General-Purpose Inkjet Printers in Review – THG.RU

Comparative Tests: General-Purpose Inkjet Printers

Just four major manufacturers share nearly 90% of the world market in inkjet printers, and the competition couldn’t be hotter. Punches are pulled via the ongoing enhancement of features and the development of new technologies that are designed to deliver ink droplets that are smaller, more colorful and deposited faster than ever on the paper that result in true photographic quality. It has to be said that huge strides have been made over the last few years, and it would be a bit too easy to say that Epson is always the leader of the pack. Likewise, the preconceived notion that only HP printers can print office documents properly properly in color needs to be revised. And we’re a bit inclined to think that separate cartridges are bound to be cheaper for consumers in the end, but this is really a marketing ploy which is only holds true if the manufacturer has a low pricing policy. There again, this is not always the case. In fact, far from it.

So preconceived ideas abound, though it should be remembered that reputations are built up, only to be undone again.

The printers that follow are being updated all the time, which can be very infuriating – the life cycle of Canon products, for instance, is less than 6 months. But there’s no point in waiting. The photos printed on the models we tested were often comparable to prints on photographic paper. As for speed, the new generation of printers claim a rate of 10 to 20 pages per minute. If these figures are exact, then they leave a good number of laser printers in the dust.

The Four Manufacturers

The world leader is an American manufacturer. After having cornered the laser market, HP has been king of the inkjet castle for several years now, with about 40% of the market (except in Japan where they arrived only recently and only have 10%). Their printers have a reputation for reliability and robustness. They are also renowned for their printing quality. The range launched this summer is the direct descendant of its predecessor. Above all, the latest models can pride themselves on their quality, which is equal or better than the previous models, and on their faster motors.

Epson, the former leader from Japan, is now second and must make do with a share ranging from 20% to 30%, depending on the month. Although long opposed to the separate ink cartridge system, now a standard feature thanks to Canon, the Japanese manufacturer has recently adopted it for its two top-of-the-line office models. Still, their main strength is speed. The C80 blithely spits out 20 pages per minute. While these two models behave as general-purpose printers, the most recent Stylus Photo, the 820, is optimized, as the name implies, for photo printing. Note that Epson accounts for 40% of the Japanese market.

Next in the ranks is Canon, which is sometimes second, more often third, and whose desire to “play God” is constantly hammered home by its agents. It accounts for 15% to 25% of the world market, depending on the month. In previous times, its printers were often condemned for the quality of their print, but the introduction of a new type of ink early this year has reaped universal praise. The manufacturer’s reputation has reached new heights in 2001, in particular with the release of the S600 this spring. This model was unanimously commended in the IT trade press. Like Epson, Canon has about 40% of the Japanese market.

Lexmark, the fourth in line, represents about 10% of the world market, with a bit more in Europe where it is sometimes equal to Canon. Like HP, their printers have print-heads integrated into the cartridges. This is supposed to be a quality asset, but the real strong point here is its claim to offer the fastest inkjet printers in all price ranges. The Z53 is thus the only printer around $100 which can print out 16 pages per minute.

Sharp and Xerox are some of the less significant players – both had hoped that the launch of models in 2000 would make 2001 the year they broke into the inkjet market. But in fact, their models were not yet mature, and their standing at the year’s end is not impressive. The main points of criticism focus on the high cost per page and middling print quality (these mostly have to do with following models: Sharp AJ-1800 and 2000, Xerox M750 and M760).

A Landslide Of Attractive Features

For this first run of tests, we have chosen the four main manufacturers only: Canon, Epson, HP and Lexmark.

On the retail shelves, they alone have more than thirty representatives ranging from $50 to $450. The price differences (and, indirectly, their purchase), are justified by top resolutions, printing speed and some extra functions. The resolutions claimed are supposedly proportional to the highest level of detail that the printer can reach. Speed ranges vary from one to five. The extra functions involve things like border-free printing, four cartridges instead of two, automatic paper analysis, etc.

Moving on to the tests, the thirteen models in this review claim to produce prints of photo quality. The resolutions in our tests ranged from 2400 to 2880 dpi (dots per inch), with dpi representing the number of ink droplets.

To give you an idea, the size of these droplets is between 3 and 9 pico-liters, or between 3 and 9 billionths of a milliliter (10-12), and therefore beyond the detection capacity of the human eye,.

The second criterion is speed. All the printers claim to print more than 9 pages per minute (ppm). Some of them claim up to 20 ppm.

Lastly, all claim to be for general-purpose use, meaning that they can print text close to laser quality and photos comparable to those on photo-sensitized paper.

Unfortunately, this is not exactly so. Though none of these claims are actually bold-faced lies, but there is a certain amount of cheating involved, because the speeds that are advertised have mostly been measured in conditions quite far from the norm.

Let’s start with a few examples. According to our estimates, based on the average of several documents, a normal page of text is filled to something in the region of 8%. A Web page has a rate of about 15%. With the assumption that it is more common to print Office text than Web page text, we can estimate an average filling rate of about 10%.

To show their products in the best light, the manufacturers claim speeds based on documents filled at 3.5%, and in draft mode at that.

Drivers

Interfaces change but the options always remain the same. All current drivers offer a two modes in their system. The first mode is meant for beginners or for a quick printout. Only a few options are available: type and size of paper, color or black and white and a preference for speed or quality. The second mode is usually available via an “Advanced” button. When activated, it opens a new window and allows you to adjust the settings more precisely. Not only can the print quality be customized to reach up to 2400 dpi or more, but you can also activate or deactivate smoothing and adjust the color levels. This means that you can, for example, remove reds or build up the blues. All the drivers include automatic cleaning, head alignment and ink level display.

Four Manufacturers, Two Technologies

Canon likes to tell the story of how the inkjet system was invented as the result of a handling error by one of its developers. Having accidentally put a soldering iron on a syringe full of ink, he was fascinated by the way the ink was suddenly expelled. The study of this phenomenon is said to have resulted in the Japanese firm taking out more than 10,000 patents in 1977.

