Solution: To cut costs on some printers, vendors often include low-capacity or flimsy trays. In her article "", PC World's Melissa Riofrio lists seven printers with notoriously cheap paper trays--each from major vendors such as Brother, Dell, Epson, HP, Ricoh, and Xerox. Shame on you guys.

So what can you do? Before buying a printer, examine the paper tray carefully. If it looks like it'll break after the first sideswipe, it's probably wise to get another model. If the tray is too small for your printing needs, see if there's a higher-capacity option. Or you could try to fixing a busted printer.