Best Photo Printers For Mac 2015
Multifunction printers have never been better value for money so we’ve reviewed the best all-in-one printer for Mac of 2019.
Multi-use printers represent excellent value for money because not only can they print, they can also scan, photocopy and even convert PDFs to editable text or send faxes from your Mac.
The first printer in the list of 5 best printers for Mac OS X, possess a maximum dimension of 19 by 13 inches for printing photos and its single tray can hold up to 150 sheets of plain paper or a minimum of 20 sheets of photo paper, which should easily suffice for your daily printing needs. HP Envy 4520 Wireless All-in-One Photo Printer with Mobile Printing, Instant Ink ready. The next printer for MAC that we have on the list is the HP Envy 4520 Wireless All-in-One Photo Printer. It is available with Mobile Printing and it is designed to be Instant Ink ready. Like other scanners, a photo scanner is an optical scanner designed to capture information. It then transfers this information to the computer. Unlike a typical printer-scanner combo, however, a photo scanner is specialized and designed to scan photos. They are often smaller than other scanners but give the scanned photos a higher resolution.
Whether you need an all-in-one inkjet color printer or a monochrome laser printer, AirPrint capable printers are the easiest way to print from your iPhone, iPad, Macbook, or Mac! This post may contain affiliate links. See our disclosure policy for more details. I used to buy mid to high end photo printers, but the ink situation just got really expensive. Especially when you have several individual color cartridges, and each one is $10-15 a color.
Since they also allow you to scan and digitize documents, an all-in-one printer can also help if you want to go paperless in your office or home or print checks on your Mac.
Since most AIO printers are wireless nowadays, we’ve focused on those that work wirelessly and allow you to print instantly from not only your Mac but also mobile devices such as iPad, iPhone, Windows Mobile and Android devices.
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Useful To Know: Printers & Macs
Before jumping in, to help you decide which AIO printer is right for you, there are a few things worth being aware of when choosing a printer for your Mac.
Laser vs Inkjet
Although all of the devices featured here can print, copy, scan and fax from Mac, the main thing you’ll probably use it for is printing. You’ll therefore want to choose a printer based mainly on your printing needs because the copy, scan and fax capabilities are similar across the board.
There are two types of printer on the market – inkjet and laser printers. Laser printers are usually more expensive but they are faster and give better print quality, especially for text. Inkjets are almost the same speed nowadays but give better print quality for images.
The best printer for you therefore depends in what you want to use it for. In a nutshell, if you’re mainly going to print lots of text or PDF documents, you’re best going for a laser printer. If you’re going to be doing a serious amount of printing, you’re better investing in a Laser printer such as the HP LaserJet Pro or HP OfficeJet Pro as they print as significantly faster printing speeds.
If it’s photos you’ll be mainly printing, then you’re probably better to go for an inkjet machine. We’ve indicated in these reviews and in the comparison table whether the printer reviewed is laser or inkjet.
Cartridge Costs
Although printers have never been cheaper than today, the real expense with printers is the cost of replacing the printer cartridges. Color print cartridges, especially for laser printers, can be hundreds of dollars so you should bear in mind how much replacement cartridges cost when making your decision.
We’ve made it clear in the reviews and comparison table how many cartridges the printer requires and how much cartridges cost so that there are no nasty shocks after purchasing your printer.
Faxing From Printers
All of the machines featured here can also be used as a fax machine. However, its important to note you will need a landline in your home or office to use this feature. To fax from an all-in-one machine, you need to connect it via a telephone cable to your landline connection – you can’t fax from a printer via your WiFi connection.
If this is a problem, or you’re intending to fax regularly from your Mac, we strongly recommend reading our guide on the best fax software for Mac where you’ll find information on how to fax using online services or via fax apps from macOS.
Other things worth being aware of when buying any kind of printer are:
- Print Resolution (dpi): You’ll find that not many manufacturers make the print resolution (measured in dots per inch – dpi) very clear or even state print resolution on product descriptions. Most print at around 2400 x 4800 dpi but you should check with the manufacturer if this is a crucial issue for you.
- Scan Resolution (dpi): This is usually made clear in most manufacturer product descriptions and most printers scan in 1220 x 2400 dpi but we’ve made the scanning resolution clear in the reviews.
