THE NEWS IN PRINT

Samsung’s low cost monochrome laser printer SCX-4300 with additional scanning and copying functionalities was launched in June earlier this year. The printer was an offshoot of rich-featured SCX-4500 which was a tack expensive over the printer in context.

SCX-4300 is clothed in black plastic with a dual line 16 character LCD display. The printer is wider than other laser printers to accommodate the scanning engine into its chassis. The printer comes with a starter cartridge which is 50% the capacity of a normal cartridge.

TR’s review states that the print quality is average and nothing exceptional to mention explicitly. Graphics printed in this printer appear to lose detail in the darker shades and some stripes were also observed. Photocopies of prints taken from this printer looked appalling, as if parts of the surface of the prints have been scrubbed off.

The printer exhibited a close-to-claimed printing speed for text and graphics at 15ppm (18ppm claimed).

Perhaps, the most interesting aspect of any printer is the price of prints. This printer’s cartridge costs £40 and 2000 ISO pages can be printed off it; with a cost per page standing at 2.7p including paper cost.

There are other mono-laser printers in the market that can deliver at a better quality than the SCX-4300 and at a similar cost-per-print. The only appealing facet would be the low pricing of the printer at just over £100 including VAT. At best, it could fit SOHOs but with its multi-functionality, it could prove to be more than handy.

Canon’s latest printer in the portable printing segment, Pixma iP100 is slated as a worthy competitor to Polaroid’s PoGo although the size and features of the former being much bigger.

A review conducted by TR finds the print quality at par or even better than most portable printers in the market. A monochrome print test yielded laser-like prints except for jagged edges. Colour prints were particularly exceptional for this line of printers. Photo quality was at par with Canon’s normal sized photo printers.

Printing speeds were good but way off the claimed rates by Canon. A five page test yielded a printing speed of 6.67ppm while the text and graphics test yielded 3.53ppm. These speeds are excellent for a portable printer and there aren’t any other printers that can replicate these speeds in this segment.

Printing costs for iP100 are terrible. The printer costs a whopping £200 while the black cartridge is at £12 and the colour at £16. Assuming that cartridges yield 200 pages from each cartridge, each black print costs 7.08p and a colour print at 13.48p.

The pinching effect on the pockets could go well against the printer. Overall, it’s a great printer for someone looking for a good portable printer and a bad choice for those looking for cheaper options.

Here’s the verdict - Despite its high running costs, and to some extent the high purchase price if you include the lithium ion battery, this is an excellent portable printer. To those that need to print away from the mains, perhaps in a car or even on-site, in the middle of a field, the Canon PIXMA iP100 produces prints close to the quality of its desktop siblings, at very respectable speeds and with a minimum of fuss. It can even be hitched up as a Bluetooth printer with an optional USB adapter.

Poloroid’s Pogo has made plenty of noise with its release and it’s time to put it to test. PC Advisor has carried out detailed testing of the product and the verdict is quite favourable to the manufacturer.

The reviewer used a Palm Treo for capturing photos and using its inbuilt Bluetooth function to transfer images to the printer.

The quality of print was dull, flat and discoloured for pictures taken with Treo. But, an image taken with an 8MP digital camera came out with amazing quality and featured complete colour gradations and fine details.

However, it was found that the Pogo would get quite hot after printing eight photos in succession.
The prints were 100% dry as it emerged out of the printer which would not allow any room for smearing.

All photos printed get automatically scaled to 2X3 inches to fit the paper used. There were some prints with chopped off bottom and top part of the images.

Printing speed was under a minute for pictures taken from the Treo and it took a lot longer for the images taken by the 8MP digital camera.

Here’s the best part, the verdict: The Polaroid PoGo’s appeal lies in its mobility and its near-instantaneous picture production. The price is steep for what amounts to a one-trick gimmick printer. But that doesn’t detract from the silly fun people can have by printing pictures on the go. Teens and tweens, in particular, will love this feature; and casual users and business people (for example, real-estate agents who want to print pics of specific rooms for clients without delay) may appreciate PoGo’s portability.

PC World Magazine has rated the top ten colour laser printers in the market today. The rating comes through several reviews conducted by the staff, and factors like pricing and features offered played a vital part in the ranks obtained.

