When looking for a small printer it’s most important to know what they exactly are and what types are there for you to choose from. Small printers may refer to laptop printers or printers that are taking up small portion of your desk, but most of the time that’s just matter of an internal battery. To choose the best deal you need to do some research that will take a few minutes but that’s a few minutes well spent, I promise.

1. Decide what you need to get done. Are you looking for a laptop printer you can put on the back seat of your car to be able to print when and where you want or you want to be able to take it with you in your backpack? It’s all up to you, just make up your mind and keep looking for the device you need. Without a goal you won’t know if and when you’re there.

2. Are you looking for color or monochrome devices? Color inkjet printers are available in small size but they cost some money. Expect at least $200 on the price tag for a good one. Most color printers are about 5-6 pounds in weigh and can print about 20-25 pages in black and white a minute. They use normal paper so you won’t have to think about getting anything special.

3. Monochrome printers use one of two common technologies to get the work done. They either print with inkjet, or a thermal paper solution. Just think about old fashioned fax machines. They’re probably as close as it gets to thermal printing. Thermal printer monochrome devices will be as small as two boxes of biscuits and weight about a pound but don’t think they come without a negative side. Looking for the special thermal paper can be frustrating, time consuming and generally unhealthy for your budget, and the price tag on the printer itself is going to be closer to $300 than $200.

4. These printers are not for heavy duty utilization. A popular HP model for example gives 500 pages per month as duty cycle and that’s probably a number you shouldn’t exceed too often. If it sounds geek, let me translate it to English: These printers are for people on the move, using them as an office printer substitute is probably not a good idea.

Small printers are always more expensive than their desktop versions and I’ve yet to see one that was able to print in A3, but they make up for it in compact size. Desktop printers won’t fit the glove box of your car often and though these devices are unable to fax or scan, you’ll still make some good use of them if you know what you need and choose accordingly.