HP, on the other hand, claims that they had the idea first. This tale involves a French engineer working in HP Labs in California, 1979. The object of interest this time was apparently a coffee machine – the heroic developer was fascinated by this modern appliance, which could make liquid circulate without any mechanical movement.

Regardless of which story is true, and however straightforward the heat principle might be, both manufacturers are still using it for their inkjet printers nearly 25 years later.

Still, it’s interesting to note that while Canon and HP each claim paternity rights, they are bound together by a host of contracts in this area. However, when HP talks about side-by-side development with Canon because the technology was “in the wind”, Canon claims to have imparted the technology to HP, who then adapted it to its models. For Canon, the proof is in the two years advance that their story has on HP’s.

As for Lexmark, their story is more straightforward. The firm started off as an IBM subsidiary, and they arrived at inkjets in the early 90s. As they themselves say, their systems are derivatives of Canon’s.

Epson, a Seiko subsidiary, was on its own. While others were signing agreements, they were studying quartz properties. In 1993, their research produced its first Piezo printer, which was based not on a heat system, but on deformation of the ink chamber.

Heat System: Canon, HP, Lexmark

The nozzle, a small tube, fills with ink by capillarity. It also contains an electrode which is heated to over 400&degree Celsius in a fraction of a second. Little bubbles of gas form and start form a single bubble. In this very short time, the bubble dilates and pushes the ink towards the outlet, which is a hole at the end of the nozzle. This hole where the ink is expelled has been a focus of much recent development. It can, for instance, be designed in the shape of a star-shaped cone. This gives the manufacturer better control over the shape and size of the ink droplet and the way it is deposited on the paper. When the ink leaves the nozzle, the power is cut off, the electrode retracts and the system can start a new cycle.

Piezo system: Epson

Everyone has their own way of naming things. At Epson they talk of Piezo or Micro-Piezo technology. The print-head is like a system of little studs activated by a Piezo crystal, which is electrically sensitive. The crystals change shape depending on the force applied to them. When it is powered, the plate in the head moves back and forth inside the ink chamber and compresses the liquid. This pushes the ink towards the exit or a hole at one end of the head. When the power is cut, the plate returns to its original position, creating a draught which does two things: 1) it separates the ink outside the chamber from that inside to make the most perfect droplet possible, and 2) it refills the circuit with ink. The plate is referred to as vibrating because the droplet output rate depends on the frequency of the plate movement. The size of the droplets can vary and depends on the amount of pressure applied by the plate, or on the strength of the current which activates it.

Ink Quality

In both cases, the quality of the ink plays an important part. Its fluidity or viscosity, its ability to vaporize, its reaction to heat and its pigmentation comprise some of the many factors that influence the shape, size and regularity of the droplets, as well as the intensity of the colors. This is why prints from so-called compatible inks sometimes give results of lower quality than original inks.

Also, in both cases the quality of the ink is decisive because the right balance between its fluidity and its ability to vaporize ensures that the ink is expelled properly, without its flowing back into the ink feed chamber.

Test Methods

The tests were carried out on a Dell computer: a Dimension 8100 with the following main features:

• Windows XP Professional Version 2002
• Intel Pentium 4 at 1500 MHz
• 256 MB RAM

We tested all the printers with the following operating systems: Windows 98SE / Millennium / 2000 and XP. If no mention is made of this in a printer test, it means the printer works perfectly fine with all the systems. For XP there are three possible scenarios. First, the printer is automatically recognized and doesn’t need a driver, which we indicate in the results. In the other two scenarios, either the XP drivers are supplied with the printer (indicated on the packaging) or else they have to be downloaded from the manufacturer’s site. We can’t say for certain which situation you will encounter because the manufacturers are revising their packaging.

All the printers tested use USB, and some of them also use parallel ports – this is mentioned in the summary table.

Three major criteria were used to test the printers.

1 – Print Quality

All claim to be appropriate for general-purpose use. They were therefore tested by printing different types of documents in an office context and in photo mode.

Office:

• Text of different fonts and sizes
• Compound documents (graphics + black text + color text)
• Web pages

Tests were done successively in draft mode and default mode, with some of them repeated at maximum quality to find out what the printers are truly capable of.

Aspects that were assessed in the resulting documents include:

• Definition level and smoothness of characters
• Depth and brightness of ink
• Faithfulness of colors in diagrams
• Extent of detail in images
• Precision of ink droplet deposit

Photo mode:

• 10 x 15 cm and A4 high resolution digital photos printed in black & white and color on 80g/mІ paper, with the maximum resolution possible for the type of paper.
• 10 x 15 cm and A4 high resolution digital photos printed in black & white and color on photo paper recommended by the manufacturer, with the highest resolution possible for the type of paper.
• Color chart prints to assess how well the colors are rendered.

2 – Speed

• Top motor speed. 10 pages in draft mode with a small “o” in the middle.
• 10 pages of black text filled at about 6% in economy or draft mode.
• 10 pages of black text filled at about 6% in driver default mode.
• 10 pages of a compound document (color text and graphics).
• A Web page.
• Time required for the first page of a monochrome document to start printing.
• 10 x 15 color photo on photo paper at the printer’s top resolution.
• Color photo in A4 format on photo paper at the printer’s top resolution.
• Color photo in A4 format on standard paper at the highest resolution possible for this kind of paper.
• Black and white photo in A4 format on photo paper at the printer’s top resolution.

3 – Cost Per Page

Time goes by, but reputations endure: manufacturers are often accused of making a lot of money, not on the devices themselves, but on their cartridges. Take the Deskjet 932c, for example, which shows the extent of the problem. The shop price of a new printer is about $130. A full set of cartridges (black + one color) costs about $75. And it’s even worse if you want a double-filling set of cartridges, the price shoots up to $120.

Under these circumstances, estimating the cost per page is vital, because this, more than the price paid for the actual machine, gives you the true cost of the printer.

