Tech & Gadget

Archive for the ‘Printer’ Category

There is a long list of items and equipment you have to purchase when setting up an office (be it in huge company or a home office). But because of the many different multifunction printers out in the market today, you buy just one printer to do the work of three or four different equipment. Now, you can have a printer, scanner, fax and copier in one convenient, space-saving package. And you don’t have to look further than a Canon printer if you want one of the best multifunction printers for your office.

The Canon ImageClass laser printer is just one of the many practical multi-function printers out in the market today. It’s no bigger than a regular printer, but its compact size houses a scanner, printer, copier and even a fax machine. Wondering whether this is the perfect printer for your home office? We’ll give you a rundown on the pros and cons of the Canon ImageClass printer to help you decide.

What Users Like About this Printer

Affordable, fast and quiet are just some of the good points of this all-in-one printer. Let’s go through some of the other pros of buying a Canon ImageClass printer.

– At less than 0, this Canon printer is priced lower than other multifunction laser printers available today. And, since it is a laser printer, you save more per page of printing. It also prints black and white documents better than an inkjet at 1200 x 600 dpi quality.

– This machine prints at a pretty fast rate of 21 pages per minute. It also warms up quickly, so you don’t have to wait that long to print once you power up the machine.

– This Canon printer is bundled with basic OCR software that can recognize words on scanned documents. This means that you can scan books or documents and convert these images into text. This is great if you want to preserve your own books into a handy e-book library.

– It also comes with its own software that makes it perfect for a home office. Its Canon Multifunction Toolbox offers a variety of options to make scanning and printing easier and faster. The best feature of this software is that it automatically resizes a scanned image based on the file size you want. It can also scan straight to email or instantly convert your scans to PDF.

What Users Don’t Like About this Printer

Despite its affordability, some users would rather buy a different multifunction printer because of their bad experiences with this Canon printer. Here are some of the quirks of the Canon ImageClass printer.

– You can’t print colored documents or photos using this printer. Well, it is a laser printer after all. If your home office has a lot of requirements for photos and colored documents, then you’d be better off buying a colored inkjet Canon printer instead.

– Its fax machine is harder to operate than the fax of other multifunction printers. Some users report that it hangs up on calls even if it is set on manual mode. It also does not have an automatic paper feeder, which can be a nuisance for those who fax frequently.

– The Canon ImageClass printer isn’t the sexiest beast out on the market. This could be a turn-off if you want aesthetically pleasing machines for your home office.

– There is no duplexing function in this Canon printer. This makes it extremely hard to print back-to-back pages. Other users have also commented that the heat from the laser printer curls up the pages, resulting in paper jams if you turn the page over to print on the back of it.

The Canon ImageClass printer is one of the most affordable multifunction printers out in the market today. It’s a steal at 0 and can work well for your home office, if you only require black and white documents and doesn’t have to print back-to-back pages often. Its fax feature may have some quirks and it may not be the sleekest-looking printer around, but it’s a good option for a small, basic office.

Printer manufacturer statistics is one of the most important things that consumers look into when it comes to buying printers. These statistics can be determinants as to who is providing the best printers in the whole world. You can use all these trends to choose the best printer brand for you.

What do latest statistics say about a printer manufacturer in a worldwide scale?

According to Gartner, Inc., the printer shipments for the first half of 2009 market showed a 20.2% decline when compared to the first half of 2008. This is despite having shipped around 51.3 million units during this said period. This decline was attributed to the fact that home users and business were having a tight budget when it comes to IT spending. This was even aggravated by the fact that low-end inkjet printers as well as page printers became more popular to home offices and small businesses as well as in small and medium businesses worldwide.

Gartner recorded the following downfall in shipment statistics for each printer manufacturer for the first half of 2009. This list includes printers, copiers and multifunctional products.

1. HP printers. Despite ranking first in terms of the highest shipment for the first half of 2009, HP’s 20.5 million shipments showed a -26.4% growth when compared to 2008.

2. Canon printers. Ranking next to HP, Canon shipped around 9.8 million units worldwide. This is still a -9.8% growth for the company.

3. Epson printers. With 7.3 million shipments, Epson had a -17.4% growth for the first half of 2009.

4. Brother printers. The company’s 3.2 million printer units shipped worldwide showed a -8.6% growth.

5. Samsung Electronics. Samsung’s worldwide shipment for the first half of 2009 reached 2.5 million units but was still -10.5% lower than its shipments during the first half of 2008.

Gartner’s US statistics by printer manufacturer

During the second quarter of 2006, Gartner recorded a decline in shipments for US printers and multifunction products. This was attributed primarily to poor photo printer sales. The decline was estimated at around 4.2%. While this seems to be a low percentage, the decline still shows a big bearing on the statistics of the US printer industry.

The other reasons for the decline include the fact that end users began to use retail stores to print photos. Instead of investing on a photo printer, consumers found it a wiser move to spend for photo printing outside of their own homes or offices. They think of this as a cheaper option.

Another cause to the decline is the fact that digital camera and PC manufacturers stopped giving consumers the privilege to get free printers for their product purchase. This is even the worst scenario as it had greatly impacted the lowering of overall shipments within the USA. As proof to this decline, the following statistics were recorded by Gartner.

1. HP printers. HP was still the leading printer manufacturer in the market in terms of second quarter shipments for the year 2006. With 3.1 million units sold in the second quarter of 2006, HP held 56.4 of the total market share and posted 9.7% growth.

2. Canon printers. Canon also posted a 14.2 growth for its 10.5% market share representing 577 thousand printer units shipped during the second quarter of 2006.

3. Lexmark printers. While Lexmark strived to show 13.0% market share (notably higher than Canon), the company’s 715 thousand units of shipment showed -20.9% growth.

4. Dell printers. The company showed the highest percentage of decline at 51.3% equivalent to only 442 thousand units shipped for the second quarter of 2006. This was after the company discontinued offering its free single-function inkjet printer bundling programs to give way to multifunction inkjet printers.

5. Epson printers. The company showed -34.9% growth with only 392,000 units shipped for the second quarter of 2006.

While it is not yet clear as to whether US printer manufacturer sales have declined in the US for last year, the statistics for 2006 may have a great impact on the trend for 2009. But, if you will try to browse into these company’s efforts to provide more affordable options for their end users, it is quite fitting to note that they are doing the best they can to at least increase their share in the market.