The Best All-in-One Printer: Our Picks Tested

The Best All-in-One Printer: Our Picks Tested

As a design agency, we're not hardware reviewers. We're brand specialists. So why are we writing an article about all-in-one printers?

Because our clients—entrepreneurs and small business owners like you—are getting ripped off.

You spend good money on a professional logo and brand identity, and then you print your sales proposal on a £50 consumer-grade inkjet. Your sharp, vector logo comes out fuzzy. Your carefully chosen brand colour (Pantone 293 C) prints as a streaky, sad-looking purple.

You blame the printer. You blame us. But the real culprit is the disconnect between what you see on your screen and what a printer is built to produce. 

This gap is the single biggest frustration in the graphic design field. It's the entire complex challenge of design for print vs digital, and most business owners fall right into it.

This isn't a “Top 10” list compiled from Amazon reviews. This is a battle-hardened guide from a team that lives and breathes print. We've “tested” these printers in the real world: by seeing the messy, expensive, brand-damaging results they produce for our clients.

My goal isn't to sell you a printer. My goal is to stop you from buying the wrong one.

Why Your Printer Is Lying to You

Before we get to the “picks,” you need to understand the market. The printer industry is built on a few models of deception. Here are the ones that drive me mad.

1. The Ink Subscription Trap (HP Instant Ink, Epson ReadyPrint, etc.)
   It's not a service; it's a leash. You are paying a monthly fee to let a corporation monitor your print habits. They hold your printer hostage, disabling cartridges remotely if you cancel the service. The cost-per-page “savings” are illusory and lock you into their ecosystem forever. It's a terrible deal for a small business that needs agility.
2. The “Photo Printer” Seduction
   You're a business, not a holiday photographer. A “photo printer” uses six or more dye-based inks to achieve subtle gradients. They are slow, the ink is astronomically expensive, and the prints smudge if you look at them with a damp eye. It's the exact opposite of what you need for a sharp, durable business letterhead.
3. Ignoring the Total Cost of Ownership (TCO)
   You bought a £60 all-in-one? Congratulations. You've just bought a device whose sole purpose is to sell you £40 ink cartridges that print 120 pages. That's the “razor and blades” model. A £300 laser printer with a £70 toner cartridge that prints 3,000 pages is dramatically cheaper. Do the maths.
4. “Wireless Printing” as a Feature
   In 2026, Wi-Fi is not a feature; it's a baseline expectation. But don't be fooled. Sending a 500MB print-ready PDF of your new brochure to a cheap AIO over Wi-Fi is a recipe for a 30-minute coffee break. The processing chip and RAM in the printer are more important, and they are never advertised.
5. The “Scanner” Myth
   The “scan” function on most AIOs is a joke. It's a low-resolution, 72dpi “scan-to-email” feature designed for speed, not quality. It's digital garbage. It's useless for archiving important documents and completely unusable for providing us with a “high-res” copy of your old logo.

The SBO Delusion: The “One Printer to Rule Them All”

The core problem is this: small business owners try to make one machine do three different jobs.

1. Job 1: The Admin Workhorse. Printing invoices, contracts, shipping labels, and internal reports. (Keywords: Speed, Cost, Reliability, Text Quality).
2. Job 2: The In-House Proofing Tool. Checking a design before it goes to a professional printer. (Keywords: Colour Accuracy, Layout, Media Handling).
3. Job 3: The Final Production Machine. Printing the actual client-facing brochures, flyers, and business cards. (Keywords: Bleed, Quality, Heavy Stock, Finishing).

Here's the hard truth: You cannot buy an all-in-one printer that excels at all three of these jobs.

An AIO that's cheap to run (Job 1) will have terrible colour (Job 2). An AIO with great colour (Job 2) will be ruinously expensive and slow (Job 1). And no AIO in existence can do Job 3. Final production is what professional print shops are for.

Your “all-in-one” is, at best, an “all-in-two” for Jobs 1 and 2. The secret is knowing which job to prioritise.

Laser vs. Inkjet: The Only Choice That Matters

This is the fundamental divide. Get this wrong, and nothing else matters.

🖨 Inkjet: The Colour-Rich Artist

An inkjet printer sprays tiny droplets of liquid ink (either dye or pigment) onto paper.

• Pros:
  • Excellent Colour: Unmatched for blending and photo-realistic images.
  • Low Upfront Cost: The printers themselves are (deceptively) cheap.
• Cons:
  • Cost: The TCO is insane. Cartridge-based ink is one of the most expensive liquids on Earth.
  • Clogging: The print heads can clog if not used properly. Constantly.
  • Speed: Glacially slow for large documents.
  • Durability: Most inks (especially dye-based) are not water-resistant. A wet finger will smudge your invoice.

A designer's verdict: Avoid cheap cartridge inkjets at all costs. The only exception is the new class of “Ink Tank” (or “EcoTank”) printers. These use large, refillable reservoirs of ink, finally fixing the TCO problem. They are the only inkjets a small business should ever consider.

🔥 Laser: The Text-Based Workhorse

A laser printer uses a focused beam of light to fuse powdered toner onto paper.

• Pros:
  • Sharp Text: Unbeatable for crisp, black text. It looks professional.
  • Speed: Incredibly fast, especially for multi-page documents.
  • TCO: The cost-per-page is a fraction of an inkjet's. One toner cartridge lasts for thousands of pages, not hundreds of pages.
  • Durability: Toner is water-resistant and archival. It doesn't smudge.
• Cons:
  • Colour: Colour laser printers are good, but they struggle with subtle photo gradients. They can look “waxy” or show “banding.”
  • Upfront Cost: A good laser AIO costs more to buy.

