Buying a Printer Broadband Back Yard Comp. Text and images from an inkjet printer, like the image on a TV screen, are made up of many tiny dots. More dots per square inch produce a sharper image.
Less dots result in grainy prints because the dots are more visible.
When many dots are close together they blend into a solid area of color, and instead of the dots you see a clear, sharp image. It is best if both numbers are high. A quick test when comparison-shopping is to multiply both numbers together. This is the highest resolution offered today for both black and color printing, producing photo quality images and laser sharp text. In comparison, resolution of 1440 x 720 dpi can be deceiving because of a higher horizontal number, but multiplying the two numbers together reveals a lower resolution of 1.04 million dots.