The home-printer category has quietly become the most competitive one in the entire printing industry. Manufacturers are cross-shopped by everyone from parents printing school worksheets to remote workers filing daily invoices to hobbyist photographers making gallery prints. The winners are versatile, cheap to run and — increasingly — beautiful to look at on a shelf.
Here are the five home printers we've tested in the last twelve months and would recommend to friends, family and our own households.
2026 top pick
Epson EcoTank ET-2850 — the best combination of running cost, print quality and reliability under $300 we've measured in seven years of testing.
What changed for 2026
Three shifts worth knowing about before you buy:
- Ink tanks are now mainstream. Every major brand now offers an entry ink-tank model under $250. Prices have dropped ~35% since 2022.
- USB-C arrived. A handful of 2025/2026 models ship with USB-C connections — useful for tablets and modern laptops without dongles.
- Wi-Fi 6 is now standard. Even entry printers ship with Wi-Fi 6, cutting the "printer offline" issues that plagued the previous generation on 5 GHz-only routers.
How we tested
Each printer spent 90 days on our test bench with a scripted workload we've refined over four years: 1,500 pages of mixed content per month (60% text, 25% mixed colour, 15% photo), across three different papers, from Windows, macOS, iOS and Android devices. We measured first-page-out time from cold, sustained speed across long jobs, cost per page from real yield, and quality scores from a blinded panel.
Best overall — Epson EcoTank ET-2850
Price: $299 • Type: Ink tank inkjet MFP • Rating: 9.4/10
The ET-2850 hits an almost impossible sweet spot: cheap to buy, absurdly cheap to run, and prints beautifully. In 90 days of testing across two households (one with kids, one home office), it produced 4,500 pages, jammed twice and used about $6 of ink. That's the closest thing to a "set and forget" home printer we've tested.
Pros
- Cost per page under 1¢ colour
- Auto-duplex, ADF and a nice touch panel
- Well-behaved on iOS and Android
- Silent — quieter than most fridges
Cons
- Slower first page out than lasers
- Ink bottles look intimidating (they're not)
Best value — Canon PIXMA G3270 MegaTank
Price: $229 • Type: Ink tank inkjet MFP • Rating: 8.9/10
If the Epson is too much printer for you (or is over budget), the Canon G3270 delivers 90% of the experience for $70 less. No ADF and slightly lower photo quality, but the cost per page is essentially identical and the printer is a hair smaller.
Watch out: Canon's mobile-app experience isn't as polished as Epson's, and firmware updates have historically taken longer to arrive.
Best for photos — Canon PIXMA PRO-200S
Price: $649 • Type: 8-ink photo printer • Rating: 9.2/10
The PRO-200S is genuine gallery-quality printing at a genuinely home-friendly footprint. Eight dye-based inks (including grey and photo black) produce prints that rival anything commercial. It'll also print on fine-art paper up to A3+ (13" × 19").
This isn't the printer for grocery lists — running cost per photo print is ~$1 – $1.50 depending on paper. But for hobbyist photographers, framed-print budget-wise it wipes the floor with any online lab.
Best compact — HP OfficeJet Pro 8135e
Price: $189 • Type: Compact inkjet MFP • Rating: 8.5/10
At 15.7" × 13.2" it fits on a bedside table. Auto-duplex, ADF, decent 20-ppm speed and HP's Instant Ink subscription (which, on truly consistent low usage, is a bargain). The main compromise vs the pricier picks above is per-page cost outside the subscription — under 12¢ colour with subscription, 30¢+ without.
Best all-in-one for a family — Brother MFC-J4535DW
Price: $349 • Type: Refill-cartridge inkjet MFP • Rating: 8.8/10
Brother's INKvestment technology puts massive cartridges into a normal-sized inkjet body — ships with enough ink for a year of family use. Print, scan, copy, fax (yes, still), auto-duplex ADF, a 100-sheet second tray for photo paper. The perfect "shared family printer" that no one has to babysit.
Honourable mentions
- HP LaserJet MFP M234sdw — the best mono laser under $300 for anyone who almost never prints colour.
- Epson EcoTank ET-4850 — bigger sibling of our overall winner, adds an ADF fax and 2-line touch panel for the same running cost.
- Canon PIXMA TR7020a — cutest small printer we've tested, punchy above its price but expensive per page over time.
FAQ
How long should a good home printer last?
Under normal home use, expect 5 – 8 years from an ink-tank inkjet, 6 – 10 years from a mono laser. Cartridge inkjets are typically closer to 3 – 5 years.
Should I buy Wi-Fi or Ethernet?
Wi-Fi is fine at home. Ethernet is worth it only if you have a wired network already run to where the printer will sit — it eliminates the small chance of "printer offline" issues on busy networks.
Are the printer brands' apps any good in 2026?
Epson Smart is best-in-class. HP Smart is fine but pushes subscriptions hard. Canon PRINT is functional but dated. Brother iPrint&Scan works but feels unloved. All four print the same job from AirPrint (iOS) and Mopria (Android) without the app installed.