9 Best Color Multifunction Printer | Laser Speed, Tank Savings

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The tight-footprint all-in-one that finally kills the manual page flip — auto duplex, ADF, and dual-band Wi-Fi for hybrid desks.

This printer fits on a shelf where a laser never could, thanks to its 14.8″D x 14″W x 8.2″H footprint — 40% less bulk than the Brother MFC-L8930CDW. It takes up to 8.5″ x 11″ sheets with or without borders, so standard letters and borderless photos both work. A 2-cartridge hybrid ink system (separate black and color cartridges) means you swap only the color that runs out. Automatic 2-sided printing saves paper, and an ADF (auto document feeder) scans a stack of originals in one pass.

What wins owners over is color output — the prints land sharp and vivid for a machine in this tier, and buyers commonly note it comes ready to go with both black and color ink in the box. Setup is another strength; most people are printing within the first half hour. Wireless printing through the Canon PRINT app, Apple AirPrint, or Mopria lets you send jobs from your phone without touching the printer, and the 1.42″ monochrome OLED screen keeps ink levels visible at a glance.

The trade-off worth knowing: two things keep this from being a workhorse. Color runs at 9 pages per minute and black at 14 — half the pace or less of a laser, so bulk printing drags. And WiFi occasionally drops on restart, which one owner fixed by assigning a fixed IP through their ISP support. For a household printing homework, forms, and the occasional photo, both are easy to live with. As the review pages sum it up: “It’s perfect for me. Wanted a small ‘cute’ printer that’s easy to use.”

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A trim home-office box with a 225-sheet tray, a phone-like touchscreen, and a 3-month subscription trial that keeps ink coming.

The 13.29″D x 18.11″W x 9.17″H body sits flat on most home-office desks, which makes the 225-sheet input tray — more than four times the capacity of the Canon Megatank G3290’s 50-sheet feed — genuinely useful. That means fewer mid-job refills during a long copy session. Print speeds run up to 20 pages per minute in black and 10 in color, with an 18-second first page; the 2.7-inch color touchscreen mirrors the phone interface most people already know.

Print quality is the headline here — home-office users praise how clean color documents, reports, flyers, and presentations come out, and the setup flow through the HP app is genuinely quick. The machine also touts HP AI to strip out web-page clutter before printing, dual-band Wi-Fi that can auto-resolve its own connection glitches, and HP Wolf Essential Security to protect your network.

Two things keep this from a perfect score. Some owner reports flag that the Wi-Fi occasionally drops when the printer goes idle — one workaround is dropping an Ethernet cable to lock the connection down. Others note that color photos need you to adjust the printer settings manually, since the defaults favor document output. Neither is a reason to skip it; both are worth knowing before you unbox.

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Cartridge-fed inkjet that punches above its cost — the 1,200-page black cartridge and 500-page color set stretch further than they should.

The INKvestment angle is the whole point here. The printer ships with a 1,200-page black cartridge and 500-page color cartridges in cyan, yellow, and magenta — a bigger welcome pack than most inkjets this side of a tank. Combined with a 150-sheet paper tray, 20-page automatic document feeder, and automatic duplex printing, it approaches small-office territory on a home-office budget. Speeds hit up to 16 pages per minute in black and 9 in color.

Owners consistently praise the value — cartridges last a long time, the ink bill stays low, and the sharp color and black output both draw compliments. The 1.8-inch color display is small but works, and the Brother Mobile Connect app handles printing, copying, scanning, and device management from a phone or tablet.

Setup splits people cleanly. When it goes well, Mac users report it as the easiest of the major brands. When it goes badly — and this happens to a minority — the mandatory wireless password can’t be disabled and the tiny screen makes the OK button and touch icon easy to confuse. The workaround: if setup stumbles over Wi-Fi, plug in a USB 2.0 cable and connect that way; the machine accepts USB 2.0 and prints fine.

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The rare home-office all-in-one that still faxes — plus a year of Instant Ink to keep toner out of your thoughts.

Fax is the differentiator. Very few color inkjets at this tier still include a built-in fax — most home-office models drop it entirely, which makes the 8139 the only machine in this group with fax, print, scan, and copy all in one. Specs match its sibling, the HP OfficeJet Pro 8125: 20 pages per minute in black, 10 in color, 18-second first page, 2.7-inch touchscreen, automatic duplex printing, an auto document feeder, and a 225-sheet input tray.

Home-office buyers keep praising the print quality, easy setup, and quiet operation — one common review says “easy to set up, quiet and even faxes.” The included 1-year Instant Ink trial is longer than most, so HP ships replacement cartridges to your door before you run out; HP says the subscription cuts ink costs by up to 50%. For connections, you get dual-band Wi-Fi plus Ethernet and USB. HP AI trims clutter from web pages and emails before printing, so recipes and articles come out clean.

The honest friction: some owners hit Bluetooth pairing snags during setup, and a few find the older HP models need fresh drivers to work with the new machine. The bundled setup cartridges are also tester-sized — a common gripe that they run dry quickly. Wire or Wi-Fi the initial connection and keep a spare cartridge on hand, and neither bothers you long.

