More than 3m Brits now officially work from home, and millions more are catching up with office tasks at home in the evenings or at the weekends. The idea of doing your job without leaving your house (or even your pyjamas) might be tempting, but to get really productive without getting dressed you’ll need to partner your computer with a printer, a photocopier and maybe even a scanner.

An easy way to do this without turning your spare bedroom into a branch office is with an all-in-one (AIO) printer. This multifunctional desktop device can print business letters and colour pictures, photocopy paperwork and scan all kinds of documents for digital storage.

What’s more, it’s compact, has just one mains plug and in most cases connects to your PC with a single USB cable. Annoyingly, you’ll need to buy the cable (costing from £3) separately for every printer on test here, except for the Lexmark X4550, which transmits data wirelessly over your wi-fi network, so you can really clear up your desk by hiding it away in a cupboard. The Brother can also work wirelessly if plugged into a wi-fi router.

All the printers on test except the Lexmark X2550 have memory-card slots and a PictBridge port for printing photos directly from your digital camera. A few AIOs (such as the Brother) can also work as a fax machine, but these tend to be pricier, and faxing isn’t popular nowadays.

At the heart of every AIO is an inkjet printer, a technological marvel that uses thousands of tiny nozzles to deliver microscopic amounts of ink with incredible precision, hundreds of times a second. The number of coloured inks is important; all the printers in our test used four, but more sophisticated photo printers can use up to eight inks for richer, more realistic colours. The Lexmarks can add two extra inks but the Canon and HP produced decent photos with their standard four.

You’ll end up spending much more on ink over the lifetime of a printer than you ever did on buying it. Except where noted, these printers use about 5p worth of ink to print or photocopy a typical page comprising black text and colour images. But if you print mostly ink-hungry photos, be prepared for rocketing running costs.

Shop around for replacement inks, as online stores often charge far less than high street shops do. Think carefully before using cartridges that aren’t from the printer’s maker, or ink-refill packs; these do save you money, but at the risk of patchy ink coverage and smeary or fading prints.

When it comes to scanning, all the AIOs here were fine for making digital back-ups of letters and passports. But if you want to digitise photos to enlarge later, you’ll ideally need a resolution of 2,400 x 4,800dpi, which only the Canon and HP could offer. While all the AIOs tested could produce readable (if not necessarily beautiful) photocopies of documents, none is suitable for bulk copying or making pristine reproductions of photos. Nevertheless, all-in-ones are a very handy home-office addition for weekend workers.

JARGON BUSTER

DPI (dots per inch) Confusingly, this is used as a measure for both printing and scanning. Don’t worry too much about the printing figures, but aim for at least 2,400 x 4,800dpi if you think you’ll be enlarging scanned photos

PPM (pages per minute) Don’t believe the manufacturer’s official speed figures for either scanning or printing – you’ll never achieve 30ppm in real life. Our speed figures are based on typical real-world documents and pictures

PictBridge Any PictBridge digital camera can be linked via cable to any PictBridge printer, regardless of who makes each piece of hardware. Simply follow the instructions on the camera’s or printer’s display to print (and sometimes also edit) your photos without using a computer

Wi-fi Setting up a secure home network with a wireless router is pretty easy. Ask your broadband internet service provider first (it might offer a router cheap or even free), or buy one from £40

Research supplied by Computer Buyer magazine Prices include Vat and delivery

PRINTS CHARMING
Canon Pixma MP520 – typically £95, or £80 from www.amazon.co.uk
Superb all-rounder that’s streets ahead

If you’re going to have only one gadget sitting next to your computer, it might as well look good. This Canon unfolds neatly to reveal a bright 2.4in colour display and two paper trays – plain paper at the front and photo paper at the back. It handled office tasks beautifully: text documents emerged with crisp, solid lettering; scans (up to 2,400x4,800dpi) were sharp and accurately coloured; and copies were reproduced faithfully. It even excelled at sharp photos, although the HP just had the edge for purity of colour. Printing and scanning speeds were among the fastest, and running costs are the lowest, at just 4.3p per page of mixed printing. An impeccable office manager for the most stylish of homes.

WIRELESS WONDER
Lexmark X4550 – typically £75, or £65 from www.oyyy.co.uk
Wi-fi printing but with strings attached

This wireless printer uses your wi-fi network to print from anywhere in the house. Once set up, wireless printing was hassle-free and occasionally even faster than using a cable. Print quality was fine, and draft text looked good enough for business letters, while colour prints and photos were bright and clear. However, scans were of low resolution, and grainy. Photocopies were also underwhelming, suffering from stripes and weird colours. And operation was lethargic: the X4550 took almost 15min to print six small photos. It’s an affordable introduction to wireless printing, as long as you don’t need top quality scans or copies.

PICTURE PERFECT
HP Photosmart C5280 – typically £100, or £62 from www.laskys.com
Classy photos but printing niggles

This was one of the pricier printers on test, and it came with lots of bells and whistles. Build quality is good and you get a dedicated photo-paper tray. However, normal A4 paper was tricky to load. The C5280 delivered outstanding postcard-sized photos (the best on test), packed with rich colours and smooth shading, and in next to no time. Text printing was also above average in terms of speed and quality. Colours were good in the high-resolution (4,800 x 4,800dpi) scans, although it struggled to capture straight lines, and photocopies were unreliable, with problems ranging from lurid colours to jagged outlines. In addition, it was the loudest printer on test. These minor flaws drown out photos that are worth shouting about.

NETWORK NEWS
Brother MFC-465CN – typically £130, or £112 from www.printerland.co.uk
Average prints from multiple computers

This network printer will appeal to families with more than one computer. It has an Ethernet port that lets you print from a wi-fi enabled laptop even if your main computer is switched off, and it can work as a fax machine. It was easy to change settings via the 2in colour screen, and basic software kept scanning sharp and simple. Despite a few smudged characters, text looked sharp. In photos, blocks of colour showed specks and skin tones were faded. The printing speed was below average, a single page of text taking almost 30sec to emerge, and photo printing was even slower. For remote printing the Lexmark X4550 is a better bet.

COSTLY COLOURS
Epson Stylus DX8400 – typically £75 or £62 from www.valueshop.co.uk
High running costs give you that inking feeling

At 2.5in, the DX8400’s screen was the largest here, making it easy to tweak scans or select pictures. Colour prints and photos were clear, albeit with graininess sneaking into pale areas such as blue sky. Unfortunately the Epson was the slowest photo printer of the lot, taking more than 20min to churn out six small snaps. Text printing was faster, but only just acceptable, while the pale, broken characters of draft mode were not. Scanning and copying both showed problems with colours, and to cap it all, printing a typical single page on the DX8400 costs about 11.2p – more than twice the amount of a cost-effective rival. Simply too slow and uneconomical to recommend.

FALSE ECONOMY
Lexmark X2550 – typically £55, or £38 from www.amazon.co.uk
Back to basics at a bargain price

This inexpensive printer delivered where it counts, running off presentable text documents and acceptable colour photos. Unusually, these looked better on Lexmark’s cheap “everyday” photo paper than on premium glossy stock. At about 5.5p per page, running costs were very reasonable. Installing the software was time consuming and that sluggishness carried through to the printing, copying and scanning. The scans could be tricky to set up, of low resolution and grainy, although copies were fairly readable. The X2550 doesn’t excel at anything – in fact it barely scrapes average marks – but it does represent decent value for occasional users.

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