The 1720dn Laser Printer offers a lot of features and flexibility for an accessible price. A small office with big ambitions won't have to leave this printer behind.

The MFC-685CW is a burger with the lot, with wireless connectivity thrown in for good measure. Its print quality for documents is adequate, and its scanning capability is good, but it's not a good choice for photo prints.

Oki's B4400n deserves credit for its performance and its sturdy design. Even the seemingly ho-hum monochrome printer category has hot competition, though, and other printers offer as many or more features for less money.

Suitable for the small or home office, this unit will print, copy, scan and fax, and it also has handy camera photo printing features. Its output was a little dull, even on glossy paper, but nevertheless adequate for typical business use.

The imagePROGRAF iPF6100 should put an end to talk that Canon can't compete in the professional photo printer market. With a better ink formulation and an improved printhead, this 12-ink printer produces excellent images on both glossy and fine-art media. Canon needs to clean up its profile management, but overall, the iPF6100 is a very good printer that fits in well in a competitive market.

The HP A626 delivers plenty of bang for your buck. With enough photo-editing and enhancing features to keep the kids occupied, the easy-to-use HP A626 produces crisp, colour-rich prints. Pity about the drying time, though.

The G610 keeps things simple for Kodak camera owners. While prints are inexpensive, output is merely adequate.

Large volume colour printing is very affordable with this unit. It's compact and easy to physically set-up and use, and it's very fast, but its print quality in colour mode is by no means perfect.

Neither of the new Lexmark wireless multifunction printers is cheap, but the wireless features are well worth looking into. Add to that great ease of use and very competent print quality, and the X4850 is a very decent model for photo enthusiasts.

The Lexmark X6570 isn't particularly cheap, and there is obviously the question of whether the text output would really be good enough for business work -- in many cases, a cheap mono laser would be a better bet. However, you do get good fax facilities and colour printing, and if the wireless facilities are of interest then this makes a very decent buy.

The Canon Pixma iP4500 offers excellent speed, sharp print quality, and useful features for a good price. If your colour output tends more toward photos and graphics than charts and memos, it could be a good alternative to an entry-level colour laser.

One of the better budget inkjet printers, the Canon Pixma iP3500 hits the spot offering above average performance and a decent amount of features for a fair price.