We assessed two costs:

• The cost for monochrome, based on pages printed in black and white, filling 10% of the total surface.
• The cost for color pages filled with 5% per color: black, cyan, magenta and yellow.

The three prices noted (purchase, black and white, monochrome) were combined to find the cost at 3000 pages assessed as follows:

Purchase price + 1500 monochromes pages + 1500 color pages = price at 3000 printed pages.

The results are illuminating. They will make you realize that so-called inexpensive printers, the cheapest on sale, are not necessarily the best bargain. It’s often better to spend more for a more expensive model, which turns out cheaper in the long run.

Printers Tested

Canon S300 Photo

This is the cheapest version based on the S600. Although it has virtually the same motor, it uses single cartridges (one black and one color). Canon also does this in a model tweaked for photo-printing, making it one of the cheapest on the market.

Canon S500

Officially, this is the printer most like the S600. If the manufacturer is to be believed, it is the “fastest, cheapest” and produces “high quality” print.

Canon S630

The S630 is a faster version of the S500. Print quality is the same, cartridges and heads are the same, but the pages come out faster.

Epson Stylus C60

Unlike the new C70/C80, the C60 uses only two cartridges. This is the real replacement for the Stylus Color 880.

Epson Stylus C70/C80

Epson has never given in to temptation and was always ready to condemn systems using separate cartridges. But now they have yielded – its two middle- and top-range models come with four cartridges.

Epson Stylus Photo 820

The Epson site claims that its new baby can offer outstanding photographic quality because it has added two light hues (cyan and magenta) to the three basic colors, resulting in unequaled quality for flesh and pastel tones. It also claims that the 2880 dpi resolution and the imperceptible dots produce prints of absolutely perfect quality. Nothing less.

HP Deskjet 932c/940c

The Deskjet 930c was loved by many. This year it has been replaced by two models whose only difference is in motor speed.

HP Deskjet 960c

This replaces the Deskjet 959c and features more speed, as well automatic paper analysis and resolution adjustment functions.

HP Deskjet 990cxi

This is the luxury Deskjet. Basically, it is very similar to the 960c. The main difference is that for about $100 more, you have a duplex unit as a standard feature.

Lexmark Z43

This is the cheapest photo printer in the test, though it is not dedicated to photo mode. In ordinary office mode, it prints up to 12 pages per minute.

Lexmark Z53

Lexmark claims this to be the fastest printer in its class. This speedy model is supposed to reach 16 pages per minute in black and white. And by the way, it is the only one in the test to feature Linux-compatible drivers.

The Printers

Canon S300

The Canon S300 does not live up to the manufacturer’s reputation. Though a good deal of their marketing blurb talks about the virtues of separate ink tank cartridges, the S300 has single cartridges. As usual, there are two of them, one black and one color (cyan + magenta + yellow). This is a good idea because it means that there are fewer cartridges to handle, and they are sold at a price which claims to be bargain. $14 for color and $5.50 for black, adding up to $19.50.

But don’t be deluded. The cartridges don’t cost very much because they don’t hold very much ink. In fact, they hold so little ink, that costs per page for the S300 are exactly twice those of the S500: $0.18 for color and $0.12 for black & white in pages filled respectively at 5% color (cyan, magenta, yellow, black) in the first case, and 10% black in the second. The printer cost price calculated at 3000 pages (purchase price + 1500 pages of black + 1500 pages of color) is revealing: $552, or about twice that of the S400 it replaces.

Fortunately there are compensations to justify these results. The motor of the S300 and its head block derive from the excellent S600. With this in mind, it’s not surprising that the S300 is very fast and the prints are of high quality. Word will go round that in black & white it prints as fast as the Epson C80 and that no HP or Lexmark can rival it.

The color mode doesn’t give the same results, a nasty habit with Canon. Its printers have always been fast in monochrome and slow whenever there is a color cartridge. The S300 is no exception. The speed measured has no cause to envy its rivals but it is nearly three times slower than black and white.

One of the best aspects in S300 speed is actually its photo mode. 10 x 15 prints come out in 1 minute 30 seconds. By comparison, its rivals often needed four to six minutes to print our test photo (in 30 ppp at the printer’s top resolution).

Canon S300: Print Examples

Its quality is excellent when printing in monochrome. The text it delivers is every bit as good as those of the S500, S600 and S630, a quality level that none of its rivals can equal. Bold, italic and special characters are perfectly defined and totally devoid of aliasing. The black is deep. In fact, we even say that the quality is comparable to that of the best laser printers.

Tests for compound documents involved color graphics. It has to be said that the resulting colors are paler than the original.

Finally, with the color photo print tests on photo paper (Photo Paper Pro), we obtained images in bright colors. But there again, they are less bright than the original. The same goes for black and white photos which come out too pale. So it’s best to anticipate and touch up the original first with the level contours and histograms in image software programs.

Likewise, prints of color charts revealed shortcomings in the cyan and yellow inks: their palettes are not as complete as others, especially Epson. This gives proofs a much less substantial final color range. It should also be noted that, like most of the printers tested, the S300 (and also the S500 and S630) adds magenta to the yellow and cyan to the magenta to make the photos brighter and more saturated. Canon says this is what the public wants. In practice, it is the response to earlier criticisms of their previous printers that the photo prints were too pale.

To sum up, the S300 is a good low-priced model whose primary asset is that it prints fast and well. Its cost per page being higher than other models of this make, the S300 should can only be recommended to occasional users.

Canon S500

Even more than the S300, the S500 is a “light” version of the S600. In practice, the S500 and S600 have the same cartridges, head block and pretty much the same motor.

The first complaint about the S300 is its high cost per page for a Canon printer and the small amount of ink in its cartridges. In fact, we only managed to print 130 pages with a black cartridge and 162 with a color one. The S500 uses the four cartridges cherished by Canon: black (about $11), cyan, magenta and yellow (about $9 each). The sum total of about $38 is therefore higher than the S300, but the duration is four times greater, reaching:

This being so, the S500, along with the S630, plainly gives us the lowest cost per page in the market. They are about four times cheaper than the HP Deskjets and Lexmarks, for example.

