Fi and USB connectivity.
- This is a budget printer for photo enthusiasts.
- It can print photos of size up to 13 by 19 inches.
- It prints on printable optical discs
- Wireless PictBridge to work with compatible Canon cameras.
- Single paper tray with a 150-sheet capacity.
- The PictBridge doesn’t work over a USB cable
- No Ethernet port
4. Epson Workforce WF-7210 – Cheap Wireless Wide-Format Color Inkjet Printer
The Epson is an entry-level A3 colour inkjet printer targetting micro-business. It offers USB, Ethernet, NFC and wireless connectivity for direct and remote printing. IThe automatic duplex printing works at speeds up to Nine ppm in monochrome and six ppm in colour. This printer comes with a maximum duty cycle of 20,000 pages per month. A recommended duty cycle up to 2500 pages per month.
- It comes with a three-year extended on-site warranty
- The print quality is impressive
- It comes with two trays
- Offers duplex printing in A3 size
- 18 pages per minute for monochrome prints
- 10 pages per minute for colour prints.
- The paper handling can be a little problematic
- No memory card reader
- It doesn’t come with a front USB port
5. Brother MFC-J995DW – Best Cheap Wireless Printer For Home Office
Brother’s MFC-J995DW offers a lot of features fit for a small scale office at a reasonable price. As long as the printing volume using plain paper is low, this model is likely to surprise with its low ink costs. The print, copy, and scan quality are high quality, but the scans are of low-quality. You can connect this printer to your home network via wireless, USB and Ethernet.
- Low ink costs, intuitive interface, good graphics quality
- Low cost per page
- Fast at printing text and graphics
- Quick scanning and copying speeds
- Supports Wireless, USB and Ethernet and NFC
- Fast automatic duplex printer
- Low quality colour-photo scans
- No two-sided scans via ADF
6. HP OfficeJet 3830 – Best Budget Wireless Printer For Home Use
This HP OfficeJet 3830 is easy to set up. It features Wi-Fi-enabled printing, cloud printing, mobile printing, and scanning to various cloud services. The OfficeJet excels in printing graphics and photos. If you’re looking for an inexpensive colour inkjet, that prints graphs/objects in good quality and offers copy/scan functions. This is a value for money product due to its above-average printing performance and the low initial price. It doesn’t feature an Ethernet port.
- It comes with an automatic document feeder
- A user-friendly touch screen
- High yield cartridges
- Supports cloud printing
- It is compatible with Windows, Mac, iOS and Android-powered devices
- The printer doesn’t support Ethernet connectivity
- No duplex printing
- The monthly subscription is a costly affair, which increases the ink cost for higher volumes in the long run
7. Brother Compact HL-L2350DW – Best Low Volume Cheap Wireless Printer
The Brother HL-L2350DW is a good fit if your requirement is a low-volume home/small office. It has one 250-page input tray and 1-sheet override slot. The maximum monthly duty cycle of 15000 pages and the recommended print volume is up to 2000 pages. If you plan to print a few hundred pages in a month, the printer has a low refill cost. Pushing the volume to its recommended capacity will lead to a higher running cost. It is one of the fastest and compact printers available in this price range.
- Wireless printing from your smartphone, tablet, laptop and desktop
- Flexibility to accommodate different paper types and sizes
- 250 sheet tray
- High-speed printing at 32 ppm
- Duplex printing capability
- AirPrint, Google Cloud Print, Brother iPrint & Scan, Wi-Fi Direct
- No Ethernet connectivity
- Requires a cable for initial setup
8. HP OfficeJet Pro 8025 – All in One Inkjet Wireless Printer For Large Volume Office Use
HP OfficeJet Pro 8025 All-in-One Inkjet Printer comes with printing, scanning, copying, and faxing capabilities in a single unit. It comes with a 225-sheet paper tray to handle large volumes. It comes with Inbuilt Wi-Fi and Ethernet connectivity and a 2.7″ colour touchscreen on the front panel to manage the settings. Wi-Fi Direct allows direct connection to mobile devices for urgent printing needs. The self-healing Wi-Fi ensures an uninterrupted connection.
- Automatic document feeder of 35 sheets
- Print speeds up to twenty ppm for black and ten ppm for colour prints
- It supports scan to email via HP smart application
- Comes with a 2.65-inch colour touch screen
- Supports both Wi-Fi and Ethernet with Self-healing Wi-Fi
- Automatic double-sided print
- Doesn’t support printing from USB devices
- No slide-off glass
9. HP LaserJet Pro M15w – Super Small Budget Wireless Printer
The laser jet printers come in larger sizes, but this ProM15w is an exception. The printer targets people who work from their homes. It is one of the cheapest printers around. This is a basic monochrome which works for paper sizes up to A4.
HP LaserJet Pro M15w uses Wi-Fi to connect to your home network. The Wi-Fi Direct, peer to peer network ensures connectivity if your home network is unavailable. The printer comes with a USB port for the worst-case scenarios. Although it doesn’t come with a scanner, the companion app enables your smartphone camera to act as a scanner and print documents wireless. The HP smart app supports cloud printing with Dropbox, Google docs and Evernote.