- Double Sided Printing (Duplex Printing): All the wireless printers here can print, scan and copy double-sided, also known as duplex printing. This is very useful as it saves significant amounts of paper if printing on both sides is not an issue for you. If you need single side printing, they can of course do that too.
- Print Speed (ppm): Print speed is measured in Pages per Minute (ppm) and most models can print color at around 10 ppm and black and white printouts slightly faster. The exceptions are the HP LaserJet Pro and HP OfficeJet Pro which can both print significantly faster at 19 ppm and 70 ppm respectively. Note that in the comparison table, we’ve indicated the maximum draft color printing speed per printer – if you print in high quality the speeds will be slightly slower.
- Budget: Multifunction printers can range from under $100 and $200 suitable for general home use to those designed for small businesses costing anything up to $1500.
A Note On Brother Printers & Macs
Although PC users experience less problems than those on Mac, we’ve found that the Brother brand of printers cause the most problems on Mac and are best avoided. The drivers either often do not work properly with OS X or are not updated regularly enough by Brother to be compatible with the latest versions of macOS.
This either results in no communication between Mac and Brother printer or the printer refusing to print in draft mode thus using valuable ink on documents that don’t need to be printed in high quality. Wireless printing in particular can be very hit and miss when trying to print to a Brother printer from Mac.
The wireless range between Brother printers and Macs is also often so poor that you need the printer sitting right next to the Mac in order for wireless printing to even work. Coupled with frequent paper jams when using Brother printers alongside Macs, in our experience, it’s advisable to avoid the Brother brand of printers on Mac.
With all this in mind, here then are our reviews of the best printers for Mac of 2019 in order of ranking. To help in your decision, you can see how they compare head-to-head in the comparison table at the end.
1. HP Envy 7855
The HP Envy 7855 is an all-in-one printer that can print, scan, copy and fax. It’s geared more at those that want to print lots of photos from mobile devices as it allows you to instantly send and print images from mobile devices.
If you want to do things like serious photo, video, or audio editing, this is the Mac for you. Video editing software for mac.
For those that hate running out of printer ink at just the wrong moment, the HP Envy 7855 will also automatically order new print cartridges delivered to your door you when it detects ink is getting low. The HP Instant Ink replacement service can also work out up to 50% cheaper than buying cartridges in store although they’re generally reasonably priced anyway.
The HP Envy also features a touchscreen which allows you to print and even edit photos that you’ve sent from your Mac, iPhone or iPad. The scanner is slightly low in resolution with a maximum of 1200 dpi but it’s enough for general use. If you’re intending to print a lot of photos and mobile printing is important to you, the HP Envy 7855 All-ln-One Photo Printer is a very good choice.
2. Epson Workforce WF-370
The Epson Workforce WF-370 is an multi-function inkjet printer that claims to offer “performance beyond laser”. It offers the fastest printing speed we’ve seen in an inkjet and Epson claim it’s 40% cheaper to run than a laser printer due to the cost of its cartridges. The Epson Workforce is also one of the few printers that can perform not only double-sided printing but also double-sided scans, photocopies and faxes if that’s important for you.
There’s a touch screen that allows you to send and print photos from mobile devices as well as perform general management of the printer. The Epson Workforce range use 5 cartridges although they are considerably cheaper than for the Canon PIXMA. Annoyingly though, if you’ve run out of color cartridges and just want to print in greyscale, it won’t let you – you must have a full set of cartridges loaded before it will let you print anything at all.
The Epson Workforce is WF-370 is a good choice if you need a printer for Mac or PC that can copy, scan and print double-sided and has reasonably priced cartridge refills.
3. HP LaserJet Pro M281fdw
The HP LaserJet Pro is a more affordable version of the excellent HP Office Jet Pro (see review below). Although more expensive than most consumer printers, it’s an excellent mid range all-in-one machine that’s also suitable for small businesses and home office use. The HP LaserJet Pro prints at an impressive 19 pages per minute (ppm) which is significantly faster than the Canon, Epson or HP Envy (although much slower than the HP Office Jet Pro).
One other useful feature you’ll find in HP LaserJet Pro that you won’t find in most printers is the ability to scan to email. This means you can scan a document and send it directly to someone’s email address by typing it in the touchscreen. You can even send documents to multiple email addresses directly from the printer itself. The main difference between the HP LaserJet Pro and the more advanced HP Office Jet Pro is that it’s a lot slower and a smaller paper loading cartridge (150 sheets compared to 500 sheets in the Office Jet Pro). Print cartridges are also a lot cheaper for the HP LaserJet Pro.