Surprisingly, the S500 is slower than the S300Photo except in the case of photo printing. It pumps out its 10 x 15 prints at a rate which leaves its rivals standing: 1 minute per photo is all it needs. Furthermore, it works fast and well, even though the dots can still be seen.

Canon S500: Print Examples

Like the S300 and the S630, text results are similar to laser quality. With these three printers, Canon gave us the best monochrome results of all the printers tested. And by the way, it is perfectly possible to use it in draft mode. The pages rendered in this mode are perfectly usable, even in an office context, so you will spare both time and ink.

On the other hand, compound documents and Web page printouts reveal shortcomings in the color ink. Results are still not faithful enough. This objection also applies to photo mode. With the driver default settings, the clarity, precision and size of the droplets is more or less the same as with Epson and HP printers, but the prints from its competitors are still preferable, mainly because they are brighter. Those who choose this printer will be advised to take the time to adjust the driver settings, especially by lowering the red which has a rather high default level. The impression that the red is too strong was confirmed with the color chart prints: the S500 adds magenta when asked to print yellow, and cyan when asked to print magenta.

No matter, the S500 certainly has one of the best quality and speed to price ratios this year, plus excellent monochrome and photo printing speeds, as well as good quality prints. But we would like Canon to improve its speed in color printing for office use.

Canon S630

The S600 was a great printer, and the S630 may even be better. Its qualities are just as good, with a printing speed and print quality level never before achieved by Canon.

More specifically, it has the same head blocks and cartridges as the S500, and its cost per page are very much the same.

The results give us a cost of $437 at 3000 pages. This implies that although it costs more in the shop, the S630 works out cheaper in the long run. If we assume a daily usage with as much monochrome as color, the S630 will start costing you less than an S300 at around 600 pages (300 color + 300 B&W), or a bit more than the first ream.

Speedwise, the S630 was the fastest printer in the test. Only one could hold up against it – the Epson C80. The S630 was an easy winner of the B&W tests and even more so in the photo tests.

Nonetheless, one of the results was surprising: the S630 is much slower with Windows XP than Windows 98. The speed differences are only noticeable with text documents. Windows 98 gives a motor speed of 33 ppm as opposed to 22 ppm, and in black and white there was a loss of 1 ppm. This of course is due to the driver and maybe to a hidden function which can only be accessed via the Settings / custom button in the Maintenance tab. To display it, press SHIFT and right-click the mouse. A new function is displayed: Stop ink flow between pages. The box is checked, grayed and impossible to activate. The goal is to stop the printer feeding in a new page before the previous one is fully printed.

Advantage: the ink of the first page does not flow onto the second.

Disadvantage: the motor is slowed down considerably.

At the end of the day, the S630 is fastest but the S500, which used to be way behind, is now on its heels. However, note that its driver option is also checked and impossible to activate, though ppm times on the S500 are exactly the same with Windows 98 and XP. Let’s hope Canon will soon find us a new version of the driver so that we really get the most out of the printer’s potential.

Canon S630: Print Samples

Now back to the tests themselves.

Print quality is exactly the same as the S300 and S500. To sum up:

• Text is printed perfectly, with a quality often higher than lase;
• Draft mode is very good and often comparable to the default mode of rival printers;
• Compound documents show weaker reproduction faithfulness, as do photos (too red);
• Dots are still slightly visible in photo mode, mostly in the lighter hues

While on the subject, Canon has made great strides with regard to photo prints. They have come a long way since the days when the prints were too pale and had dots all over (e.g.: BJC 6300). This is for two reasons: there are more print-heads, and the ink has more pigment than in the 2000 versions. But still, Canon admits it is still a bit behind Epson and HP for color photos. This is partly due to there being too much magenta in many of the hues.

So here are a few objections:

Color print speed is a weak point and a habit with Canon. Here, it was three times lower than in monochrome.

Whereas the competition seeks to attract customers with new functions that soon turn out to be useful and indispensable (card readers, double-sided printing, etc.), Canon sticks to delivering a straightforward printer. It prints fast and well, but that’s all. A border-free mode, for instance, would have been welcome.

Strong points:

Though it is slow to print color compound documents, the S630 is the fastest in the test.

Prints are always good to excellent, and the best when it comes to monochrome text.

Epson Stylus C60

In design and print type, the new Stylus Color splits into two groups.

First come the bottom-range C20, C40 and C60. All three use single cartridges. Their designs are similar to and not unlike the little Stylus Photos. The C60 has the same shell as the SP 820 in a different color.

Then there is the C70 and C80 with separate ink tank cartridges.

Mechanically speaking, there are still two groups, but not the same ones. The C20 and C40 go together. They both print slowly. Then there are the C60, C70 and C80, three fast workers whose main advantage is that in color printing, they are twice as fast as Canon, HP and Lexmark printers.

A closer look at performance times shows that the C70 is not the real replacement for the Stylus Color 880 as Epson claims; surprisingly enough, it is the C60.

From the previous table, we can see that its strong point is the 3.5 ppm in color. Its Canon rival is the S300, which is in the same price bracket with 2.5 ppm. Conclusion: the C60 is almost twice as fast . This is also true when it is compared to the S500 and the HP Deskjet 932c. In an Epson vs. Lexmark duel, the Japanese manufacturer wins hands down. In color, its C60 is over three times faster than the Z43 and Z53.

The weakest point: print speed in photo mode. The prints are good but very slow to come out. An A4 print in color or black and white takes over 20 minutes, as opposed to just three minutes with the Canon S500. The C60 colors are truer than the S500 but the dots are more visible in the light zones. As the blocks of intermediate and dark color are now better on the C60 than on the S500, the C60 is beginning to gain the upper hand. It does, however, have the same shortcoming as the other new Canons: it adds magenta when you ask for yellow and cyan when you want magenta. This is supposed to make the photos brighter but it makes the hues less true to the original.

