Best Small Printers of 2022

When desk space is tight in your home or office, try these compact models from Brother, Epson, and HP

By Allen St. John

If you’re working at home or just have too much stuff and not quite enough room, a printer can take up more space than you care to spare. If you shop carefully, though, you can find a compact model that performs well without monopolizing your precious home office real estate.

But size isn’t everything. Some portable printers are small enough to stash in a drawer (they even run on battery power), but they’re also expensive to buy and operate, with per-page ink and maintenance costs sometimes running two to three times higher than those of regular-size inkjets, according to Rich Sulin, who leads CR’s printer testing program.

The cartridges tend to be smaller, too, so they hold less ink, which means more trips to the store.

“Unless someone really needs the printer to be portable or needs to stow it away in a very small space, such as a mobile home, I would consider one of the smaller conventional all-in-one models,” Sulin says.

We’ve picked out five of the best small printers in our ratings, including one portable model and two laser printers—notable because that tech tends to be more reliable but less easy to pare down.

Because our ratings don’t take size into account, many of these models don’t achieve Recommended or Best Buy status, but they’re still capable of solid performance. Our ratings have also changed recently, placing much more emphasis on the ability to print quality text than graphics or photos, which reflects survey data about how people actually use their printers. We also tweaked the scoring for print speed, given that today’s printers are faster than ever.

Note that the measurements listed for each printer below are taken when the model is ready for operation, with paper trays in place, so the footprint may be even smaller when the device isn’t in use. And speaking of that, remember that one way manufacturers make a printer smaller is by shrinking the capacity of those feed trays, sometimes to under 50 sheets or less.

These models, like every printer we test, have been put through the wringer in our dedicated labs, evaluated and scored by our testers on almost 250 data points. To make sure the model you buy is no different from the one we test, we purchase every product that enters our labs from a retailer, just like you would.

Single-Function Laser

Brother HL-L2350DW

Size: 7.9 inches high x 14.2 inches wide x 16.9 inches deep

If you mostly print black-and-white documents, from a term paper to a recipe for Marcella Hazan’s Tuscan beans, the Brother HL-L2350DW is a smart choice. No, it doesn’t scan or copy, and like most black-and-white laser printers, the graphics quality isn’t great, but it’s more than passable for, say, a map for driving directions. And in our lab, the model receives exemplary scores for text quality and speed.

The Brother also has auto-duplexing capability, meaning it can print on both sides of a page. The estimated toner cost comes to about $10 per year, which is a lot cheaper than inkjet printers that use ink cartridges, where annual ink costs can exceed $70 a year. Laser printers also tend to rate higher than inkjets in our surveys for reliability and owner satisfaction.

All-in-One Inkjet Tank

Epson EcoTank ET-2800

Size: 10.2 inches high x 14.8 inches wide x 23 inches deep

If you want a compact inkjet that can print in color and do so inexpensively, try the Epson EcoTank ET-2800. It has a reservoir you can refill with low-cost bottled ink instead of expensive ink cartridges. We estimate that ink costs can be as little as $5 a year compared to $70 or more for a traditional cartridge-based inkjet. The Epson isn’t exactly cheap at around $250, but those ink savings can more than make up for that, especially if the model gets heavy use.

The ET-2800 doesn’t earn Recommended status from our testers, but it does deliver decent quality at an acceptable speed. It also doesn’t excel at printing graphics and photos, but it does those jobs about as well as most inkjets.

The ET-2800 doesn’t do auto-duplexing, meaning it won’t print on both sides of a page. If that feature is important to you, check out Epson’s ET-2850.

All-in-One Inkjet

Brother MFC-J1010DW

Size: 6.7 inches high x 15.7 inches wide x 18.9 inches deep

If you’re looking for a home inkjet that’s small and cheap, the Brother MFC-J1010DW could be a good choice.

But before you buy it, you might want to do the math. The good news is that the Brother MFC-J1010DW sells for around $100. The not-so-good news? Our ink cost estimates are $68 a year. That’s pretty average by the standards of a conventional inkjet, but when you compare it to the $5-a-year ink costs of a tank printer like the Epson EcoTank ET-2800 above, you see how costly inkjet printing with cartridges can get in the long run.

This budget model from Brother still makes sense, though, if you need a printer right away and can’t afford to shell out hundreds of dollars.

The model performs fairly well in our tests, with solid, middle-of-the-pack scores in text speed and quality as well as convenience. Our testers report that it uses very little ink for maintenance, so that costly ink is at least being used for documents rather than for keeping the print heads clean.

All-in-One Portable Inkjet

HP OfficeJet 250 Mobile

Size: 10.5 inches high x 14.9 inches wide x 21.7 inches deep

If portability is your highest priority, the HP OfficeJet 250 Mobile should be on your shopping list. The dimensions may not seem especially compact, but the model collapses into an even smaller footprint when not in use.

The printer is pricey—you can buy a larger, top-rated color laser for the same money—but it carries a variety of features, from a lithium-ion battery (sold separately for $80) to a built-in LCD screen for viewing images from a memory card.

As you might expect, the HP does have some drawbacks. The paper tray fits only 50 sheets and the model can only scan one sheet at a time. More importantly, it gets a middling score for text quality. Also, it’s not especially frugal when it comes to ink, with costs of about $48 a year. Furthermore, the multicolor ink cartridge needs to be replaced when a single color runs out.

That’s why the Office Jet 250 falls short of the Recommended benchmark in our ratings, though it’s likely to perform well enough for anyone who needs an itsy-bitsy printer.

All-In-One Laser

HP Laserjet Pro M29W

Size: 7.5 inches high x 14.2 inches wide x 17.4 inches deep

If you want a laser printer that also faxes, copies, and scans, and you’re willing to sacrifice some performance for size, the HP M29V is an option.

It’s small by laser printer standards. When the feed tray is stowed away, the unit is a mere 10.4 inches deep, so it’s small enough to sit on a bookshelf. And unlike many smaller printers, the M29V includes a fairly generous 150-sheet feed tray.

At $22 per year, though, the estimated toner cost is high for this type of machine. And the model accepts only HP-brand cartridges. The graphics quality is poor, too, compared to other models, so it’s best to stick to printing text.

That’s why the M29W doesn’t earn a Recommended designation from our testers. Its performance should be fine for most users, but if you’re willing to compromise on size, you can get a better but much larger all-in-one laser printer, like the Canon imageCLASS MF264dw, which we deem a Best Buy.

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