1. The list in brief
2. Best overall
3. Best bargain
4. Best for business
5. Best portability
6. How to choose
7. How we test
The best portable printers allow you to print from wherever you are, whether you're on a business trip or relaxing on a beach. By combining the ability to print into a compact device you can slip into a laptop bag or backpack, you can print documents and photos anytime time and anywhere. With Wi-Fi connectivity and often an optional battery, a mobile printer gives you the freedom to print even if you're away from an outlet.
Most portable printers are small, coming in at less than 5 pounds. Many even come with rechargeable batteries and car chargers for use on the road. Despite the small size, a lot of portable models still offer full-page printing with the same inkjet technology you're accustomed to. Many even have scan and copy capability to give you full functionality even when you're away from the office.
A few models ratchet up the portability by adopting more exotic technologies, like thermal printing in black-and-white, or shifting some functions (like document scanning and copying) to another device, like a smartphone. But the end result is the same, letting you take printing on the go wherever you please.
Alex Wawro is a lifelong journalist who's spent over a decade covering tech, games and entertainment. He oversees the computing department at Tom's Guide, which includes managing printer coverage.
The quick list
In a hurry? Here's a quick list of the best portable printers we recommend.
The best portable printer for most
We recommend the HP OfficeJet 250 as the best portable printer for most because it's fast to copy, scan and print on the go. The color touchscreen is also nice, and though it is a bit pricey we think it's worth the expense.
The best value
The Canon Pixma TR150 is a great portable printer if you're on a budget because it's $200 or less and small enough to fit in a backpack, yet prints great photos and documents.
The best portable printer for business
The Epson WorkForce EC-C110 is our most commonly recommended portable printer for business use because it's built for business printing and has a lower cost per page printed than other printers on this list.
The best portable printer for most
We recommend the HP OfficeJet 250 as the best portable printer for most because it's fast to copy, scan and print on the go. The color touchscreen is also nice, and though it is a bit pricey we think it's worth the expense.
The best portable printers you can buy now
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The best overall
This HP OfficeJet 250 maximizes what you can do on the go, offering fast copying and scanning, in addition to fast print speeds—with high image quality across the board. This portable printer is on the pricey side, but it offers a lot of features and performance in a compact package. The most immediate payoff is a large, 2.6-inch color touch screen, which makes for easy operation.
Better yet is a small, 10-page automatic document feeder for copying and scanning. This is the only portable printer we've tested that offers copy and scan functions, but with no flatbed scanner, the printer draws paper through the body of the OfficeJet for scanning and copying. Scans weren't always straight, and the paper path's 60-degree bend left me nervous about it possibly damaging photos. But having scanning and copying capability on the go is well-worth these compromises.
The OfficeJet 250 printed text very quickly from a PC, at 9 ppm. On battery power, text printed at 7 ppm. The OfficeJet 250 also printed quickly our six-page PDF of text and color graphics, taking 1:57, compared with the average of 2:27. Photo printing was extremely fast, as well. A 4 x 6-inch glossy photo printed in just 37.6 seconds, at default settings, and in just under 50 seconds at the high-quality setting. The closest competitor, the HP Tango X, took 1:15. The OfficeJet also was the fastest when printing from an iPhone, making a photo print in 42.9 seconds.
Copy and scan speeds were fast, making a color copy in 19.5 seconds, compared with the average of 28.7 seconds for desktop inkjets. The OfficeJet made a black-and-white copy in 13.1 seconds, versus the 16-second desktop average. It made a 600 dpi color scan to JPEG in 1 minute and 21 seconds, and a 300 dpi black-and-white scan to PDF in 20.1 seconds (desktop models average 11 seconds).
Best of all, the speed didn't come with any trade-off in image quality. The very high-quality photo prints had rich, well-saturated colors, pleasing midtone transitions, and lots of fine details. Text documents printed with dark letterforms and edges looked quite sharp. Graphics on plain paper were equally attractive. Document scans looked accurate, with only some sharpness lost on text edges. Photo scans were attractive, with accurate colors and plenty of detail.
The HP OfficeJet offers mobile and cloud printing, but there are some quirks. Using the HP Smart iPhone app was problematic—the app turned a five-page .doc file into a four-page document, while the .docx version was reformatted onto six pages. Photos printed from the Box cloud storage service did not print in full. Roughly two-thirds of the photo would print—but the rest of the paper was left blank.
Ink costs for printing text documents are about average for portable printers, at 9 cents each. With standard cartridges, cost per color page is high, at 23 cents per page. Using high-yield cartridges, you can lower this to 17.3 cents, though this is still higher than the 15.5 cents per color page you get with the Canon iP110 when using standard cartridges. You can save even more money by using HP Instant Ink, HP's subscription service for ink refills by mail.
