Best inkjet printers 2021: top picks for home and office

If you’re looking for the best inkjet printers, whether it’s to act as a home printer or office printer, we’ve got some excellent choices for a wide range of needs and budgets.

When buying a new printer, you’ll have probably noticed that there are two main choices – inkjet or laser. But, which one is the best for you.

The best inkjet printers are great choices for people on a budget, as their upfront costs are usually lower than laser printers. However, it’s important to note that inkjet printers can be costly to run, as you’ll need to buy ink cartridges throughout its lifetime.

The good news is that if you’ve decided that an inkjet printer is the right device for you, then we’ve carefully picked the best inkjet printers money can buy right not, and we’ve taken into account running costs, as well as the upfront cost, print quality and speed of the devices on this page. Picking an inkjet printer that’s economical to run can save you and your business a lot of money in the long run.

We’ve also picked some of the best budget inkjet printers. These brilliantly cheap inkjet printers are affordable, yet don’t skimp on the print quality. You’ll be seriously impressed by how well these printers handle your printouts.

We’ve also got some great all-in-one inkjet printers that handle scanning and photocopying as well.

The best inkjet printers on this page have been hand-picked by us, and with our built-in price comparison tool, we’ll make sure you get the very best deals as well.

This is the first inkjet printer to be sold with three years-worth of ink and service included in the price and it represents great value for money. The printer itself is a capable three-in-one device that can print, scan and copy at a fairly high resolution and turn out crisp and colourful duplex pages at a reasonable rate. It’s not as fast as some of Brother’s other business-oriented printers, but the inclusion of four very high-yield ink cartridges make this the most economical of all the cartridge-based inkjets available. It comes with Wi-Fi Direct connectivity and a colour touchscreen interface for easy operation.

Read the full review: Brother DCP-J1100W All-In-Box

Here we see Epson’s refillable EcoTank system refined and particularly well integrated in this four-in-one printer. With a fairly deep 250-sheet paper tray, a fax facility and Wi-Fi with Wi-Fi Direct as well, this machine would be well suited to a busy home office. It prints reasonably quickly and consistently and the initial price includes enough ink for up to 14,000 mono and 11,200 colour pages.  

It might seem like a lot to pay for such a basic mono print-only device but that £266 (around US$350) includes enough ink to print up to 6,000 pages. Epson’s EcoTank system allows you to top up with black ink from affordable refill bottles that can be recycled more easily than cartridges. The printer itself is equipped with Wi-Fi and duplex printing and it can manage a reasonable speed of 15 crisp and consistent pages per minute. 

The Epson WorkForce Pro WF-4820DWF is a fine example of just how much you can get out of a mid-priced office-oriented inkjet all-in-one these days. This is a full color printer with auto duplex, an automatic document feed, high-res flatbed scanner and a fax modem. It can print faster than some laser printers in its fastest monochrome mode, but being an inkjet, it can also print decent quality photos onto glossy paper. The cost of ink cartridges should be a consideration as they are not cheapest, but this model is still competitive, especially if you sigh up to Epson’s ReadyPrint subscription ink service which mails replacement cartridges to your door.

This all-in-one inkjet comes with all the features you’re likely to need in a home office setup, assuming that is, you don’t fax, and it all comes at a very reasonable price. In addition to Wi-Fi and Wi-Fi Direct, it also offers Bluetooth for all round wireless connectivity. It is also equipped with a touchscreen interface — all be it a fairly small mono affair. Printing is slow, but steady and it has the all important auto duplex mode. It can scan and print at reasonably high resolution, which means good quality photocopies are possible. Replacement cartridges are a little pricey, but for light printing duties, this inexpensive device should serve well.

Canon’s MegaTank printers go from strength to strength and this print-only device proves that refillable ink tanks are the future for inkjet printers. The Canon PIXMA G5050 can duplex print color documents, and there’s room for half a ream of paper in the main tray. It can also print detailed photos onto coated photo paper, but it can do all this at a much lower cost per page than any cartridge-based inkjet. What’s more, the box includes enough black ink for 18,000 pages and color inks for 7,700 pages. 

The Canon MAXIFY iB4150 is an inkjet printer for the small business looking for prompt, reliable color prints with minimal time spent standing beside the printer. With room for a whole ream of paper in its two paper trays and high-yield ink cartridges available capable of delivering up to 2,500 mono, or 1,500 color pages, this printer will take a heavy workload in its stride. It can auto duplex print and handle envelopes and photo paper and any size media up to A4. The bundled setup cartridges might not contain much ink, but Canon’s XL cartridges work out at a very competitive per-page print cost.

Canon’s slick three-in-one printer is particularly user-friendly with its huge touchscreen display and one-touch NFC connectivity for your smartphone. There are convenient slots for an SD card and USB flash drive too. It prints and scans at high resolution and instead of four, it uses six separate ink cartridges to achieve superior fidelity when printing colour photos. It’s a somewhat expensive system, but worth it for the more professional finish.

Canon’s cartridge-free printers are particularly easy to top up whenever you see the ink in the window getting low and they come with plenty more ink in the box, enough to print 7,700 full colour images, or 18,000 in black and white. It’s small enough to sit on a desk without taking over and big enough to hold 250 sheets of paper. Wi-Fi is built in, auto duplex printing is covered and both the print and scan resolutions are good and high. It also prints a beautifully bold photo and crisp text that won’t run, thanks to the use of a pigment black ink.

Read the full review: Canon Pixma G6050

The inexpensive HP Envy 5055 (known as the Envy 5010 in the UK) all-in-one printer looks little different from inkjet models costing twice the price and it is lacking nothing in the way of features. It will print, scan and copy at high resolution and at a reasonable speed and dual-band Wi-Fi is built in. It can be controlled by a decent touchscreen, or via an excellent companion app for iOS/Android devices. A set of replacement ink cartridges costs more than the machine itself, but a subscription to HP Instant Ink keeps even this cost down.