Skip to main content

Digital Trends may earn a commission when you buy through links on our site. Why trust us?

Best cheap printer deals for January 2023

It’s a new semester and, let’s face it, your printer is probably not ready to print out an essay in a smudge-free manner that’ll make teachers, professors, or even bosses happy. Today’s printers, even many cheap ones, come loaded with conveniences like wireless connectivity, mobile app controls, ink-saving technologies, and far superior output quality to the rickety inkjets of years past. No matter what your needs and budget may be, however, our roundup of the month’s best printer deals is sure to have something that’s a good fit for your home office.

Today’s best printer deals

  • HP Deskjet 4155e —
  • HP Tango —
  • HP LaserJet MFP M234sdwe —
  • Epson EcoTank Photo ET-8550 —
  • Epson EcoTank ET-4950 —

HP Deskjet 4155e — $100, was $125

The HP Deskjet 4155e with a paper in the tray.

Why Buy

  • Color printing
  • Print, copy, scan, and mobile fax
  • Mobile/wireless printing
  • FREE 6 months of HP Instant Ink

If you haven’t shopped around for printers in a long time (they do tend to last several years and aren’t the most exciting piece of gear to upgrade) then you’ll really be blown away by what is offered at the hundred dollar mark these days. The HP Deskjet 4155e is an all-in-one printer that the average person can enjoy, with just one caveat. You can 100% do both color and black’n’white printing with the HP Deskjet 4155e, including from your phone. Scan? Check. Copy? Check. It even has six months of HP+’s Instant Ink program, which delivers ink to your door based on your usage. It’s not an unlimited supply of ink, but should get typical users through most of the next half year without worrying about constantly going out and buying ink. Speaking of which, remember that one caveat? The HP Deskjet 4155e is designed to only work with HP ink cartridges, but that’s what you’re getting with the Instant Ink program anyhow, so it is a only small drawback for now.

HP Tango — $100, was $160

The HP Tango with its back open and a printed page in the tray.

Why Buy

  • Color printing
  • Cloud-based printing and scanning network
  • Some free photo printing
  • FREE 4 months HP Instant Ink

The HP Tango is another printer that will fully surprise you when you compared features to cost. Once again, it isn’t lacking in any obvious way like so many budget printers are, with the first casualty usually being color. But instead, the HP Tango has a full range of colors and is probably on your personal list of best photo printers if you need something that’s both budget and can print full sized photos, too. In fact, HP is banking on you doing quite a bit of photo printing with the HP Tango. They’re offering free printing pages when you print photos 5″ x 7″ or smaller from your iOS or Android phone. Speaking of phones, the HP Tango uses cloud printing and scanning so you can integrate it more closely with your smart devices. It even has voice activated controls, so if the thought of yelling at your printer to make it work gives you joy, look no further than the HP Tango. Much like the previous printer, it must be used with HP inks, but you probably wanted them anyhow.

HP LaserJet MFP M234sdwe — $149, was $249

The HP LaserJet MFP M234sdwe with a printed page coming out of the front of it.

Why Buy

  • Budget laser printing
  • Compact size
  • Speedy 2-sided printing
  • FREE 6 months of toner with HP Instant Ink

With the HP LaserJet MFP M234sdwe we see the first example of a printer that makes the typical sacrifices that we expect in the budget arena. What do I mean? The HP LaserJet MFP M234sdwe works fantastically well, but lacks color. Currently, the best color laser printers are out of range for this price level. However, if you’re a budget lover, you may have never been exposed to such a friendly printer as a laser printer. Why? Toner, a laser printer’s “ink” equivalent, doesn’t dry out and ruin cartridges when it is unused in the same way inkjet printers’ ink does. You end up saving money in the long run. Plus, the HP LaserJet MFP M234sdwe has a nice, space-saving cubic design, paper-saving speedy 2-sided printing, and money-saving half year of that Instant Ink (read: toner) program. It’s still only compatible with HP ink, but we’re sure you’ll like it!

Epson EcoTank Photo ET-8550 — $700, was $800

The Epson EcoTank Photo ET-8550 with a full color wide picture coming out of its tray.

Why Buy

  • No cartridges
  • Reduced photo printing cost
  • Borderless wide photo printing
  • Specialty media printing

The Epson EcoTank Photo ET-8550 definitely has a higher price tag than the others on the list, but that’s not the last word on how budget it is. First of all, we have to explain that this is neither a laser printer nor a cartridge style ink printer. Instead, it is an ink bottle printer, which introduces an interesting idea for reducing waste in your color printing. Why? Each ink color gets its own bottle, not one cartridge that has to get replaced whenever one of the colors runs low. According to Epson’s own estimations, this reduces the cost of printing a 4″ x 6″ photo from 40 cents (cartridge) to 4 cents with the Epson EcoTank Photo ET-8550. There are lots of cool things you can do with it, too. With its ability to go wide and print borderless 13″ x 19″ inch color photos or mini-posters this could be the best printer for a college student if you’re looking for a gift for creatives. Plus, the Epson EcoTank Photo ET-8550 can handle tons of media types, include stock paper and CD-ROM’s.

