Purchasing Laser Printer, Essay Example

It is always a good idea to make a list of our needs as well as budget requirement before making a purchase. The planning process ensures that we have carefully identified all the features we need in a product. This also helps us save time in research because we have already identified the search criteria. A simple search on the internet will reveal hundreds of choices from several manufacturers including Brother, Canon, Epson, HP, and Lexmark. While wider choices are good for the consumers, they also require greater time resources to make an informed decision.

My next step was to visit online retail websites to get an idea of different laser printer models and their prices. I noticed a list of 325 printers on Best Buy’s website (Best Buy) only. After I used the search criteria on Best Buy’s website, I was able to narrow down the list to only nine printers because I wanted a laser printer with wireless connectivity. I used the search criteria on other retail websites such as TigerDirect (TigerDirect) as well to save time.

I compared the printers’ features against their prices to get a better idea of overall value and once I had compiled a list of about five printers, I went to reputable product review websites such as CNET (CNET) and Consumer Reports (Consumer Reports). On websites such as CNET and Consumer Reports, We can read both editor reviews as well as those of individual consumers which gave me a good idea of product features and overall consumer experience. I finally settled on Hewlett Packard Officejet Pro 8600 laser printer which could be had for under $300 on Sears website (Sears) while providing professional-class printing results.

References

Best Buy. Laser Printers. 10 September 2012 <http://www.bestbuy.com/site/olstemplatemapper.jsp?_dyncharset=ISO-8859-1&_dynSessConf=4646026017096333494&id=abcat0511003&type=category&usc=abcat0500000&cp=1&sp=-bestsellingsort+skuid&nrp=50&qp=crootcategoryid%23%23-1%23%23-1~~q70726f63657373696e6774696d6>.

CNET. Printer. 10 September 2012 <http://reviews.cnet.com/printers/>.

Consumer Reports. Printer Reviews from Consumer Reports. 10 September 2012 <http://www.consumerreports.org/cro/printer-reviews.htm>.

Sears. Hewlett Packard Officejet Pro 8600 Premium eAllinOne Wireless Color Printer. 10 September 2012 <http://www.sears.com/shc/s/p_10153_12605_00303125000P?srccode=cii_37736649&cpncode=32-156083562-2&=&sid=IDx20120809x00001a>.

TigerDirect. Laser Printers. 10 September 2012 <http://www.tigerdirect.com/applications/category/category_slc.asp?CatId=244>.