Still on the subject of print quality, but in an office context, in default mode the characters are not always smooth enough. Furthermore, they run a bit when printed on standard paper. On the other hand, the colors of graphics are nice and bright.

In black and white then, results are not as good as the latest Canon, HP and Lexmark printers. It ranks just after HP and ahead of the others for compound document printing.

Last but not least, its cost per page is pretty poor. It is the most expensive Epson for ink, even compared to the Stylus Photo 820. It makes you wonder what Epson is playing at, since the SC 880 cost three times less, and the C70 and C80, though still too expensive for us, are half the price. If Epson carries on like this, it will get a well-deserved reputation for fleecing the customer with the price of its cartridges. So we expect to see this properly corrected in the next generation of peripheral devices.

A final point: this printer is noisy. In addition to its slowness, this makes it an annoying companion if you use it regularly.

Epson Stylus C60, Continued

It’s a shame that this printer, with its attractive design, price and quality range, turns out to be a disappointment. It’s incredible that Epson could bring out a model that uses so much ink and makes so much noise. A bit more fine-tuning is in order, and is absolutely needed in this case.

Espon Stylus C60: Print Examples

Epson Stylus C80

Once the world leader in the inkjet market, Epson is now trying to work its way back to the top. This means overtaking not just HP, but also Canon, which recovered its health and reputation in 2001. In fact, one of the great Canon successes this year was the launch of the S600, to which Epson responded only this summer with the old Stylus Color 980. This came as no surprise, since the rumor had already gone round: Epson had adopted its rival’s separate ink cartridge and put it on two of its models, the C70 (official replacement for the Stylus Color 880) and the C80 (replacement for the Stylus Color 980).

So here we have a configuration very like the Canon devices: fixed print-heads (along with all aging and clogging involved) and four cartridges (black; cyan, magenta and yellow).

The C80 was launched with a stupefying claim: it could print at a speed of up to 20 ppm in black! And if compared to the S630 and the Deskjet 930c, it would beat their respective speeds of “just” 17 and 15 ppm.

In practice, YES, the motor is very fast. Yes, it does print fast in color as well as black and white. But, NO, it does not reach the 20 ppm claimed with representative documents.

It also manifests its shortcomings in photo mode, which, like the C60, is very slow. A4 photos take more than 15 minutes, as opposed to the three minutes for the S630.

In terms of quality, there is nothing to add to the comments on the C60. There are a few flaws in character definition, the draft mode is unusable (really only useful for checking page layout), the colors are bright and the dots still visible in the photos. This printer ranks a bit below the Canon and HP models, but ahead of Lexmark. In photo mode, it has the usual failings of general-purpose printers: to brighten the hues and make images more vibrant, the printer adds magenta to yellow and cyan to magenta. Overall, the photos are a bit too red. It would be best to give it a trial run to optimize the color levels in the driver.

Paradoxically, the real weakness of the C80 turns out to be its separate cartridges, despite the marketing hype on this point. And there’s the rub: Epson cartridges are 2 or 3 times more expensive than Canon’s. Logically, they should print twice the number of pages in order to justify the high price. And this is by no means the case.

The C80 is the first printer with 4 color cartridges and no print-head with a cost per page that is just as high as with print-head cartridges (HP and Lexmark). To compare favorably to Canon, the price of cartridges ought to be halved!

By the way, the ID chip on the earlier Stylus Photo cartridges is now in general use and is installed on those of the C80.

Epson Stylus C80, Continued

About the C70

Costs per page and quality with the C70 are exactly the same as the C80.

The C70 speeds are little slower than the C80. The biggest differences appear when page filling rates are low. So unless speed is absolutely essential, choose the C70 rather than the C80 and you will have lower cartridge costs on your hands.

Epson Stylus C80: Print Examples

Epson Stylus Photo 820

Out goes the Stylus Photo 790, in comes the SP 820. Epson presents this model as an upgrade of the first. The 820 does in fact have a faster motor than the SP 790, and it is even faster than the SP 890, although this costs about $70 more. No matter, apart from office color printing, which is faster but not very good, the SP 820 is still slow.

If we go no further than the marketing hype, the replacement of the SP 790 by the SP 820 is due to the integration of Epson Print Image Matching (PIM) technology, which is supposed to refine photo prints taken with cameras that are compatible with the new function. In theory, this new Epson standard is designed to produce print colors exactly the same as those taken by the camera. In reality, it is neither more nor less than a dialogue between the photoscope and the printer, where the terms are stored in the headings of the JPEG files they exchange.

In practice, Epson has taken the opportunity to speed up its device, though it is still slow and needs new cartridges. This is a shame for the customer because the new ones cost more than the others without improving the device’s autonomy. This results in costs per page that are a good deal higher than the Stylus Photo 790 and 890. They are even higher than the Lexmark printers with print-head cartridges, and only a little less than HP when single-content Deskjets cartridges are used.

Since the cartridges are expensive, you’d think there would be better print quality than the earlier Stylus Photos. Where the SP 790 excelled, so does the SP 820; and where the SP 790 failed, as with the draft mode, the SP 820 continues.

As for other points, the Stylus Photo is well-named. Its photo mode prints are better quality than those of same-price printers. One of the reasons given for this is the addition of two extra hues (light cyan and light magenta) to the four basic ones (black, cyan, magenta, yellow). In practice, this does give more hues, perfect blocks of color and a level of detail much higher than with general-purpose printers. Unlike these (whatever the make – Canon, Epson, HP or Lexmark), the dots are imperceptible.

This higher quality lies in the inks. The Stylus Photo 820 is the printer with the highest number of shades in the test. It is also the only one to render the colors faithfully, without adding unwanted ones to those requested to make the image brighter.