Epson EcoTank ET-4950 — $400, was $550

The Epson - EcoTank ET-4850 with a page on its tray.

Why Buy

  • All-in-one style
  • Great for home office or small business
  • Convenient to print in bulk
  • Money saving no cartridge ink system

If you were excited about the no cartridge ink system of the printer above but were turned off by the price, be sure to check out this deal in more detail. The Epson EcoTank ET-4950 is billed as Epson’s “best home office printer ever” and it is certainly one of the best printers for small businesses. For one, it offers that all-in-one style that you really need with printing, copying, scanning, and faxing. While it can do the wireless printing that printers of this paygrade all do, you can also go old school and plug it in via ethernet as well. When you need to get a ton of fliers or forms printed out fast, you’ll love its 250-sheet tray and auto 2-sided printing. Like the individual ink bottles but worried they’ll slow you down? Don’t! With the Epson EcoTank ET-4950 you’ll still be able to get out 15.5 pager per minute in black and white or 8.5 pages per minute in color.

Editors' Recommendations

Get this 75-inch TCL 4K TV for just $570 at Best Buy right now
A TCL 4 Series 4k TV is mounted on a brick wall in a living room.

Upgrading your home theater setup with a massive display will no longer use up all of your savings, as there are offers like the 75-inch TCL 4-Series 4K TV for just $570. Best Buy has slashed the TV's original price of $650 by $80 to make it even more affordable, but you need to hurry if you don't want to miss out on the savings. We don't expect this bargain to last long, as there's a chance that stocks may get sold out quickly.

Why you should buy the 75-inch TCL 4-Series 4K TV
TCL, one of the best TV brands because of the value that you can get from its products and a mainstay in our list of the best TVs, knocks it out of the park with the budget-friendly TCL 4-Series 4K TV. Its 75-inch screen offers 4K Ultra HD resolution with High Dynamic Range for lifelike details and vivid colors, and it's able to upscale HD content into near 4K quality. The 4K TV is also an attention-grabber with its sleek metal finish and edge-to-edge glass design, but you'll need to check out guide on what size TV to buy to make sure that it will fit where you're planning to place it in your living room or bedroom.

Read more
Why you should buy the LG gram Style while this deal is happening
LG Gram Style top down view showing display and keyboard deck.

This content was produced in partnership with LG.
Who wants a dull looking laptop, right? These days, pretty much everyone owns a laptop so it's good to stand out from the crowd when many look pretty dull or overly practical. While the general consensus is that Apple rules the roost when it comes to good-looking laptops, we've spotted something that may buck that trend. It's the LG gram Style and it lives up to its name perfectly. It looks incredibly good while also being powerful to use and having a sweet-looking screen. Even better, it's available at the moment with twice as much RAM for the same price so we're talking fantastic futureproofing for all your needs. The offer is valid from now until April 16 so you've got a bit of time to commit to it. The 16-inch model with 32GB of memory is normally priced at $2,000 but there's a $200 discount so it's that bit more affordable at $1,800. In addition to the 16-inch model, there's a 14-inch 32GB model that is $300 less, down to $1,500 for a limited time. We kinda want it for ourselves so instead, we thought we'd tell you why you might want it.

Seriously though, how good does the LG gram Style look? It looks like the kind of thing you want to instantly buy even if you really don't need a new laptop right now. It's available in either 14-inch or 16-inch models. Predictably, that means the smaller model is more portable but the 16-inch model feels like it's rivalling the MacBook Pro when it comes to both looks and prowess. We're stuck wondering how come LG isn't considered one of the best laptop brands yet that feels like it's going to change if it keeps up this kind of reputation. It's about time we saw a seriously gorgeous-looking Windows-based laptop.

Read more
Looking for a cheap desktop computer? This Dell PC is $430
The Dell Inspiron Desktop, on its own.

Do you just need a simple, dependable PC for a cheap price? Dell has long been the answer to that request. That's because they make quality, budget-level machines and usually have nice desktop computer deals to cut the prices even more. Right now, for instance, you can buy the Dell Inspiron desktop PC for only $430, $70 off its usual price. This is about as cheap as quality desktops go, so grab it while the discount is still active.

Why you should buy the Dell Inspiron Desktop
Dell is a fixture in our list of the best desktop computers because of its high-end models, but it also rolls out trustworthy entry-level options like the Dell Inspiron Desktop. The PC is powered by the 12th-generation Intel Core i3 processor, Intel UHD Graphics 730, and 8GB of RAM, which will be enough to get you through simple tasks such as doing online research, making reports, and building presentations. Our guide on how much RAM do you need recommends upgrading to at least 16GB of RAM, which will be easy to do once you've saved up for it as that's one of the perks of a desktop computer over a laptop.

Read more