Multifunction Printers Do It All
The Duo look at all-in-one print-fax-scan combo devices.
So
you’ve got everything tucked away on your computer–photos, videos,
your great American screenplay. How do you get them off your hard drive
and somewhere you can use? This week the Duo are talking
aboutoutput–awful word, crucial computing function.
We’ll start
with printers. These days, many people simply use the printer that came
free with their computer–buy a machine, get a printer, pay and pay and
pay for ink. Steve feels that a lot of people will do fine with a free
or cheap inkjet, but Angela’s a veteran of one of those deals and still
feels that the company should have paid her to take that piece of junk
off its hands. (The Duo contemplated staging a public execution of said
inkjet on camera, but cooler heads prevailed and Angela was encouraged
to dispose of the device in a manner both dignified and legal.)
But
there are better printers to be had: a special category of peripherals
that will cost you money, but may be a better deal for a lot of people.
That would be the category of so-called multifunction printers, or MFPs
for short. Some companies call them AIOs, which sounds too much like
“Old MacDonald” for Steve but means, of course, “all in one.” And
Steve, always up for butchering a Romance language, likes to call
thempluribus unums–“from many, one.” (Yes, we know he left out theEat
the beginning.)
Call them what you like, these gadgets not only
print but do at least two other useful things, and sometimes three. You
can use them as scanners to capture pages of text or photos to your
computer (yes, that would be input, but work with the Duo here), or as
copiers; some also toss in the ability to do faxing, which is getting
to be less important in the age of digital documents, but sometimes
it’s still handy.
So: It prints! It copies! It scans! Maybe it
faxes! Now, what would you expect to pay for one of these beauties? A
million dollars? A thousand? How about a hundred? It’s true, and that’s
an amazing deal.