Best workgroup printers 2021: the top ten printers for the shared office null
Welcome to our pick of the best workgroup printers of 2021. These printers are essential additions to any modern office, especially busy ones were numerous PCs need to use the printer throughout the day.
Sure, many of the best printers now come with network connectivity, but they can really only handle a few devices connected to them at a time. The best workgroup printers, however, are much more powerful, with on-board memory to store jobs as they are queued, which makes them excellent purchases for busy and growing offices.
Having a decent amount of RAM, and a fast processor, means they can handle even the most demanding of workloads throughout the day.
Of course, because they are best suited to busy offices, they also need to be able to handle printing out large numbers of documents every month as well. So, speed is important, as well as large trays to hold paper, and they need to be able to offer top-notch print quality as well.
All the best workgroup printers will have network connections, either wired via Ethernet or Wi-Fi (or preferably both for maximum flexibility).
So, read on for our pick of the best workgroup printers, and let our built-in price comparison tool help find you the best deals as well.
Best workgroup printers at a glance
- Xerox VersLink B600DN
- Brother HL-L5100DN
- Xerox VersaLink C400DN
- Kyocera Ecosys P6230cdn
- HP LaserJet Pro MFP M227fdw
- Ricoh SP 3710DN
- Oki C650
- Ricoh SP C261DNw
- Lexmark MB2236adw
- Kyocera Ecosys P6035cdn
With a print speed of 55 pages per minute and room for a whole ream of paper on board, this compact device can keep a large work group printing continuously. While the initial outlay for this monochrome device is high, its running costs are impressively low, so you should find you save money in the long run. Although it only prints in black and white, the print quality is superb.
Who says a workgroup printer has to be big and bulky? The Brother HL-L5100DN is a compact printer, but don’t be put off – this little workgroup printer can handle plenty of jobs, with a high print speed and large paper capacity. It does lack some features, however, such as Wi-Fi, so you’ll need to make sure you can plug it in to your wired network. But for small offices where space is a premium, this is one of the best workgroup printers you can buy – and it’s pretty cheap to run as well!
It might seem expensive for a desktop device, but this colour laser printer comes with impressive specifications and a slick smartphone-style interface. It already has a huge capacity for paper thanks to the 550-sheet tray, but you can double that by adding a second tray. Xerox includes a generous amount of toner too, enough for 2,000 colour or 3,000 mono pages. The five-inch touchscreen makes setup and operation simple and while Wi-Fi is not fitted as standard, it’s a simple £50 upgrade. Most importantly, the print quality is excellent with the Pantone-approved colours really making your documents stand out.
Kyocera’s printer comes with a capacity for 500 sheets of paper and large toner cartridges, which makes it suitable for a big workgroup or a busy home office. It prints quickly in duplex mode and runs very quietly too. If you’re expecting your office to go through a lot of printouts every month, then the fact that the Kyocera Ecosys P6230cdn is built to handle large volumes without you having to restock either paper or toner makes this one of the best workgroup printers money can buy.
The HP LaserJet Pro MFP M227fdw is a brilliant multifunction device that’s one of the best workgroup printers for small and medium-sized businesses. It boasts excellent print quality and very fast print speeds, plus the 300 sheet paper capacity should mean even the busiest of offices shouldn’t have to keep refilling the printer too often. It only prints in mono, however, and it’s not the fastest laser printer in the world, but it offers a good selection of features for the price.
The Ricoh SP 3710DN is compact, but feature-rich laser printer that’s well suited to a small business with high volume print demands. There’s plenty of room for paper in the main tray and enough toner for 7,000 pages, so it will keep printing with minimal downtime. The print rate is fast at 32 pages per minute, which will suit a shared office situation. It also prints securely with a feature called Locked Print holding sensitive print jobs until you authenticate at the device when you’re ready to pick up your documents. You can use the inbuilt NFC tag to do this by simply touching the printer with your smartphone.
The Oki C650 claims to be the world’s smallest high performance color printer cramming every conceivable feature into a unit that could quite easily sit on your desk. The maximum duty cycle recommended for this model is a staggering 100,000 pages per month, so if you have a small office and very heavy print demands, this hardworking laser will serve you well. It can duplex print of course and turn out pages in mono, or color at a fair clip, but it can also print banners up to 3.5 meters long. It has an Ethernet port for networking within a workgroup and NFC for when you need to collect private print jobs at the printer by touching your NFC-enable smartphone. This an expensive and uncompromising printer suitable for serious workgroups.
Ricoh’s colour printer comes with the essential features, such as Wi-Fi connectivity, duplex mode and secure printing built in, which makes it an ideal workgroup printer. Speed isn’t the fastest, nor is the 250 sheet capacity the largest, but print quality if fantastic – and don’t forget this printer will print in both mono and color.
If you need an all-in-one device to serve a small workgroup in a small office, this inexpensive laser printer makes a lot of sense. If it looks a little top-heavy, that’s because the impressively small footprint isn’t much larger than a sheet of A4. But that doesn’t stop it from swallowing 250 sheets of paper and offering an automatic document feeder that can hold 50 more. Lexmark includes enough black toner for a somewhat stingy 700 monochrome prints, but high capacity replacements are available that can print 6,000 pages. With duplex printing, Wi-Fi and security features included, it can do nearly everything a much more expensive MFD can.
This utilitarian beige box is able to churn out a whole ream of crisp color prints at a rapid, reliable and economical rate, making it the ideal workgroup printer. There’s room for 500 sheets of A4 in the main tray and another 100 in the multipurpose tray, but you can boost this to 2,100 pages by adding further accessories. Kyocera generously includes enough toner for 5,000 color pages or 6,000 black and white. Even higher capacity cartridges are available making this rather expensive printer one of the most affordable to run.
- Check out our list of the best printers, no matter if they are ink jet or laser
Welcome to our pick of the best workgroup printers of 2021. These printers are essential additions to any modern office, especially busy ones were numerous PCs need to use the printer throughout the day. Sure, many of the best printers now come with network connectivity, but they can really only…