- Occupies limited space, a little more than an A4 sheet
- Fast printing at 19 pages per minute
- Affordable, easy to use the printer
- Strong application support
- It doesn’t come with duplex printing
- The print resolution is at the lower end 600×600 dpi
- The setup is limited with no LCD
Types of Wireless Pointers
In the last decade, the wires connected computer and printers. And it was a messy affair with the bunch of power cables, keyboard and mouse wires intertwined. As the technology transitioned to wireless ones, different types of wireless printers came into existence.
Wi-Fi Wireless Printers: The most recent brand of printers are Wi-Fi wireless printers. There are several printers in the market with Wi-Fi transceivers built into them. The printer configured to a wireless network enables access to devices connected to the same network.
The devices might require a driver installation to be able to connect to the printer. This is available in the installation package or the support portals. It reduces the necessity of printers in a household with multiple devices and offers mobility.
Printers w/ Ethernet port: Before the Wi-Fi enabled printers, the printers came with an on-board Ethernet port. You can use an Ethernet cable to connect your printer to the router/broadband modem, which registers it to the network. The devices connected to the network can access the printer, provided they are compatible.
Printers w/ USB port: If you have a printer which is neither Wi-Fi enabled nor does it have an Ethernet port. It could belong to the generation of USB based printers. A wireless print server can change them into a wireless printer. These print servers look like small routers that can connect to the printer via USB cable. Although they are inconvenient compared to the others, it can act as a wireless printer enabling access to multiple devices. Companies like HP have come with a wireless kit and adapters to convert your wired printers into a wireless one.
Cloud Printers: With cloud services on the rise, it has expanded its footprint into printing services . While the printers using the previous methods can have problems with compatibility, driver installations, the cloud printing seeks to avoid it. The information exchange happens via the cloud, and it eliminates the need for driver installations.
Companies like HP, Canon and Epson boasts an array of wireless printers which comes with a Google Cloud Print software installed. “Add-printer” in Google chrome gives you access to the printers installed in the network.
Best Cheap Wireless Printer Buyer’s Guide
The printers come in a variety, catered for specific needs. It is diligent to be aware of the requirements, while choosing a wireless printer. Consider the factors mentioned below to assist in choosing a wireless printer to match your preference.
Compatibility: There is increase of portable electronic gadgets in the recent times. With the multitude of products available from various manufacturers, it is essential to look for the compatibility of the printer. Its compatibility with devices like smartphones, iPad and tablets. While gadgets and applications may come with inbuilt support for a printer, a few devices might require installations before integration.
Nature of use: The requirements of a personal/home printer and a business/office printer may vary in terms of volume and output quality. It decides the cost and the maintenance overheads of the printer. These factors weighed in before choosing a printer, will lead to an informed decision.
Cost of refilling: Before choosing the printer, it is imperative to check the cost associated with refilling. The quality/cost of the ink deployed, availability, and technical support affect the overheads of the printer in the long run. It would be futile to ignore the factors while selecting a printer.
Functional Requirement: Do you need a simple printer or the one with multiple functionalities like scanning, copying or faxing? It is necessary to be clear about this requirement. Don’t pay for something that wouldn’t be of much use to you. Don’t hesitate to pay for something that is guaranteed to make things easier. There are All-in-One/Multi-function printers available in the market to meet your demands.
B&W/grey scale/Color: The preferences of printing in black/white or colour may depend on the purpose of the document. An office may print large volumes in b/w and less in colour, but a student may have a substantial requirement of colour printouts. It is necessary to consider the cost associated with the cartridges/toners for both the cases. Printing B/W with a colour cartridge is different to printing it in a monochrome or grey scale .
Printing capacity: The printers come with a monthly duty cycle which denotes the capacity of the printer. Extending the usage and exceeding the limit may be ill advised as it affects the durability of the printer. It leads to additional maintenance/replacement cost.
Connectivity type: Considering the different types of printers we have, one has to understand the requirement better to map usage and preferences with the cost. The market has abundance of choices if you can compromise a feature to accommodate another that meets your requirement within the budget.
Brand: There are several brands which might offer refill options and technical support as a package, which could be profitable in the long run. While the initial cost of a brand might be less, other factors like volume, maintenance, support can translate to cost over an extended period. Sticking to brands supporting large scale operations might work out in your favour.
LaserJet/InkJet: The printers are either a Laser Jet or Inkjet printer, which is the technology deployed in printing. The inkjet printers are cheaper upfront, but costlier with increased volume because of the refilling costs. It’s an affordable option for low volume. Laser printers well-suited for printing documents and have a low cost per page and become profitable with high volume. The inkjet printers are compact compared to most of the LaserJet printers in the same range. There might be exceptions in some cases.
Choosing the best cheap wireless printer
The number of wireless printers available in the market is appalling. It is difficult for a consumer to scrutinise all the models. Understanding the requirement ensures the printers are a good fit. Canon has a wide array of products to cater to your preferences of photo printing. Brother comes with a printer that fits better for an office setting owing to its high yield cartridges. HP has a wide range of products in different price ranges to cater to your specific needs. The printers listed are the best value for money printers with the optimal balance of price and feature. The slight change in the requirement might open up the window to different products.
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Last update on 2020-10-31 / Affiliate links / Images from Amazon Product Advertising API
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