If you’re looking for a small office, small business or home office all in printer for your Mac, the HP LaserJet Pro provides very fast printing with office printer standard features at an affordable price.
4. HP OfficeJet Pro X576dw
The HP OfficeJet Pro X576dw is by far the most expensive printer featured here but it’s also the most robust and designed for offices that need a top quality solution. The HP OfficeJet Pro is extremely fast printing up to 70 pages per minute (ppm) compared to an average of 10 ppm for the other printers featured here. Although it can be used for printing photos, the HP OfficeJet Pro is designed more for large volume document printing rather than photo or leisure use.
The HP OfficeJet Pro can hold up to 500 sheets of paper – far in excess of any of the other printers featured here – with an option for an additional 500 sheet paper tray. This is because the HP OfficeJet Pro is designed for offices that print up to 4,200 pages per month and as a result, cartridges aren’t exactly cheap.
5. Canon PIXMA MX922
The Canon PIXMA range is one of the best-selling all-in-one printers ever and has been successful due to a combination of good value for money, reliability and high quality results. The Canon Office and Business MX922 is one of the most popular general all purpose printer for Mac users and offers a good combination of high print quality, scan, copy and fax functionality, pleasing aesthetic design and competitive pricing.
The Canon MX922 is a printer, scanner, copier and fax machine and can be used either wirelessly or via a USB cable. There’s a 35-sheet document feeder and it even includes software to design and print your own custom CDs, DVDs, and Blu-rays. For photo buffs, there’s a neat HD Movie Print feature which can take a frame from an HD movie recorded on a compatible Canon EOS, PowerShot, or VIXIA camcorder and print it as a photo. For those that love to make home movies but also like to have photos of their favorite moments, this is a really useful feature.
The MX922 can scan and photocopy documents in high-resolution of up to 2400 x 4800 dpi optical and can also be used as a fax machine if you’ve got a landline connection. Cartridges for the Canon PIXMA MX922 are a bit expensive since there’s 5 of them in all. Overall, the Canon PIXMA MX922 is solid, reliable, produces quality results and is good value for money.
Like the HP Laserjet Pro, the HP OfficeJet Pro also supports scan to email and double-sided duplex printing, copying and scanning of documents.
The one drawback however is that the Canon doesn’t quickly update drivers for its Mac products. At the moment, the Pixma range works with High Sierra but not with Mojave as the drivers still aren’t available.
If you’re looking for the perfect mid-office multi purpose printer for your Mac or PC, the HP OfficeJet Pro is a superb machine.
The Best Printers For Mac Compared
| Canon PIXMA MX922 | HP Envy 7855 | Epson Workforce WF-370 | HP Laserjet Pro M281fdw | HP Office Jet Pro x576dw | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Printer Type | Inkjet | Laser | Inkjet | Laser | Laser |
| Auto-Sheet Feeder Capacity | 35 | 25 | 35 | 150 | 500 |
| Double Sided Print/Copy/Scan | |||||
| Max Print Speed Color | 10 ppm | 9 ppm | 10 ppm | 19 ppm | 70 ppm |
| Max Scan Resolution dpi | 2400 x 4800 | 1200 x 2400 | 1200 x 2400 | 1200 x 2400 | 1200 x 2400 |
| No. of Print Cartridges | 5 | 2 | 5 | 4 | 4 |
| Full Set Print Cartridge Cost (approx) | $50 | $25 | $20 | $130 | $400 |
| Easy To Use Touchscreen | |||||
| Mobile Printing | |||||
More Info | More Info | More Info | More Info | More Info |
Conclusion
Which printer you choose depends on whether you’re just a general home user or need to use it for business use.
If you’re an occasional home user that just needs to print, scan and copy every so often, the HP Envy is an excellent choice.
If you’re somewhere in between and planning to maybe use it for business purposes, you can’t go wrong with the HP LaserJet Pro because it offers room for you to grow while offering home users the speed and features that businesses enjoy.
If you’re a small business or power user, then don’t hesitate to get the HP OfficeJet Pro as the speed in printing alone is well worth the extra money for frequent print jobs.