It’s a pity this higher quality is not noticeable when printing photos on standard paper. Results here are like its rivals – lack of detail and shades. Another thing is that border-free printing is not available in top resolution. If you want this, you must decrease 2880 dpi to 1440 dpi, which turns out very acceptable if you use photo paper.

Epson Stylus Photo 820, Continued

Now to office document printing. The Stylus Photo 820 is a notch lower than its rivals. On standard paper, the print runs a bit, the characters lack precision and those integrated into illustrations (captions, headings, etc.) are often fuzzy. And there are noticeable jagged edges on special characters. This is especially noticeable when rather unusual, bold or large fonts are used, and even just on caps.

In short, this is a printer for photo mode. If you need to use a device regularly for office work, you’d be better off choosing another model with higher performance, or else a spare printer. Why not a little personal laser?

Epson Stylus Photo 820: Print Examples

HP Deskjet 932c

One of the best-selling printers between late 2000 and this summer was the Deskjet 930c. This all-purpose printer was replaced last August not by one, but two models: the Deskjet 932c ($130) and the Deskjet 940c ($149). The only difference between them is that the second has a bit faster motor. They use the same cartridges and, as usual with HP, integrated print-heads. Unlike Canon and Epson which have fixed heads on the printer, the integrated heads are supposed to ensure consistent quality for the entirety device’s lifetime, as well as much less clogging. If you have the same ink, the same heads and the same resolution (2400 dpi), you have the same quality. And this is true. You could not tell the 932c and 940c prints apart, and the same applies to the 930c, 960c and 990cxi. They are all very good.

• The quality of text pages ranks just behind the new Canons, whose black smoothing and depth in default mode is slightly better. It ranks higher than Epson and Lexmark, whose prints lack precision in comparison.
• Compound pages prove to have the best quality, with vibrant and true colors that far surpass the other makes.
• Photos are a step below the Epson Stylus Photo 820, but above the C60, C70 and C80, as well as the Canon and Lexmark printers. This favorable impression, albeit subjective, was confirmed in the ink tests. Though, like the others, HP adds cyan to magenta and magenta to yellow, it does not overdo it. The result is that the dots, even in the lightest areas of images, cannot be detected with the naked eye without a magnifying glass. This makes the colors truer than with the general-purpose printers of the other three makes.

Mechanically speaking, the Deskjet 932c does not move like lightning. Only the Stylus Photo 820, after all a device dedicated to photography, turns out slower. So nothing to get excited about.

It works slowly but surely. Note that only the Deskjets produced monochrome prints worthy of the name, with true shades of gray. Rival models always tend towards a hue, usually green.

But quality has a price. Deskjet cartridges are some of the costliest. The shop price is about $75 for a full set (black + color) and about $110 for a “double-content” set. However, the higher cost is due to more ink, so it works out cheaper in the long run. The cost per page is lower by 10%.

The costs we give you here are the ones we found for single-content cartridges:

These figures give us a ratio of 3000 pages at $810. This is twice that of an S500. It is also higher than the Lexmark and Epson printers. With double-content cartridges, the cost at 3000 pages drops to $737 and is comparable to Lexmark and Epson, but is still much higher than Canon.

To sum up, the Deskjet 932c prints very well but slowly and its inks are very expensive. Our advice is to use it sparingly.

Note that when connected to a PC running Windows XP, the device is automatically recognized and installed. The user has access to a generic driver which is fully usable and compatible. It is however less practical than the original if you want to refine your print options. So it would still be better to install the driver supplied with the device or download the latest version.

HP Deskjet 932c, Continued

About Deskjet 940c

The Deskjet 940c has a much faster motor than the 932c. When printing empty pages, it turns out up to 21 ppm, twice as much as its relative. However, the differences are less apparent when normal documents are printed, covered at, say 5%. In practice, it turns out 10% faster than the 932c.

Comments on inks, quality and costs per page are close to the 932c.

HP Deskjet 932c: Print Examples

HP Deskjet 960c

More expensive, but more attractive, the Deskjet 960c is proud to be able to spare users the trouble of having to tweak the driver to adjust the resolution to the paper. This is due to a sensor in the printer that is designed to analyze a number of points giving the paper type. The information is returned to the driver which then works in PhotoRet III for photo paper, 600 dpi for draft paper, etc. This function is plainly intended for beginners and those who hate the thought of having to open a settings window and options menus. More advanced users should have no need for it, unless they’re not sure what sort of paper they’re using. This would typically be the case if the paper is not HP and has a name that is not listed in the driver.

Beyond this, what we have is simply a faster Deskjet 932c, nothing more and nothing less.

The gain in speed is substantial, although color printing is still slow. This is especially noticeable in photo mode, which requires the PC and the driver to exchange a lot of information. The 932c already has 2 MB of internal memory, but the 960c has 8 MB as well as a RISC processor at 33 MHz. The result is equal print quality, but photos which come out twice (10 x 15) or three times (A4) faster.

The higher speed of the 960c also applies to the one it has replaced, the 959c. Gains in black and white and color are respectively 9% and 29%.

And now, to keep a clear mind, the 960c should be compared with the competition, either the Canon S630 or the Epson C80. And here, the worst that can be said is that the 960c is very slow.

We could console ourselves with the thought that the quality makes up for this, but this is only half true. While HP was once ahead in this field, this is not so much the case today. HP always used to be the champion in black and white text. But Canon has taken over now with its S600.

In photo mode, the differences are not so obvious either. HP always comes up against Epson here. Color prints are neck and neck, but in future there will be Canon to reckon with as it closes the gap.

All that remains is compound documents. And there yes, HP is still the uncontested leader.

But what a price!

As we saw with the Deskjet 932c, HP cartridges are incredibly pricey. This is because the manufacturer opted for integrated print-heads. The use profits from this, since there will be far fewer clogging and therefore less cleaning to do. Quality also goes up, and the claim is that prints will be as good at the end of the printer’s life span as the day it was bought.