A designer's verdict: This is the default choice for 90% of small businesses. For the vast majority of SBO tasks—invoices, letters, reports, contracts, and even “good enough” layout proofs—a laser printer is faster, cheaper, and more professional.

The “SBO Printer Job Matrix”: What Are You Actually Printing?

Stop searching for “best AIO.” Start defining your primary job. I've broken it down for you.

Our “Tested” Picks: The Right AIO for the Right SBO

I'm not giving you 10 options. I'm giving you three archetypes that we've seen work (or fail) with our clients.

🏆 Pick 1: The SBO Workhorse (For 80% of Businesses)

Category: Colour Laser All-in-One

Example Models: Brother MFC-L37xx Series, HP Color LaserJet Pro MFP M283/M479

This is the machine you should probably buy. It's the “sensible car” of printers.

It solves the Admin & Logistics job perfectly with sharp text and a low TCO. It also solves the Internal Design Proofing job well enough. You can print a 20-page proposal in 90 seconds, see that the layout is correct, that the text is readable, and that the colours for your charts are generally right.

Why we “tested” it: Clients who own these are self-sufficient. They don't call us complaining that their invoices look blurry. They print their letterhead drafts, we make text revisions, and the world keeps spinning. Its “good enough” colour is its best feature—it stops you from thinking you can print your own marketing brochures, which you shouldn't be doing anyway.

🎨 Pick 2: The Designer's Proofing Tool (For the Visual SBO)

Category: Business “Ink Tank” All-in-One

Example Models: Canon MAXIFY GX Series (e.g., GX7020), Epson EcoTank Pro ET-58xx Series

This is the only inkjet I will recommend. Its superpower is solving the TCO problem. You buy bottles of ink for around £15 that last for over 6,000 pages.

This machine is for the SBO who must see accurate colour. A photographer, a realtor, a restaurant owner, printing menu mockups. It excels at the Colour-Critical Mockup job. The pigment-based inks deliver vibrant, durable colour that is the closest you'll get to a professional print proof without spending £5,000 on a RIP.

Why we “tested” it: We have one. This is what we use at Inkbot Design for our own internal proofs. However, be warned: it's still an inkjet printer. It's slower than a laser, and you must use it regularly to prevent clogging. It's a specialist tool for a visual-first business.

⚙️ Pick 3: The “I Just Need It to Work” (The Solo-preneur's Secret)

Category: Mono Laser All-in-One

Example Models: Brother MFC-L27xx Series

This is my secret-weapon recommendation. It's the cheapest, fastest, and most reliable option on this list. It prints black-and-white text, and it scans. That's it.

This machine forces you to adopt the correct SBO print philosophy: Do your admin in-house; outsource your branding.

You use this machine for 95% of your work: invoices, contracts, reports, and shipping labels. For that other 5%—your business cards, your brochures, your flyers—you send the file to a professional printer (or, better yet, let your design agency handle it).

Why we “tested” it: My most successful clients run this setup. They've stopped wasting time trying to make their logo print the right shade of blue on a £100 machine. They focus on their business and let us, the print design specialists, worry about colour management.

A Real-World Test: A Tale of Two Clients

Still not convinced? Let me tell you about two clients.

Client A: The Cafe Owner.

She bought a £70 HP consumer inkjet AIO to “print her own menus.” Her brand has a beautiful, deep navy blue. The printer, using its three-colour “composite black,” prints it as a muddy, streaky purple. The dye-based ink smudges when a customer with a damp hand touches it. She reprints her menus every three days. She is “saving money” by spending thousands on ink cartridges and devaluing her brand with every customer.

Client B: The Business Consultant.

He bought a £250 Brother Mono Laser AIO. He prints 50-page reports that are crisp and easy to read. He scans client contracts with the 50-page duplex ADF. When he needs new business cards, he sends us an email. We handle the design, manage the print production, and have the finished, perfect cards delivered to his door.

Who is running a smarter business?

Decoding Printer Jargon That Actually Affects Your Brand

Don't get lost in specs. Here are the only four that matter to a business owner.

The Inkbot Philosophy: Stop Printing, Start Proofing

Here is my final piece of advice: Your all-in-one printer is not a production machine.

Stop trying to produce your final, beautiful, brand-perfect marketing materials on it. It will fail, and you will get frustrated.

Your AIO serves as both a proofing tool and an administrative tool.

Use your laser printer to check for typos, layout errors, and text flow issues. Use your ink-tank printer to check for general colour direction.

Then, for the final, impressive, client-facing piece? That's what we're for.

Don't let a £100 printer devalue the £10,000 brand you're trying to build. When you work with a professional print designer, you're not just getting a PDF. You're getting expertise in colour theory, paper stock, finishes, and file preparation—the 99% of printing that your AIO completely ignores.

If you're tired of your logo printing the wrong colour, the problem probably isn't the printer. It's the file, the setup, and the strategy.

Your Next Step

Stop tinkering with print driver settings and start focusing on your business. If your branded materials look anything less than premium, it's time to let a professional handle your print.

Discover our print design services to see how we bring digital brands to life through powerful physical materials.

Or, if you're ready to get started, request a quote and we'll help you build a brand that looks as good on paper as it does on-screen.

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