Ease of use and low-cost consumables help give this printer an edge over the competition.

It won't replace your graphics department's high-end colour laser printer, but for drafts and for other kinds of office users it's worth considering.

Fuji Xerox's Phaser 8560MFP has a multitude of features to aid small office productivity. With the addition of a competent built-in Web server, this multifunction is a good addition to the office.

While there are some minor flaws, Fuji Xerox's DocuPrint C1110 is a great colour laser printer with fantastic everyday colour quality.

Canon touts the Canon Pixma MX850 as a multifunction powerhouse, and it's worthy of such a description. On top of being fast, easy to use, and excellent at outputting documents and photos, the MX850 includes features such as a duplexer and an automatic document feeder — making it an office-friendly printer. Despite its less-than-impressive scanner output, the Pixma MX850 is a stellar choice.

Epson's CX8300 provides impressive scanning and printing performance in a small, inexpensive package.

The RX690 lacks the intuitive software interface of its competitors, but makes up for this in its functionality and photo customization options.

Despite some slight flaws, the Canon PIXMA MP970 is the perfect multifunction device for photo enthusiasts and home users.

It's rare that a product – even a very good one – balances function, innovation, and performance, but that's what Hewlett-Packard has done with the Designjet Z3100 Photo Printer. The ease of use, excellent print quality, and smart design touches have been combined into one of the best professional printers we have ever seen.

The SCX-4500 is an attractive, pleasantly quiet, and user-friendly MFD that turns in solid all-around results. The lack of an output tray is irritating, but the Samsung SCX-4500 would be a good fit in your personal office.

If you need to print large volumes of colour documents each month, this printer is ideal. It's perhaps the best colour laser printer in its class and at $1699, the initial outlay for this unit isn't extravagant.