Still, these heads don’t explain everything and we can only regret the HP pricing policy which, like Epson recently, gives manufacturers a reputation for making money off of the ink, and that at the expense of guileless customers who rarely consider this factor during purchase.

The cost at 3000 pages is of the order indicated in the tables above: $796. Now supposing we put it like this – for the same price, would you prefer one HP 960c and 3000 printed pages, or two S630s and 6000 pages?

In short, this printer is another one to be used sparingly. Otherwise your bank account could be the first victim.

HP Deskjet 960c, Continued

Like the 932c, the 960c is automatically installed when connected to a PC running Windows XP. It’s still best to install the original driver, which offers more than the Windows one.

HP Deskjet 960C: Print Examples

HP Deskjet 990cxi

The luxury version of the Deskjets is the 990cxi. Launched at the start of 2001, it is one of the few HP printers of this period that is still being sold.

It is pretty much a 960c. Apart from the first page test, the output times for the 990cxi differ by 1 to 5% from the 960c. They probably have the same motor. In addition, it too has a paper analysis sensor (cf. previous page). On the other hand, and this explains the price difference, the 990cxi comes with a duplex unit as a standard feature whereas it is an option on the 960c.

The times given above are those from the printer without the duplex unit. When this is turned on, the 990cxi is even slower: 1.2 ppm in color and 1.6 ppm in B&W. Even so, it can still be very useful if you are printing reports, dissertations or business leaflets, etc.

Like the other Deskjets, we tested the 990cxi with “single-content” cartridges. For your information, if you use “double-content” cartridges, the cost per page in color and B&W can drop by about 10%.

Again, print quality is the same as the 932c, 940c and 960c, so no need to go into further detail, just read the previous pages. Broadly speaking: very good text, excellent color documents, beautiful photos, dots still perceptible, good color reproduction (see section on the Deskjet 932c for more details).

HP Deskjet 990cxi, Continued

In the end, this Deskjet is most appropriate for business/office situations, not because it is faster, but for its duplex unit. This feature and the high print quality are strong arguments for choosing it as opposed to the other cheaper and faster models.

A final point: like the 932c and 960c, Windows XP automatically detects and installs a driver when you connect the 990cxi to a PC. We still think it’s better to use the original one, though.

HP Deskjet 990cxi: Print Examples

Lexmark Z43

The main asset of the Z43 is that it can work in 4 colors (office use) or 6 for photo prints. What this means is that it usually works with two cartridges (color and black), but the black cartridge can be removed and replaced by one called Photo. When this is installed, the device can theoretically produce high definition prints comparable to the Stylus Photo 820. Actually though, Lexmark is not yet up to Epson standards. But this cartridge does make a huge improvement in the disappointing photo prints resulting from the 4-color cartridge.

On the marketing side, Lexmark usually brings out its new ranges a bit earlier than the competition. When it was launched before the summer, the Z43 only had previous-generation printers to compete with. These were the Canon S400, Epson 680 and HP Deskjet 840.

Things have changed since then. With an initial price of $135, in August it found itself up against the new Canon S330, Epson C60 and HP Deskjet 932c.

So Lexmark was forced to review its prices and the Z43 recently dropped to $100.

In speed tests for black & white prints, the Z34 has no reason to envy its rivals. Results are pretty much the same for monochrome prints. The fastest is the S300 and the slowest the Deskjet 932c, but there’s not much in it.

Things get more interesting when color comes into play. Here the device is twice as slow as the Canon and HP models, and no less than four times slower than Epson.

But in photo mode with a suitable cartridge, the Z43 produces really pleasing prints in a bit less than half-an-hour for an A4 photo in 2400 dpi.

For the quality test, we used the Z43 with its two types of cartridge: standard and photo. The first has just the four usual colors (cyan, magenta, black and yellow). The second has two extra hues to improve the appearance of shading.

Office document print tests were done with the “normal” cartridge and in default mode. Monochrome prints are good, and the characters of a quality comparable to Epson printers. Canon and HP printers tend to perform better though.

Lexmark Z43, Continued

Now as to color, while the prints in top quality mode are nearly perfect, default mode (which uses the ink more sparingly) shows print defects. This is especially noticeable with graphics on a shaded background, such as the ones we use on our site. Cleaning the cartridges and aligning the heads makes no difference, the color blocks in default mode are not smooth enough.

In photo mode, tests with the standard cartridge are really disappointing. To compensate for the lack of brightness in the inks, the printer adds magenta to yellow and cyan, cyan to magenta and both cyan and magenta to its grays. The dots are quite wide apart, and therefore fairly visible. In addition, the cyan ink is below standard and the palette of dark hues is limited, so you can see that if you want decent prints, you really have to use the “Photo” cartridge.

When you do use the Photo cartridge (in place of the black), you will find a much wider range of hues. This is true for both light and dark shades. Still in this vein, the printer injects much less magenta and cyan to brighten the images. This enhancement relies on the lighter inks in the photo cartridge. The extra droplets are still there but not so obvious and the photos really gain by it. The dots are still visible though. Be that as it may, our color chart results again prove that the magenta and cyan inks lack shading in dark colors, and this means there is a loss of detail.

Still on the subject of photo mode, note that black and white prints give good results. For once, the gray is really gray and gives a true impression of black and white photos.

Like HP, Lexmark has integrated the print-heads into its cartridges. Advantage: the printer suffers less from head clogging and print quality is constant throughout the lifetime of the device. The disadvantage is that the cost of cartridges, and therefore the page, hits the roof.

Incidentally, the costs given here are those of an office context. We decided to estimate them based on standard color and black and white cartridges.

We found that the costs were well over those of Canon. But they are less than the new Epsons (even though these use headless cartridges) and HP Deskjets. The cost at 3000 pages is $689.

Lexmark Z43, Continued

Of other features, we really liked the paper adjustment function. No matter how you place your sheet, the printer will straighten it and this should prevent paper blockages.

