Best Printers: Quick Menu
The best portable printers allow you to print from wherever you are, whether you’re on a business trip or relaxing on a beach.
They’re a lot of fun to use, too, because you can slip one into a laptop bag or backpack, then print photos or documents anytime, anywhere. With Wi-Fi connectivity and often an optional battery, a mobile printer gives you the freedom to print even if you’re away from an outlet.
Most portable printers are small, coming in at less than 5 pounds. Many even come with rechargeable batteries and car chargers for use on the road. Despite the small size, a lot of portable models still offer full-page printing with the same inkjet technology you’re accustomed to. Many even have scan and copy capability to give you full functionality even when you’re away from the office.
A few models ratchet up the portability by adopting more exotic technologies, like thermal printing in black-and-white, or shifting some functions (like document scanning and copying) to another device, like a smartphone. But the end result is the same, letting you take printing on the go wherever you please.
The quick list
In a hurry? Here’s a quick list of the best portable printers we recommend.
We recommend the HP OfficeJet 250 as the best portable printer for most because it’s fast to copy, scan and print on the go. The color touchscreen is also nice, and though it is a bit pricey we think it’s worth the expense.
The Canon Pixma TR150 is a great portable printer if you’re on a budget because it’s $200 or less and small enough to fit in a backpack, yet prints great photos and documents.
3. Epson WorkForce EC-C110
The Epson WorkForce EC-C110 is our most commonly recommended portable printer for business use because it’s built for business printing and has a lower cost per page printed than other printers on this list.
We recommend the HP OfficeJet 250 as the best portable printer for most because it’s fast to copy, scan and print on the go. The color touchscreen is also nice, and though it is a bit pricey we think it’s worth the expense.
The best portable printers you can buy now
The best overall
HP OfficeJet 250 (Image credit: HP)
This HP OfficeJet 250 maximizes what you can do on the go, offering fast copying and scanning, in addition to fast print speeds—with high image quality across the board. This portable printer is on the pricey side, but it offers a lot of features and performance in a compact package. The most immediate payoff is a large, 2.6-inch color touch screen, which makes for easy operation.
Better yet is a small, 10-page automatic document feeder for copying and scanning. This is the only portable printer we’ve tested that offers copy and scan functions, but with no flatbed scanner, the printer draws paper through the body of the OfficeJet for scanning and copying. Scans weren’t always straight, and the paper path’s 60-degree bend left me nervous about it possibly damaging photos. But having scanning and copying capability on the go is well-worth these compromises.
The OfficeJet 250 printed text very quickly from a PC, at 9 ppm. On battery power, text printed at 7 ppm. The OfficeJet 250 also printed quickly our six-page PDF of text and color graphics, taking 1:57, compared with the average of 2:27. Photo printing was extremely fast, as well. A 4 x 6-inch glossy photo printed in just 37.6 seconds, at default settings, and in just under 50 seconds at the high-quality setting. The closest competitor, the HP Tango X, took 1:15. The OfficeJet also was the fastest when printing from an iPhone, making a photo print in 42.9 seconds.
Copy and scan speeds were fast, making a color copy in 19.5 seconds, compared with the average of 28.7 seconds for desktop inkjets. The OfficeJet made a black-and-white copy in 13.1 seconds, versus the 16-second desktop average. It made a 600 dpi color scan to JPEG in 1 minute and 21 seconds, and a 300 dpi black-and-white scan to PDF in 20.1 seconds (desktop models average 11 seconds).
Best of all, the speed didn’t come with any trade-off in image quality. The very high-quality photo prints had rich, well-saturated colors, pleasing midtone transitions, and lots of fine details. Text documents printed with dark letterforms and edges looked quite sharp. Graphics on plain paper were equally attractive. Document scans looked accurate, with only some sharpness lost on text edges. Photo scans were attractive, with accurate colors and plenty of detail.
The HP OfficeJet offers mobile and cloud printing, but there are some quirks. Using the HP Smart iPhone app was problematic—the app turned a five-page .doc file into a four-page document, while the .docx version was reformatted onto six pages. Photos printed from the Box cloud storage service did not print in full. Roughly two-thirds of the photo would print—but the rest of the paper was left blank.
Ink costs for printing text documents are about average for portable printers, at 9 cents each. With standard cartridges, cost per color page is high, at 23 cents per page. Using high-yield cartridges, you can lower this to 17.3 cents, though this is still higher than the 15.5 cents per color page you get with the Canon iP110 when using standard
