Best Home Printer

(This article is one of 16 parts in our Tech Awards 2024: Editor's Choice content series.)

The humble home printer

As a parent, I find myself printing even more at home than in the office, as my kids seem to be bringing home numerous digital forms and assessment papers that need to be printed out for their homework submissions. As such, I find myself turning to my trusty home printer more often as I try to keep up with my children’s educational assessments. 

The modern printer isn’t a one-trick pony in that it needs to do more than just print. While many of us have moved beyond faxing, we still like our printers to be an all-in-one device that can print, copy, and scan. 

Personal and office needs will vary greatly, but this year, we looked at four printers and divided them into home and SOHO (small office, home office) usage based on their price, features, size, performance, cost of printing, and whether they were available in Singapore within the last 12 months (our qualification period is between Q2 2023 to Q2 2024).

• Best Home Printer
• Best Value SOHO Printer

Best Home Printer

For this year, we looked for new home printing options priced below S$300, as most general home printer buyers are cost-conscious these days. Unless one has specific needs, such as A3 printing or the need to print photos often, it's unlikely one would dish out for a more expensive printer in the current climate.

While this year's contenders both happened to be ink tank printers, they are also rather similar in nature. Both were rather feature-deficient, lacking an ADF (automatic document feeder) and a paper cassette. In this day and age, certain functions are expected to be present and not be withheld for the sake of differentiation. Unfortunately, this is what the market offers, and we've marked them down accordingly. Even the build quality was rather basic. So, given their similar design, it boiled down to performance to really set them apart.

Nominees:

• Canon Pixma G3770
• HP Smart Tank 580

Note: While Brother and Epson do have printers of this class, they do not have newer models to meet our Tech Awards' segment qualification.

 

And the winner is...

In our tests, we found the HP Smart Tank 580 was able to deliver solid results in the print and scan quality tests, despite being a fraction slower than its competitor. Its blacks were darker and clearer, with well-formed and smudge-free serifs. Test image colours turned out to look crisp and sharp without being oversaturated or looking too rich. Its scan results were also colour-accurate with deep blacks. 

Additionally, while both printers use an ink tank system, the HP Smart Tank 580 has slightly lower running costs compared to the Canon Pixma G3770.

Note: You can buy the HP Smart Tank 580 from the official HP online store, Amazon, Shopee, Lazada, Courts and Challenger.  

*Note: Prices and ratings listed are accurate during individual product evaluation. Street prices might be lower at the time of awards recognition.

A few words about the other contender...

One feature we liked about the Canon Pixma G3770 is that it had a small, but still serviceable LCD.

In terms of print and scan speeds, the Canon Pixma G3770 performed reasonably well. At no time did we feel like were were waiting too long for the results. However, while the print results for the Canon Pixma G3770 weren’t bad, we felt that the text printed was just a bit too light when compared to our reference test text. We noticed the same on our image test print where we felt that the colours were slightly muted compared to HP's output. On the other hand, the scan test came out looking too rich, with the colours bleeding into each other.

Note: You can buy the Canon Pixma G3770 from the official Canon online store, Shopee, Harvey Norman, Courts and Gain City.

Best Value SOHO Printer

While there may seem to be little difference between the needs and requirements of a home and SOHO printer, there are some small variations. 

An ADF is required for a SOHO-class printer. Automatic duplex printing and scanning are appreciated if present, but they are not mandatory in our value-class SOHO printer segment, which we're assessing this year. What's more important is the ability to scan multiple sheets at once without the need to change sheets manually. SOHO usage would also mean there's a decent level of print activity and thus the printer should also have a paper cassette that can hold a ready supply of paper for everyone's printing or copying needs. It also needs a reasonably sized LCD screen to facilitate print or scan options and to connect to wireless networks easily. Lastly, we wanted them to be priced at less than S$600 to meet the Value SOHO segmentation. 

Fortunately, the two we tested have these and more.

 

Nominees:

• Canon Maxify GX2070
• HP OfficeJet Pro 9130E

Note: While Brother and Epson do have printers of this class, they do not have newer models to meet our Tech Awards' segment qualification.

And the winner is...

Our pick is the Canon Maxify GX2070 printer.

Both of the printers in our Best Value SOHO printer category could print, copy, scan, and fax. They each had an ADF, an LCD screen, and a paper cassette tray, in addition to the rear input option for feeding thicker paper on an ad hoc basis.

While both printers performed well in our print test, the Canon Maxify GX2070 was just a hair behind the HP OfficeJet Pro 9130E in terms of speed, but its print quality was in no way inferior. Our test image was sharp and crisp, with rich, accurate colours that were true to life without being too saturated. The printed text was black, sharp, and crisp, with serifs clearly formed without any signs of splotchiness.

In terms of scan quality, there was little to tell apart in our text scan test, but the image test scan outcome of the Maxify GX2070 was found to be slightly 'too rich' or vibrant than the expected input we gave it for scanning. 

Unfortunately for the HP OfficeJet Pro 9130E, it doesn’t come with refillable ink tanks, which means that the overall running costs for the Canon Maxify GX2070 worked out so much cheaper resulting in its win due to a strong value proposition. 

Note: You can buy the Canon Maxify GX2070 from the official Canon online store, Lazada, Harvey Norman, and Gain City. 

*Note: Prices and ratings listed are accurate during individual product evaluation. Street prices might be lower at the time of awards recognition.

A few words about the other contender...

We liked that the HP OfficeJet Pro 9130E came equipped with two 250-page paper cassettes meaning that you could print large volumes easily if needed. Additionally, its LCD was also large and easy to navigate. 

In our print tests, the HP OfficeJet Pro 9130E’s test image colours were a tad too rich but not over-saturated or with any overt signs of bleeding. Its text was black and crisp, with no smudges around the serifs. During our scan test, it performed well, with the test image being colour-accurate and true-to-life with text that was clear and easy to read.

However, its running costs were too high. The individual colours of cyan, yellow, and magenta ink cartridges cost S$39.90 each, while an individual black ink cartridge costs S$62.10. This means it would cost S$181.80 to replace all four at once. Even then, their print yield is up to 800 pages, according to HP. This printing cost really hurts the overall proposition of the HP OfficeJet Pro 9130E.

Note: You can buy the HP OfficeJet Pro 9130E from the official HP online store, Lazada, Shopee, Challenger, and Courts.

(This article is one of 16 parts in our Tech Awards 2024: Editor's Choice content series.)

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