Best home printer in Australia 2022: top versatile printers for use at home

It's 2022, and it still looks like we'll be working from home for the foreseeable future, which is why it's more important than ever to have one of the best home printers in your house. Just like in the office, you need a printer in your household that can handle printing without a snag. After all, your time at home is now just as important as your time at work ever was, especially given the current situation and compulsory work from home periods.

The best home printers need to be more versatile than regular printers since the modern household needs to print out a wide range of documents. You'll often find you need to print out forms and documents in your day to day.

+Two-sided printing+Reliable enough for small businesses+Prints, scans, copies and faxes-Loud and slow

The Brother MFC-J6945DW is a monster printer. It’s incredibly efficient, being able to print for up to a year without having to change its ink cartridge. And, it’s also a feature-rich and intuitive machine perfect for any home or small business office. You can print to it from just about any device wirelessly and, for mobile, you don’t even need a network to do it, thanks to its NFC (near field communication) technology that connects directly to the printer. While interfacing with its 9.3cm colour display, you can even print from and scan to the cloud.

Feature-packed inkjet is ideal for home usersCategory: All-in-one color inkjet printer Print speed: 10ppm (mono) Paper capacity: 100 sheetsPaper size: up to A4Weight: 6.16kg+Space saving design+Strong wireless connectivity-Slow print speed-Wasteful tri-color cartridge

The HP Envy Pro 6420 is a compact and inexpensive inkjet with all the features you could ask for from a home office printer. It can print, scan, copy and even fax via your smartphone. The print speed is slow, but it can duplex print and photocopy a stack of up to 35 pages with its inbuilt ADF (automatic document scanner). Instead of an Ethernet port, you have both Bluetooth and self-healing Wi-Fi built in, making mobile printing via HP’s iOS/Android app particularly easy.

We were impressed by its ease of use and overall print quality, while its lack of an LCD display, the limited paper capacity and slow print speed can all be overlooked if you’re printing on a small scale. Just bear in mind that the Envy Pro works best with HP's ink subscription service, Instant Ink which ties you to a (low) recurrent monthly fee.

Read the full review: HP Envy Pro 6420

Great for printing photosCategory: All-in-one cartridge-free printerPrint speed: Black: 15 ISO ppm, Color: 8 ISO ppmPaper capacity: 150 sheetsPaper size: Up to A6Weight: 7.3kg+Cost-effective printing+2 years-worth of ink included+Five-colour ink system works well-Not cheap-Small, non-touchscreen interface-No ADF, NFC or fax

Whether you’re trying to run a more eco-friendly household or you’re just fed up with having to run out go get ink at the most inconvenient times – in the middle of printing your important documents, for example – you might love the Epson EcoTank ET-7750. It's a multi-function printer that sits at the top of the EcoTank product tree and although price is alarming, it's worth every penny. The five-colour refillable ink tank system is a huge improvement in image quality thanks to the addition of a dedicated photo black pigment ink, and the build quality is streets ahead. This machine can also handle A3/magazine-sized paper and boasts fast duplex print speeds and high-resolution photo printing.

Rapid laser printing for the busy home officeCategory: colour laser printerPrint speed: 26ppmPaper capacity: 250 sheetsPaper size: up to A4Weight: 21kg+Fast duplex printing+Prints quietly-Expensive-Primitive interface

This stout laser printer takes up relatively little space, given its high capacity for paper and toner. It means you can keep printing quickly and efficiently and with lower running costs than an equivalent inkjet. The display is rather fiddly, but in all other respects, this colour printer is easy to use and can be relied upon for immaculate mono and colour documents time after time.

Read the full review:Kyocera Ecosys P5026cdw

World’s smallest laser printer is also one of the cheapestCategory: colour laser printerPrint speed: 19ppmPaper capacity: 100 sheetsPaper size: up to A4Weight: 3.8kg+Very small!+Tempting price-No duplex printing-No display

When we tested it, this was the smallest laser printer around and likely to remain so. Being as small and inexpensive as an inkjet, yet with all the speed, economy and consistency of a laser, the LaserJet Pro M15w is in many ways the ideal home printer. It manages to hold one hundred sheets of paper and print on them at the respectable rate of 19ppm. There’s no duplex mode, sadly, and no display, but at this price it’s hard to argue.

