A printer is an electromechanical device. That’s a fancy way of saying it may break down a lot.
An electromechanical device, after all, is partly mechanical—which makes it less reliable than the gizmos in your computer system that are purely electronic.
If you can afford backup machines, naturally the repair record won’t be as crucial, but no matter what, do compare statistics on the mean time between failures. Remember, they’re like EPA ratings for automobiles. They’re wrong, frequently, and may not apply to the printer you end up with. But don’t shrug them off entirely.
QUIET (OR RELATIVE QUIET)
My daisy—with the little hammer pounding away—was too noisy for the late hours. Older dot matrixes also can be offenders; they can almost shriek with high-pitched sounds. Some of the newer ones may be better behaved. Sharing an office-apartment or working from an ordinary office, however, you might buy a sound-muffling box and wrestle with pulling paper in and out of it.
When good, cheap ink jets and laser printers hit the market, these noise hassles will end.
SPECIAL FEATURES
“Will it underline?” I asked. And would it offer boldface, the dark, heavy print that books often use for emphasis.
And what about other special features? How about proportional spacing, for instance, which prints the “M” wider than a “j”—making the type look more like a book’s. That could make the print more readable.
Another question is, “Does the printer offer justification?” It’s really a software issue. But we’ll group it here with the other special features.