One of our favorite portable printers is the Canon Pixma TR150, a compact inkjet that's small enough to carry in a backpack, but still offers excellent document and photo printing. With a two-cartridge ink system and printing for text documents, graphics and even glossy photos, the Pixma TR150 is a solid choice for portable printing. It doesn't offer copy or scan functionality, but at $199, it's also a great option for your pocketbook.
An optional battery lets you use it when you're away from a wall outlet, but even without it, the Canon Pixma TR150 is one of the most portable and travel-friendly printers out there, weighing less than the HP OfficeJet 250 and offering a more affordable print-only option.
The Pixma TR150 measures a compact 12.7 x 7.3 x 2.6 inches when closed, and weighs just 4.5 pounds – and weighs only 5.1 pounds with an optional battery attached. It opens up to a larger size, accommodating a 50-page paper tray, a basic control panel and plenty of connectivity, so long as you don't need a card slot.
It also offers excellent print speeds, a five-page document in 38.7 seconds, or 7.8 ppm.
In addition to its great mobility, the portable Pixma TR150 made high-quality photos faster than other competing portable printers, and delivered excellent color and detail. It can also handle larger photo prints, but unlike some of our photo printing favorites, there is no copy or scan capability. You do get a solidly-built portable printer with optional battery and even support for Amazon Alexa and Google Assistant voice controls, but we love it for the great photos and low ink costs it offers.
Read our full Canon Pixma TR150 review.
The best for business
Of the four models outfitted with a battery, the Epson WorkForce EC-C110 is the least expensive. With the WorkForce moniker, this mobile printer is sold by business equipment resellers, and might be the best portable printer for business users. Of the inkjet models here, it is the lightest, weighing just 3.5 pounds.
You lift the lid and lean it back to serve as the 20-sheet input tray. Doing so reveals a small, 1.4-inch color LCD and four-way control buttons. Prints come out a slot on the front panel. You can use the LCD and buttons to change settings, configure Wi-Fi, and so on. You also need it to confirm the paper size, which I was prompted to do every time I loaded paper.
The EC-C110's print speeds were slower than the average. Text printed at 5.8 ppm, versus the average of 6.9 ppm. Running on battery power slowed the EC-C110 substantially: Text printing slowed to 3.4 ppm. Our six-page PDF of mixed text and color graphics more slowly than any other inkjet in this roundup, taking 3:16, or 1.8 ppm. The average was 2.4 ppm.
The EC-C110 printed a photo at default settings from a PC via USB in 1:11. Printing at high resolution slowed the EC-C110 to 3:59. Over Wi-Fi Direct at high-quality settings from an iPhone was agonizingly slow, taking 5:28 to print one photo; printing a second snapshot took almost 7 minutes.
Print quality was high across the board. Text looked dark and sharp, though the letter edges looked a little rough up close. Color graphics printed with natural-looking colors and sharp details. Glossy photos looked very attractive.
Costs per page are better than the portable printers average. Estimated costs per page are 8.8 cents for text and 17.8 cents for color.
I ran into a glitch when trying to print 4 x 6-inch photos from a Windows 10 PC. In the print driver, an error said, "photo doesn't fit on selected paper." The online FAQ did not help, but changing the default paper size to 4-x-6 in the Windows 10 printing preferences solved the issue.
When printing with an iPhone, the EC-C110 had a tendency to drop the Wi-Fi Direct connection before I could finish printing. Resetting the connection and re-entering the password seemed to solve this issue.
Cloud printing may not always be seamless. The Epson iOS app reflowed text in .doc files opened from Box, the online storage service, turning a five-page document into a seven-page reflow that would not be worthy of a business meeting.
This Epson WorkForce model delivers below-average costs per page, Wi-Fi Direct connectivity, an LCD and control panel buttons, but low battery life and slower-than-average print speeds limit its appeal.
View our Epson coupon codes to help you save on the Epson WorkForce EC-C110
The best for portability
The Brother PocketJet 773 offers a convenient way to print documents in a very compact package. It's the smallest and lightest printer in this roundup. Being a direct thermal printer, it prints only in black-and-white and uses special thermal-reactive paper instead of standard printer paper. It does not print onto photo papers. Because it doesn't use ink cartridges, you don't have to worry about running out of ink.
Designed to work in settings such as a police patrol car (for which there is a vehicle mount), the PocketJet 773 works with roll paper and fan-folded paper, in addition to individual sheets. Accessories include rugged cases for roll paper and fanfold paper, and a cigarette lighter adapter.