Read the full review:HP LaserJet Pro M15w

Epson's best all-rounderCategory: colour inkjet printerPrint speed: mono: 15ppm, colour: 8ppmPaper capacity: 250 sheetsPaper size: up to A4Weight: 6.8kg+Cartridge-free printing+250-sheet capacity+2 years-worth of ink included-It's pricey -Touch screen is quite small

Known as Epson's all-rounder, this all-in-one inkjet printer admittedly costs a pretty penny up-front, but delivers low-cost performance in the long run thanks to its high-yield ink tanks and two years worth of ink included – according to Epson, you can get a total of total of 15,000 text pages (or 12,000 color pages) just from the ink that comes supplied in the box, which is exceptionally great value. If you're looking for a great printer for your home office that will go the distance before needing to be topped up again, the Epson WorkForce ET-4750 is a great option.

Hardworking home printerCategory: colour laser printerPrint speed: 28ppmPaper capacity: 250 + 50 sheets Paper size: up to A4Weight: 23.8kg+Rugged and secure+Rapid print speed-Small display-No Wi-Fi on the DN model

You probably associate Xerox with office printers, but the brand’s entry-level range would suit a home office well, especially one with high print demands. The Xerox Phaser 6510DN has a rapid print speed of 28 pages per minute and room for 250 sheets of A3 in its main tray. This is expandable to 850 sheets and it ships with enough toner for 1,000 colour or 1,500 mono pages. It also has all of Xerox’s usual high build quality and security features. Choose the DNI model if you need Wi-Fi in addition to the Ethernet port.

Laser busting inkjet crams in the features Category: 4-in-1 colour laser MFDPrint speed: 22ppmPaper capacity: 600 sheetsPaper size: up to A3Weight: 21kg+A3 capability +High paper capacity-Inconsistent prints -Less economical than laser

This big Brother blurs the line between home and office printer by combining the fast print speed and high capacity of a laser machine with the superior photo finish of an inkjet. We would recommend it for both applications because although it is smaller than the laser equivalentMFC-L8690CDW, the inkjet MFC-J6945DW can handle A3 paper. There’s really nothing that this fully featured 4-in-1 can’t do and it carries out all tasks satisfactorily.

A fully-featured 4-in-1 scaled down for the small officeCategory: Monochrome laser printerPrint speed: 34ppmPaper capacity: 250 sheetsPaper size: up to A4Weight: 10kg+Fast print speed+Built-in Wi-Fi+Strong security-No front USB-Stingy starter cartridge

If you want all the functionality of a photocopier-style four-in-one, but can’t justify the expense of a premium machine, then the Lexmark MB2236ADWE is likely to fit well in your office. The smaller size is an advantage and the price is attractive. Printing is fast enough and so is the quality provided you stick to dedicated laser paper. It’s a pity there’s no Wi-Fi Direct facility, or an active front USB input, but that aside, you're getting a lot for your money here.

A fast and affordable entry-level laser with low running costsCategory: Monochrome laser printerPrint speed: Up to 26 ppmPaper capacity: 251 sheetsPaper size: up to A4Weight: 5.9 kg+Fast and quiet+Super affordable+Double-sided printing-Monochrome only-No bells or whistles

The Brother HL-L2300D specs are impressive for the price: it promises 26ppm print speeds, has 8MB of RAM on board and delivers a maximum resolution of 2,400 x 600 dpi. The paper tray holds 250 sheets, there's a second single-sheet paper feed for labels, envelopes and thicker media, and the printer can print double-sided without any human intervention. Of course, you won't find any bells or whistles here, but honestly, its simplicity is refreshing. With no overly complex Wi-Fi or cloud features to configure, installing the HL-L2300D is as simple as plugging a cable into it, and that means there's no danger that it'll go in a huff when you need to print something important. It's compact, quiet and impressively fast, and it offers a lot of bang for your buck. Double-sided printing is particularly good to have in a printer that costs so little to buy and run.