A3 Printer - Finding the Brand That is Right for Your Business

Many of today’s businesses simply cannot function with a printer that is limited to letter size paper. If you print blueprints or schematics, an A3 printer is an essential product for your office. A3 Printers are becoming more popular as their quality has increased to match that of basic home printers. Many are now using these printers to produce posters and even print out artwork to be framed and hung on the wall! Investing in an A3 printer has multiple benefits for your business.

Brands and Cost

Most of the reputable printer companies have competitively priced A3 printers available. Brother makes an affordable, stripped-down model that will get you the basics for occasional large-sized printing. Hewett Packard produces a high-speed A3 printer that delivers killer color for photos and posters. Epson, Lexmark, and Canon also have competitively priced products that meet the needs of most businesses, with the Canon A3 printer coming out on top.

The cost of these printers varies greatly depending on quality and bells and whistles you might need. Some brands can cost up to eight thousand dollars while home office brands go as low as fifty dollars. You won’t need to spend as much for printing monochrome CAD drawings and schematics, but high quality color will take the price up quickly. Keep in mind that these printers have a large footprint – you may need to rearrange your desk or create a special space just for the printer.

Ink jet Printers

Inkjet A3 printers are the most affordable. They have been around for a long time and have seen vast improvements since the early days. However, the low price can be misleading since Inkjet printers go through ink fairly quickly and the cost of replacement cartridges can be very high. You can purchase cheaper, third-party ink cartridges but be aware that the quality is significantly lower than the brand name cartridges. These cartridges will probably be fine for those only printing documents where ‘readable’ is an acceptable quality level.

Since the ink is soluble, be careful when buying an A3 Inkjet printer with the intent of creating posters or framed pictures. A small touch of moisture will cause the colors to run together. Inkjet does however produce the most natural color.

Laser Printers

Laser printers are more expensive in the A3 market but they have plenty of benefits. The high cost comes from the fact that laser printers have to assemble a myriad of tiny dots that fool your eye into seeing full color before ever putting a mark on the paper. When you have an extra large A3-sized print job to deal with, this memory overhead can be extremely high. This means there is extra wait time while the job is compiles in the printer’s memory. However, due to drops in the cost of memory, an A3 laser printer is becoming more affordable every day.

Black and white laser printers are the most affordable and fastest A3 printing solutions. They are excellent options for most small businesses. An A3 color printer is much more expensive. But they are ideal for producing large quantities of quality color printouts quickly.

The options for A3 printers may seem overwhelming, but if you start with a list of your needs and then take a look at which printers can meet those needs, you’ll find the right choice for your business will become obvious.

If you enjoyed this article and found it helpful or interesting, be sure to check out my laminator, binding machines, and used office furniture articles.