The Z43 is actually a fairly good model in its price range but is only really valid if you chop and change between standard and photo cartridges. Final detail: like the HP Deskjets, the Lexmark printers are automatically recognized and installed by Windows XP.

Lexmark Z43: Print Examples

Lexmark Z53

Like the Z43, the Z53 uses sets of 4- or 6-color cartridges depending on whether you are printing office documents or photos.

As we saw above, the Z43 can often hold its own against its rivals. This doesn’t mean that it doesn’t have its weaknesses, though, especially in speed.

This summer, the Z53 had more trouble because its price range pitted it against the Canon S500, Epson C70 and Deskjet 940c. This resulted in a price drop to $130, like the Z43.

Comments on the Z43 print quality also apply here. The Z53 uses the same cartridges as the Z43, but the Canon, Epson and HP printers mentioned above give the same results as those on the previous pages (i.e. the S300, C60 and 932c). Overall, the Z53 is overall a bit below its rivals.

To sum up:

• Text printing in default mode is short on precision.
• The draft mode is adequate, meaning that it’s better than Epson but not as good as Canon or HP. The resulting pages cannot be used in a business context.
• In default mode, color blocks and shades lack continuity and uniformity.
• Photos should be printed with the photo cartridge. When this is so, the results are good but too bright, even when the driver is configured for “natural” colors. They tend to be too red and the blues lack tone.
• Black and white photo prints are excellent.
• The ink dries slowly in photo mode.
• The dots are visible.
• Photo prints on 80 g/mІ paper are poor.

It was only to be expected that costs per page for the Z43 and Z53 would be fairly similar. The Z53 works out to $719 at 3000 pages.

With the same print quality and cost per page, the main rival of the Z53 turns out to be the Z43. Only the printing speed separates them, and here the Z53 has the advantage.

Thus, its motor is much faster, although the tests for color and monochrome text result in a fairly small difference. But there is one test where the Z53 is much faster than the Z43: A4 photos come out twice as fast but their quality is the same.

Lexmark Z53, Continued

Compared to the rest of its rivals, the Z53 is slow. Its really weak spot is its speed for color compound documents, where it is 2 to 4 times slower than the rest.

Note: Windows XP automatically recognizes and installs the Z53.

Lexmark Z43: Print Examples

Summary Table And Conclusion

This set of printers can be divided into two groups.

The first consists of inkjet printers which only have ink tank cartridges, namely Canon and Epson. The cartridges don’t integrate print-heads, which means a risk of clogging and damage to the heads. Since the heads are fixed to the printer, all print operations could be affected. Another problem is that when it has been idle for a long time, when it starts running again the printer often begins with an ink circuit cleaning cycle. This is noisy, prolonged and heavy on the ink. So this kind of device is better left to those who use it regularly. To give you an idea, if long idle periods are frequent, then so are the cleaning cycles, and the ink consumption can reach 30% more than in our tests. The costs per page will increase proportinally. Canon will always be the cheapest on the market, but Epson will shoot up even higher than they are now.

Note that Canon and Epson have different responses to the issue of heads. When failure occurs (head completely blocked, damaged, etc.) the heads can always be changed. With Canon, all you have to do is buy a new one and install it yourself, which takes 5 seconds. With Epson, you have to send your device back to the factory for repairs. This can cost you quite a bit.

Another feature shared by Canon and Epson printers: they are much faster than HP and Lexmark.

Conclusion, Continued

The second group is HP and Lexmark. Their printer cartridges have integrated heads. These can be dirty or damaged, but it’s no problem, all you have to do is change the cartridge, and the system is as good as new. This means that print quality is identical from start to end of the printer’s lifetime. Unfortunately, this is reflected in the cartridge price, meaning that costs per page for these devices are often much higher than for printers whose cartridges don’t have integrated heads. Behold the estimates at 3000 pages: in the end, an S500 works out to be half the price of an HP or Lexmark. So this quality insurance comes at a price that some will find too heavy. After all, you can always decide it’s better to buy two S630s than one Z53, or one Deskjet 940c. However, there are two types of user who will be drawn to these printers precisely by this argument: those who use them infrequently and those who use them a lot. The former will be ensured of an undamaged device even if they print very little, and the latter will be pleased that their printer does not wear out as it churns out the pages. Incidentally, it may not be a good idea to buy this sort of printer and opt for compatible cartridges. Compatibles are often empty cartridges bought back at bargain price by big stores or specialist agents and refilled. This means that the heads, which are designed to be used only once, will be used at least twice or more depending on how often the cartridges are recycled.

Besides this, and this is not due to their own technology, the printers in this group are all automatically recognized and installed by Windows XP. You can of course install the drivers provided or download recent versions. Still, the Windows system is clear and has the advantage of reducing the number of installations or settings. This could be a plus for inexperienced users – all they’d have to do is just plug in the printer and, without having to validate anything at all, a message pops up in 15 seconds saying that the printer is now ready for use. And what’s more, it works!

If we were to praise specific models, they would be:

• Canon S500. This is certainly the best quality / price / speed ratio in the market. Especially notable are its text print quality, nearly as good as laser, moderate cartridge price, cost per page up to 4 times less than its rivals and its improved ink quality with better pigments than the 2000 versions. There is a distinct improvement in its photo quality in relation to the BJC 6300 and co. Results are much brighter and more detailed.
• Epson C80. Its cost per page is exorbitant, and the argument for separate cartridges is just a marketing ploy, but it is the only color inkjet device to print fast in both black and white and color. When printing text plus illustrations, it rated 4 ppm, which is over four times faster than the Z53.
• Deskjet 980cxi. This is the only device for duplex printing using a module plugged in to the back of the machine. Another good feature is its paper analysis sensor and automatic resolution adjustment. This function will be of great use for less-experienced users or if you use non-HP paper.
• Lexmark Z43. The recent price drop did it a lot of good. In general, it prints well, provided you use both the standard and six-color cartridges.