Christmas is approaching and many of you will use the opportunity to buy products for the PC (if not a PC or a notebook). This inaugurated a series of articles which I hope will help in choosing. I do not have the opportunity to test every product on the market, then those who will give general advice in a nutshell. Especially small tips to help those who do not want too much trouble 'after' the purchase. We begin with a device that is often donated: the printer. The common market of people there are only two types of printers: inkjet and laser. The inkjet are those that use tanks normal printing ink. Of this type there are also economic, Print quality may be decent but never was satisfied with their performance in general. These printers have from 2 up to 7 ink tanks. One is dedicated to black, the rest of the other colors. If you decide to buy an inkjet printer it is important to ask how much are the cartridges (also one of the tanks). Often the cost of the cartridge of the color exceeds that of the printer itself. We also propose cartridges 'compatible' ie not produced by the same printer. The results are never so satisfactory as the original. In the inkjet is very important to assess the speed of printing. If your requirement is only that of the printing of pictures taken with digital camera are dedicated inkjet printers. The lasers are those that use a beam of coherent light and a toner for printing. And 'sophisticated technology, and until last year, these printers were very expensive. Today, thanks to their growing popularity, a Laser (black only) costs less than 150 E. The print quality is often very good. The color laser printers, once unapproachable as cost, are now much more accessible. The toner is always expensive. The remanufactured toner (such as compatible cartridges) can have good performance but almost never good. I repeat that these are general considerations for not going to buy in the dark. There are large differences within these same two categories. The price may be an indicator of product quality, but it is better not to trust too much. In summary. Inkjet Pros: cost of purchase, great spread, good for printing photos Cons: cartridges expensive, slow printing Laser Pros: accuracy and speed of printing, good for printing text Cons: Toner expensive, more expensive than inkjet Important caveat: there are devices on the market that contain printer, scanner, and sometimes fax (are these all-in-one all in one). My advice is not to treat the purchase unless you have severe space. And do not forget to use the printer corresponding parts in the event of damage, eg. buy canon printer parts for Canon. Better take specialized peripherals.