The most common A3 printer for home or small office is the inkjet. An A3 inkjet printer works by firing different sized droplets of ink onto the paper. Inkjets have come a long way in the last 10 years or so and several companies can rightly stake a claim in making massive improvements. The major four players are Canon, Hewlett-Packard, Epson, and Lexmark.  These four account for the vast majority of the world wide sales of inkjet printers.

The obvious advantage of an A3 inkjet printer compared to the laser is the initial cost. You can now purchase an entry level inkjet for under $60 if you shop around which is a huge difference to the $800+ you will need to find before even looking at a comparable color laser printer.

This can be false economy though if you intend to use the printer for more than just occasional use on A3 sized paper. One of the reasons the big four companies can sell inkjet printers so cheaply is because they know the new owners will be requiring replacement ink cartridges on a regular basis and these replacements aren’t cheap. For an ink cartridge costing $30 you are effectively paying around $15K per gallon!

Another problem is that the ink used is almost always water soluble so you need to take care to avoid water contact with your prints as the slightest contact will cause the color to run or blur. This can be a particularly annoying problem if you purchased an A3 inkjet printer specifically to print posters for display in your business premises windows where the slightest condensation will wreak havoc with your prints.

An entire industry has been built on reverse engineering the inkjet consumables supplied by the big four to offer buyers cheaper options when its time to renew their ink cartridges. While for obvious reasons Canon, Hewlett-Packard, Epson, and Lexmark all highly recommend you only use their official ink cartridges. Because these third party cartridges are so much cheaper though, they have become very popular. While it’s true they can result in a slightly poorer print quality in certain cases, for the most part though they produce ‘good enough’ results and will save you a small fortune in the long run.

For long term savings though, if you plan on doing above average amounts of printing, especially on A3 paper, you should probably avoid an A3 inkjet printer and give serious consideration to a more economical A3 laser printer. While the initial outlay will be considerably more, long term the savings you make on regular consumable replacements will soon justify the initial cost.