Buying guide — phones and electronics

How to choose a printer for home or office

The price of the printer itself may be the smallest part of what you pay. What decides the choice is how many pages you really print a month, colour or black and white, and what each page costs you in ink or toner over the printer's life.

Published 2026-10-13

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Start from what you actually print

Ask three questions before opening any product page: roughly how many pages do you print a month? Is most of it black-and-white text, or photos and colour homework for the children? And do you need copying and scanning for official documents? Someone who prints a few pages in school season is different from a small office printing daily, and the right printer for one can be an expensive choice for the other.

What actually makes the difference

• Cost per page, not printer price. Divide the cartridge or ink price by the number of pages it prints. The figure to use is the page yield measured under ISO standards: ISO/IEC 24711 for colour inkjet cartridges and ISO/IEC 19752 for monochrome laser toner. These standards let you compare models on the same test pages, but your real printing may use more if it is photos or dense pages.
• Cartridges and their terms. Some printers accept only the maker's cartridges, and some are sold with a monthly ink subscription. Read the terms before buying, and know whether cartridges are easy to find in local shops.
• Printing from the phone. Apple's AirPrint lets iPhone, iPad and Mac print without installing drivers, and Mopria-certified printers let Android devices print without a brand-specific app. Look the model up in Apple's list or with Mopria before buying.
• Two-sided printing. Automatic duplex saves paper and helps with homework and long documents. Make sure it is automatic, not manual.
• Scanner and feeder. If you scan multi-page documents for paperwork, choose a multifunction printer with an automatic document feeder (ADF). Scanning page by page on the glass gets tedious quickly.
• Connection. Wi-Fi is convenient for several devices at home; a cable (USB or Ethernet) is steadier in an office. Check the printer works with your computer's OS and that the maker has current drivers for it.
• Tray and paper. A4 is the norm here. A larger tray means fewer refills in an office, and support for other sizes helps if you print photos or labels.

What matters in Saudi Arabia and the Gulf

• Power and conformity. A printer is an electrical appliance running on 230 volts in the Kingdom. The Gulf Technical Regulation for Low Voltage Electrical Equipment sets safety and electromagnetic-compatibility requirements before appliances are placed on the market. Buy a version made for the region and check the plug (type G).
• Heat and dust. Store cartridges and paper somewhere air-conditioned, not in a hot storeroom, and cover the printer if the room is dusty. Heat and humidity affect print quality and paper.
• Arabic. Printing Arabic depends mostly on the software you print from, not the printer, but an Arabic printer screen and app make setup easier for older family members.
• Warranty and ink supply. Ask about the in-Kingdom warranty and confirm the model's cartridges are sold locally. An imported printer with no ink available here is a burden, not a saving.

Home or small office

For a home printing schoolwork and some documents, a Wi-Fi multifunction printer with two-sided printing is usually enough, with ink tanks if colour printing is regular. For a small office printing contracts and invoices every day, a mono laser is faster and steadier, with a document feeder for scanning and network printing for everyone. And if printing at home is very rare, consider whether the nearby print shop is better value than a machine whose ink dries in the drawer.

Common mistakes

• Choosing the lowest-priced printer, then paying several times its price in cartridges within a year.
• Buying an inkjet for someone who prints once every two months, so the ink dries and the heads clog.
• Comparing a standard cartridge's yield with a high-yield cartridge without noticing.
• Assuming the printer prints from a phone without checking AirPrint or Mopria support.

Before you pay

• Estimate your monthly pages and the share in colour.
• Work out cost per page from the cartridge price and its standard yield.
• Confirm cartridges are sold locally, and any subscription terms.
• Check duplex, the scanner and the feeder if you need them.
• Look the model up in the AirPrint or Mopria lists.
• Check the warranty, the regional version and the plug.

Current products are on the Products page and codes on the Coupons page. If you are setting up a study desk, see the laptop guide.

Limits of this guide

• This is a criteria guide, not a laboratory test. WESH has not tested any product itself and reports no measurements.
• No price appears here. Price, availability, shipping and tax are set by the merchant at checkout.
• Specifications change between revisions and markets. Check the merchant product page and the manufacturer spec sheet before buying.
• WESH gives no medical or engineering recommendation and does not warrant that a product suits your case.

Brand names are the property of their owners and are used to identify a category, not to imply endorsement or partnership.

More guides in the WESH guide; current products on the Products page and codes on the Coupons page.