Whichever one you choose, the great thing for Mac users is that unlike on Windows PCs, setting-up a printer is very easy. Macs will automatically install printer drivers for most major manufacturers as soon as you connect the printer to your Mac meaning whichever one you choose, installing it on Mac is far easier and painless than on PC.
Depending on the model and manufacturer, PC users meanwhile may have to download drivers from the manufacturer website or install software that comes with the printer.
If you’ve got any comments, questions, problems or experiences with any of the Mac compatible printers reviewed here, let us know in the comments below.
BestAirPrint PrintersiMore2019
Although printers may seem like old technology in today's world, they still are a reliable way of obtaining a physical copy of documents. Even if you are mostly using your iPhone or iPad for your everyday computing, AirPrint capable printers will keep you printing with no problems. Here are some of our favorites!
Fast monochrome printing: Brother HL-L2350DW
Staff FavoriteIt doesn't have a catchy name, but the Brother HL-L2350DW is one of the best minimalist printers you'll find. It can reach speeds of up to 32 pages per minute and has a 250 sheet capacity tray. For pure black and white printing, you'll find no better option.
$120 at AmazonAll-in-one ink printer: HP OfficeJet Pro
The HP OfficeJet Pro 9025 is an all-in-one printer that is perfect for the office. Able to fax, scan, copy, and of course print, the OfficeJet Pro 9025 won't leave you wanting more. Plus, with the ability to do 24 pages per minute, both in black and color, you will always have all your documents as soon as you need them.
$180 at AmazonAffordable all-in-one laser printer: Brother Compact Laser All-In One Printer
It's perfect for a small office environment, offering paper-saving features like two-sided printing, and time-saving features, like a 35-page capacity document feeder for unattended scanning or faxing. You can load up the MFCL2710DW with up to 250 sheets, so you don't have to fill the paper tray continually (unless you print a lot). This is the perfect all-in-one solution for your small office.
$140 at AmazonPremium color all-in-one: Canon Color imageCLASS
Although the Canon Color imageCLASS MF634Cdw isn't the cheapest option out there, it's one of the best color laser all-in-one printers on the market. With a print speed of up to 19 pages per minute, high-capacity toners, and wireless capabilities, this printer will keep up with you and your printing needs. It even has single-pass scanning so that you can scan both sides of a document at the same time!
$285 at AmazonTop tier photo printing: Epson SureColor
If you take a lot of photos on your iPhone or DSLR, you may want to print your favorite photos for safekeeping. The Epson SureColor P600 will help you do just that. With some of the best photo-quality printing around, 5760 x 1440 dpi max resolution, and Ethernet connection capable, this print won't let you down. The SureColor P600 is a little bulkier than some of the other inkjet printers around, measuring about 16.7 x 24.2 x 32 inches, Make sure you have a big enough space to accommodate it.
$620 at AmazonAffordable option: HP OfficeJet 3830
If you only need a printer for personal use and don't feel the need to spend a lot of money, this cheap, all-in-one, printer fits the bill. With an easy-to-use LCD display, you can have your printer set up in just minutes! Printing, faxing, copying, and scanning and all Wireless connectivity you could need. No matter what device you print from, the HP OfficeJet 3830 has got your back.
$100 at AmazonMost portable: Canon Pixma iP110
Sometimes the ability to transport a printer from place to place can be useful when working in multiple locations, and Canon Pixma iP110 is one of the best compact printers out there. It can print about nine pages per minute, and you can even get a battery for it, so you don't even have to plug it in!
$150 at AmazonLaser, ink, color, or monochrome
Whether you need an all-in-one inkjet color printer or a monochrome laser printer, AirPrint capable printers are the easiest way to print from your iPhone, iPad, Macbook, or Mac! Of course, that doesn't mean you shouldn't know what you're getting yourself into before you buy one.
Laser printers are faster and less expensive over time than their ink counterparts; however, they typically are more expensive upfront. If you print a lot of documents, forms, school assignments, or anything else that doesn't require color, the Brother HL-L2350DW is probably one of the most straightforward and useful printers I have ever used.
Ink printers are usually cheaper to buy upfront, but the cost of ink replacements over time can usually make those savings mute. Of course, if printing in color is important to you, ink printers can offer you some pretty vibrant photos. The HP OfficeJet Pro may be an ink printer, but it can do everything you can possibly want a home printer to do, including copying and scanning.
Best Wireless Printer For Mac
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