The PocketJet 773 prints text documents from a PC with dark letterforms with very sharp edges, however, some text looked lumpy around the edges, reminiscent of a dot-matrix printer. Text quality was also low in text documents printed from an iPhone. Graphics (converted to black-and-white) looked very pixelated, with obvious banding and flat black shadows. On occasion, the PocketJet printed pages that were crooked or cropped incorrectly. This may have been due to following a print too quickly with a fresh page (you must feed one sheet at a time).
The PocketJet 773 printed more slowly than the mobile inkjet printers we tested. It was the slowest at printing our five-page text document (1:02). It also was the slowest at printing our six-page mixed text and graphics PDF (3:46), even though it was printing it in black-and-white (the inkjets printed it in color).
Going mobile isn't cheap. A battery runs for $123.99. And be careful when buying the printer online, since it is generally sold on its own, without the power cable or battery needed to power it.
Paper isn't cheap, either. Direct thermal printers require specialty thermal paper, a hundred sheets of which costs $13.99, or 14 cents per page. But if you don't mind curling paper or folded paper, you have options. A 600-sheet continuous roll of thermal paper lowers printing costs to 10.3 cents per page. Fanfold paper costs 9.5 cents per page. By contrast, desktop inkjet printers offer costs per text page of 7.7 cents with standard cartridges, and 5.9 cents with high-yield cartridges, on average.
The price is high on this compact thermal printer. But if you need a rugged and unobtrusive printer to generate necessary documents on the go, without fear of running out of ink, the PocketJet 773 is a good place to start.
How to choose the best printer for you
When selecting a portable printer, you'll want to consider a few key factors, such as how you intend to use the printer, what your document printing needs are and what level of portability will be best suited to your circumstances.
Printing needs: Do you need color printing or even photo printing capability? All of the printers listed above are inkjet models, except the Brother PocketJet 773, which is a direct thermal printer and only prints in black-and-white. The HP OfficeJet 250 is the only model with an automatic document feeder for copying and scanning.
Portability: Portability is largely a question of size and weight. The HP Tango X is the largest of the bunch, measuring 15.3 x 24.4 x 10.2 inches (W x D x H) when printing and weighs 7.5 pounds. The Brother PocketJet 773, meanwhile, is a slim bar of a printer that weighs only one pound. Measuring just 10 x 2.2 by 1.2 inches (W xD x H), it's unobtrusive and very unlikely to get in the way, even in cramped environments, such as a car.
Battery: Most also have optional batteries, letting you print even when there's no outlet to use for power. These are accessories that need to be bought in addition to the printer itself, so plan your purchase accordingly. Many of these printers also offer car-charging options, which are ideal for use in a vehicle while out making sales calls or printing during a road trip.
Functions: Most of these portable models are single-function printers. They are too small to have a flatbed scanner for copying and scanning. One model does scan and copy, however: The HP OfficeJet 250. It has a partial lid that you fold forward to reveal a slender automatic document feeder. In addition, the HP Tango X offers what HP calls "copy" and "scan" functions via the smartphone HP Smart app. However, all this really amounts to is using your phone to take a picture (or "scan" if you will) of a document and then print it (or "copy," in HP Smart parlance). As outlined in our full review of the HP Tango X, the results were sub-par.
Price range: To help you find the right mobile printer, we considered a range of models and chose five products that we felt best represented the variety available. The printers we reviewed are priced from $200 to almost $500 (including accessories, such as a battery). Prices in this article include a battery, in some cases as part of a kit, except for the HP Tango X, which does not offer a battery option.
How we tested these printers
To test portable printers, we performed a variety of everyday tasks. To make the results comparable to desktop inkjet printers, we performed a few of the same printing speed tests, from a Windows 10 laptop: A five-page text document, and a six-page PDF with text and graphics.
While desktop models printed text pages at 8.8 ppm, on average, the portables were not far behind, at 6.9 ppm. The portable printers almost matched the desktop printers' 2.7 ppm average on color graphics, clocking in at 2.4 ppm. This average excludes the Brother PocketJet 773 because it prints only in black-and-white (and even so printed only at 1.6 ppm on this test).
For photo speed, we printed a 4 x 6-inch glossy snapshot. The Brother PocketJet 773, however, does not print on photo papers and was excluded from this test.
To test portability, we focus on the wireless and battery-powered functions of the printer. We perform a wireless network setup, evaluating the ease of use for connecting on the go. We also print from a laptop and smartphone using Wi-Fi Direct, and gauge the differences in performance compared to wired and outlet-powered printing.
Check out all of our printer coverage:
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