Best printer for students in 2020: top picks for printing out coursework

We’re now entering the back to school period, where parents and guardians of students (as well as the students themselves) are looking to buy equipment to help their studies, and this is where our guide of the best printer for students in 2019 is here to help. Buying the best printer for students can help them with their studies, printing out notes, homework and research.

Having the best student printer means you don’t have to go to an internet cafe or library to print out your stuff. This can help save time, money and stress when those deadlines loom.

Of course, if you’re looking for the best student printer you’re probably on a budget, so we’ve picked the best student printers that don’t cost the earth. We’re not just talking about initial outlay when you first buy the printer, but we’ve also picked the best printers for students that have low running costs as well.

With our list of the best printers for students, we’ve put together our top picks that will suit a student’s needs, no matter what educational institute they are at.

If you’re also looking for a laptop, make sure you check out our best laptops for students 2019 guide.

By providing three-years worth of ink and three years service in the price, Brother’s unique proposition would suit students on a three-year course well. The printer itself is a capable three-in-one inkjet 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 Brother’s other business-oriented printers, but the refillable ink tank solution is ingenious and makes it far more economical to run than cartridge-based printers. It comes with Wi-Fi Direct connectivity and a colour touchscreen interface for easy operation.

Brother’s entry-level inkjet 3-in-1 bundles all of the features a student could need in one compact and compact unit. With USB ports front and rear, an SD Card slot and Wi-Fi, it’s well connected, with high print and scan resolutions and a low price point. It prints somewhat slowly at 12ppm in mono, but duplex documents appear crisp and consistent and photos on glossy paper look lifelike enough for a budget model.

Read the full review: Brother DCP-J774DW

This neat three-in-one printer provides virtually every feature a student is likely to need and a few more besides. Colour printing, scanning and photocopying are a given, but you also have an auto-duplex mode so that you won’t waste paper and both Wi-Fi and Bluetooth built in for easy wireless connection to a laptop and/or smartphone. It can print on a particularly wide variety of media up to A4 in size and that includes Canon’s own magnetic photo paper and fabric iron-on patches. It’s an impressively compact unit, so there’s only room for 100 sheets of A4 inside and it’s not the cheapest inkjet out there, but by upgrading the cartridges to XL-capacity carts you can bring down the running cost to a competitive level.

As the smallest member of Epson’s Premium range of home printers, the XP-6105 is well suited to student accommodation. Apart from a fax facility, it is fully featured with Wi-Fi, auto duplex printing, USB and SD card slots all built in and the ability to print on any kind of media from blank CDs up to A4 photo paper. It lacks a touchscreen display, but it’s easy to use and the for the money, the performance is impressive.

Thanks to its two-way cloud-based network connection, you can operate this ‘smart printer’ from your mobile device with or without a Wi-Fi network. It has no USB or Ethernet ports and no scanner either. Instead it relies on wireless connectivity while the Tango companion app harnesses your smartphone’s camera to scan and straighten images for printing. All this allows the Tango X to be smaller than other inkjets and cheaper too. It is particularly user friendly, thanks to the excellent app and can even be voice controlled with the assistance of Alexa. Replacement ink cartridges are rather costly, but you can sign up to HP’s Instant Ink program to make some saving while having replacements sent in the mail.

This inexpensive AIO has all of the features you could need to complete your course, with automatic dual-sided printing, an A4-sized scanner and a copy function. In addition to the USB port, you can connect wirelessly with or without a router using thanks to the inclusion of a Dual-Band Wi-Fi module and Bluetooth. It can print on envelopes, glossy photo paper or any size paper up to A4. As is usually the case, a cheap printer means expensive ink, but a subscription to HP’s Instant Ink service, you can brink the running cost down to a reasonable level and never run out if ink.

At less than £50 (around US$64, AU$90), this fully featured three-in-one printer looks like a steal. It can print scan and auto duplex print and has both Wi-Fi and Bluetooth built in for easy mobile operation. It can handle all kinds of paper up to A4 size and has a clear, albeit mono, display. Ink refils, as you probably guessed, are expensive, but HP’s Instant Ink subscription service eases the cost and currently, a 12-month free trial is included with your purchase.

Canon’s latest range of cartridge-less inkjets includes this entry-level mono printer that’s well suited to student life. Although the initial cost is rather high, the box includes enough ink for 6,000 pages and refills bottles have a much higher yield than cartridges. Perfect for churning out that dissertation. Despite the small size, it can hold 250 sheets of paper in the main tray and another 100 in the rear tray. Duplex printing is quite quick and with Wi-Fi built in, you can scan and print wirelessly using AirPrint and Canon’s excellent PRINT app.

By swapping ink cartridges for bottled ink, this printer has a far higher page yield and much lower per page cost. You can clearly see when the ink reservoirs are running low and with Wi-Fi built in, it’s easy to scan and print using your mobile device. It can auto duplex print and includes an automatic document feed and fax facility.

If you need to print a lot of black and white pages and space and money are limitning factors, this compact print only device has the answer. The up-front price might seem daunting, but it includes enough black ink for 6,000 pages. That’s because instead of a cartridge, you will be filling up a reservoir from the supplied ink bottle yourself and replacement bottles are far cheaper. Wi-Fi is built in and it can turn out duplex pages at a somewhat slow, but steady rate of 15ppm and there’s room in this streamlined machine for 150 sheets of paper.

• Check out our list of the best printers, no matter if they are inkjet or laser