Printer trends: what you told us

HP confirmed its status as the market’s leading manufacturer in responses to the online survey that underpins our Business Buyer’s Guide to printers.

More than 40% of survey respondents were HP users, and a quarter of this group owned their printers for more than three years. Vintage black and white LaserJet series 4100, 4200, 4300 and 4500 series models performed particularly well in the survey

The average age of printers across the whole survey was just over two years, and among this group, HP boasted a very favourable user rating of 3.43 out of 4 among this group, but the manufacturer’s overall satisfaction rating (3.29) was brought down slightly by a lower score (3.22) among those who have owned their HP printers for less than a year.

Second place in terms of market share and user satisfaction went to Canon with a 17% share of the survey sample and an average satisfaction rating of 3.35. Canon’s user base was split into two main camps: the bigger proportion used desktop inkjet machines such as MP600 series or the Pixma 850 multifunction device, the most prevalent single model within our survey data.

The most successful supplier in terms of user satisfaction was Brother, which achieved an admirable 3.44 rating out of 4 from just over 10% of the participants in our survey. Brother’s success was based on high user ratings for reliability (3.62), value for money (3.54) and speed (3.31).

Full product shortlists are available in the following PDF download files:

Desktop - No fuss, printers for small office environments typically printing fewer than 20 A4 pages a day. Prices: £60-£300.

Workgroup - Shared printers for small office networks, where users are happy to look after the printer themselves and print fewer than 100 pages a day. Prices: £100-£370.

Networked - Expandable machines able to cope with the varied document needs of 15+ people and workloads in excess of 100 pages a day. Prices: £200-£2,400.

Enterprise - Printer/copiers that can churn out several hundred pages a day, with automated paper-handling and finishing capabilities; often leased on a predictable “per click” cost per page. Retail prices: £400-£3,000.

Follow each link to find out which printers best match your document needs and budget.

Sponsors
The Business Buyer’s Guide to Printers series is published in association with Kyocera Mita and OKI

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