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Best inkjet printers 2026: top picks from our expert tests

The best inkjet printers money can buy. These Best Buy printers will give you top quality, superb-value prints, whatever your printing needs.
Oliver TrebilcockSenior researcher & writer

Oliver’s expertise in computing, printing and tech helps you get the most for your money 

Man in a light blue shirt placing colorful document pages in a printer, focused on his task in a cluttered office environment

In this article

The best inkjet printers turn out good-looking text prints and stunning photos, capably handling any home printing job. That’s why many people choose an inkjet over a laser printer.

These days, the majority of inkjet printers are all-in-one models, meaning they can copy and scan, as well as print. You can still buy standard inkjet printers, that only print, if you prefer.

Mono inkjets are only able to print in black-and-white and are rare these days. Most models support colour printing, including the five brilliant Best Buy inkjet printers ibelow.

They have all gone through our rigorous lab tests to assess their quality, speed and running costs, so you won’t get caught out by nasty hidden costs. Keep scrolling to see some of the poorly rated inkjets we've also tested. These models simply aren't worth your cash.

Go straight to our inkjet printer reviews to compare all of the models we have tested.

Best inkjet printers (all-in-ones)

Only logged-in Which? members can view our recommendations in the table below. If you’re not yet a member, join Which? to get instant access.

Best standard inkjet printers

Not found the inkjet printer for you? Browse all of our printer reviews

Inkjet printers by type

Inkjet printers by price

Why you can trust our inkjet printer reviews

Oliver Trebilcock

Oliver Trebilcock, Which? printers expert, says:

'Ink costs vary by an astronomical amount depending on the model you buy. For typical printing, we find some models cost well over £100 in ink per year, while others cost as low as just £1 in ink per year. 

'It's very easy to fall into the trap of an attractive cheap printer that seems great initially, only to burn a hole in your wallet in no time – especially when our research shows most people keep printers for 10 years or more. Our comprehensive printer reviews leave no stone unturned, so you won't end up with a frustrating costly printer that proves a headache in years to come.

'Our reviews detail exact ink costs for printing 20 text pages and 10 colour graphics pages a month – so you then have an idea how much to expect to pay depending on your level of printing (it'll be more for photos, less if you mainly print text). Plus our lab experts are dab hands at spotting printers that don't offer the quality you deserve – or are frustrating to set up and use.'

Inkjet printers to avoid

Most people buy an all-in-one inkjet printer. It's the most popular type and there are loads to choose from, with prices ranging from around £40 to more than £500.

Even with a cheap model, you could end up paying more than you bargained for - pick the wrong inkjet and your costs can spiral. High ink usage can mean poor value prints and constantly replacing cartridges. You could easily spend more on ink cartridges than the printer itself, if you pick the wrong model.

In our expert testing, we find a huge variation in the performance of printers. Some models, featured below, fall very short in terms of print speed, print cost and features.

Not sure whether you need a laser or inkjet printer? See our guide to inkjet vs laser printers.

How does an inkjet printer work?

Electronic data is mapped by the printer's driver software to each of the printer's inks and where they should be sprayed. Motors carefully move the print head in two directions across the page to deliver the ink through its many tiny nozzles (or jets, hence 'inkjet'). By combining microscopic dots of the printer's ink colours side-by-side, different colours and shades are produced, blending on the page as it dries.

The exact way the ink is delivered from the nozzles onto the paper differs, with Epson using a different technology from Canon and HP:

  • Thermal delivery (used by Canon and HP): a heating element in the nozzle flash-boils ink to create a vapor bubble. As this bubble expands, it acts as a piston to force microscopic droplets of ink out onto the paper. When the heating element is turned off, the opposite happens and the bubble's collapse pulls fresh ink into the nozzle chambers. This is why Canon trademarked the name 'Bubble Jet'.
  • Electrical delivery (used by Brother and Epson): these use piezoelectric crystals, which are polarised ceramics (similar to how a magnet is polarised metal, with differential electric charge). Electrical current introduced onto a piezoelectric crystal behind each nozzle in the print head causes this crystal to flex and change shape. This squeezes the ink out of the nozzle with high precision.

Avoid the printer ink wasters

Print quality is incredibly important in a printer, but so is printing cost. Opting for a budget printer is a false economy if the cost of printing turns out to be sky high.

Other reviewers can calculate printing costs based on printing hundreds of pages at a time. We know the majority of home printer users print only a few pages over a period of weeks, so we recreate this in our tests to give you more accurate running costs.

This can highlight the excessive amounts of ink some inkjet printers use on cleaning their print heads - it more than quadruples printing costs in some cases. Any printer that wastes lots of ink resulting in high printing costs can’t be a Best Buy.

Laser printers tend to have lower running costs. If you're looking to print letters and office documents, head to our round-up of the best laser printers.

Inkjet vs laser printers