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Two years of ink in the box and tanks you refill from bottles — the color-print saver for anyone printing photos or projects.

If you print a lot, the Megatank G3290’s GI-21 bottled ink keeps costs down — pigment-based black for sharp text and dye-based cyan, magenta, yellow for vivid color. Canon includes up to 2 years of ink in the box, enough for up to 6,000 black and white pages or 7,700 color pages from a single set of inks. The 2.7-inch color LCD touchscreen handles setup and navigation, and automatic 2-sided printing is built in.

Owners gravitate toward this machine for one reason: the ink. Printers using bottled refills mean the ink cost per page drops off a cliff compared to cartridges, and the sheer volume you can print before refilling surprises people. The colors land bright and accurate for photos and documents, Wi-Fi setup is straightforward, and many users run through hundreds of prints before the ink windows start to drop.

Two caveats are worth flagging. The single 50-sheet top feed means you refill the paper more often than the tank models with drawer trays — and if you want to print a batch, plan for that. The default color profile also runs a little washed out for some, which the Canon app lets you tune to taste. Neither is a reason to look past a printer that saves as much ink as this one does.

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A laser built for the home office that prints 1,500 pages a month without breaking pace — or breaking down.

Xerox targets this one squarely at small-office printers who move between 1,500 pages a month and the color laser zone. Speeds run 24 pages per minute in both black and color — a speed that leaves the entire inkjet group behind — and the machine includes starter toner with 500 print yield. High-yield cartridges drop the running cost further for anyone who prints steadily, and the design supports 2.4 GHz Wi-Fi plus Apple AirPrint and Mopria for wireless printing from a phone, tablet, or laptop.

Setup walks you through the Xerox Easy Assist App, which is meant to sidestep the classic driver hunt. On a fast 2.4 GHz network the app connects quickly; one owner described the Wi-Fi finding the printer immediately. Build quality is where Xerox earns its reputation — users who bought after switching from inkjets describe it as a durable, reliable brand and note the machine feels like the more professional option. Color graphics and presentations come out sharp, and the compact footprint lets it fit on a home-office desk where a bigger laser would not.

The honest catch here is scanning. The scanner handles one side at a time even though the printer prints duplex, and getting scan-to-computer running can take fiddling with the Windows Scan app or the Xerox software. Buyers familiar with printers work around it; if scanning volumes of double-sided paperwork is a core job, plan for the extra step or pair it with a standalone document scanner.

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Ink measured in years, not months — 6,600 pages black and 5,500 color from the bottles in the box.

Epson invented the EcoTank, has sold 100 million of them worldwide, and this is the 7th generation of cartridge-free design. The pitch is straightforward: enough ink to print up to 6,600 black and 5,500 color pages, with each replacement bottle set standing in for about 80 standard cartridges. Refilling uses uniquely keyed EcoFit bottles that only fit the color they belong to — no mess, no mix-ups. Speed runs 18 pages per minute black and 9 in color with zero warmup, and a 250-sheet paper tray plus an ADF plus automatic duplex covers the classic office jobs.

You can connect this machine however you like: Ethernet, USB, or dual-band Wi-Fi. A 2.4-inch color display shows menus and status, and fax is built in alongside scan and copy. Home and small-business owners who’ve put this machine to work describe the ink savings as substantial — one commercial shop runs EcoTanks around the clock and reports about 3 years of service per unit, with sharp documents and photos.

Two things keep this from being a unanimous 5. Because it’s an EcoTank, ink lasts long — but the initial setup can take patience. The ink charging cycle alone takes about 15 minutes, and getting the machine on Wi-Fi requires entering the network name and password carefully. A few owners mention that photo printing on glossy paper needs the settings dialed in to avoid uneven output. Give setup a calm half hour and it settles into one of the cheapest-to-feed printers on this list after that.

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35 pages a minute in color — and built for offices that need 2,500 a month without breaking a sweat.

If the C235dni didn’t push hard enough, the C325dni picks up where it left off. Speeds hit 35 pages per minute in both black and color — one page per minute faster than the Brother MFC-L8930CDW — and the machine is rated for busy offices printing up to 2,500 pages per month. Starter toner ships pre-installed with 1,500 black and 1,000 color yield, high-yield cartridges cut the running cost after that, and setup walks through the Xerox Easy Assist App rather than a manual.

A 4.3-inch touchscreen on the front handles admin tasks at a glance, so you don’t have to dig through menus. Built-in Wi-Fi, Apple AirPrint, and Mopria let you print from a phone, tablet, or laptop. Users who stick with the machine after setup call it a “beast” — one long-time owner notes the Scan to Network folders and Shortcuts work well once you learn the web interface, and another calls it the best of the three color laser MFPs they’ve owned.

The input dimensions matter here: 18.7″D x 18.9″W x 19.3″H at 59.5 pounds — this is a substantial machine that needs a real desk or a dedicated stand, not a side table. The other thing to know: single-pass duplex scanning is a strength, but toner costs are what any laser buyer should plan for. Owners who print heavy volumes report the toner replacement cadence is real — worth factoring into your monthly running estimate before you commit.