Japan based Brother International has bagged the top honour with its HL-4040CN. The printer offers a competitive price along with exceptional printing quality coupled with a fair printing speed.

Dell 1320C finds the second spot on the list. Its low pricing together with its excellent print quality has found favour among the rankers. However, its high cost per print has averted it from securing the top spot.

It’s surprising to see a HP printer ranked as high as number 10. Laserjet 1518ni’s slow printing speed brought down its ratings, and there was nothing special to offer in this printer which others lacked. It surely looks as though HP is heading downward, very quickly.

The entire list is as follows:
1. Brother HL-4040CN
2. Dell Color Laser Printer 1320c
3. Konica Minolta magicolor 2530DL
4. Oki Printing Solutions C5500n
5. Ricoh Aficio CL3500N
6. Lexmark C530dn
7. Konica Minolta magicolor 4650EN
8. Xerox Phaser 6180/N
9. Oki Printing Solutions C5800Ldn
10. HP Color LaserJet CP1518ni

OKI B6250 is a printer which can surprise you with the features that are quite similar to other leading models in the same category. If other major printer manufacturers can offer the same with their brand, why go for OKI? The catch lies in the feature that matters the most for buyers. We will discuss it towards the end.

A review conducted by TR finds the printer lacking built-in networking options which is quite odd considering that it was aimed at workgroups. But, the next printer in its line B6250N fills this void.

Printing speeds were found to be at 25ppm as against claimed 30ppm by running a 20-page test. Reviewers felt that the printer would have achieved 30ppm if the test was conducted with 50 pages.

Print quality is very good. Text characters are exceptionally well formed. Even though the printer’s default resolution is 600dpi, you’d be hard pressed to spot a flaw in normal viewing. Greyscale graphics are also well reproduced and the printer doesn’t get easily confused by the translation from colours to greys. There’s little banding and only the faintest hint of blotchiness in some darker tints.

OKI trumps its competitors in the price tag of its monochrome B6250 printer. The printer is priced at £303 including VAT and in comparison, Konica Minolta PagePro 4650EN is priced at £461 and Epson EPL-N3000 at £486. But, the price per print hits OKI hard. It costs 1.88p to print each page and in comparison, other competitors are doing much better at 1.78p. On a long run, price of printer gets nullified with the printing costs and could cost OKI dear.

Epson Stylus SX200 and SX400 were released a few months earlier sans fanfare. Both printers claimed to offer lab quality prints at a fast pace. The higher model SX400 came with a 2.5” LCD screen while the base model didn’t.

A review conducted by Doug Harman on SX400 approves the print quality and appreciates the price set. The print quality from the printer was termed excellent with good colour and detail, despite the technology not utilizing light cyan and light magenta inks which is mandatory for other photo printers.

Scanning quality was found to be excellent as well. Epson Easy Photo Fix package could fix colours on faded photos hassle-free. Another packaged application, PhotoEnhance produces refined skin tones on images, and also reduce dust and dirt on a scan.

Epson’s claims of printing 34ppm for both grayscale and colour were found to be false; the part that dazzles me is the most is the difference between the claimed and actual speed.

Sure, in fast economy mode a single page of text takes about 15-seconds to print a very grey sheet of text, in normal mode, that rises to 24-seconds and the print quality is more than adequate, though text is slightly fluffy. In high quality (photo) mode, it takes 59-seconds to print a page but text quality is excellent. And so, for ten sheets of A4 text and graphics the SX400 takes around 3 minutes and 45 seconds in normal mode.

Yet, with the misappropriation in the speeds, the printer with its excellent print quality coupled with an economical price of £120 is a good bet. The reviewer feels that at £30 cheaper without a LCD screen, the SX200 would be a better choice over SX400.

PC World has rated the top five inkjet printers at this time. There are no surprises as Canon grabs the top three spots while HP fills the other two. Are we seeing a two-horse race in the inkjet printer competition?

Pixma line of Canon printers were rated the best by the team of experts. HP Photosmart notched the remaining two places.

The Canon Pixma ip3500 was rated the best for its fast and quality output along with some useful features for a low price. ip4500 lost the top spot for its moderately expensive price and ip2600 was rated the third best.

HP Photosmart D7460 is rated at number four. The printer features wired and wireless network connectivity along with a huge touch screen. Its uncompetitive price gave it a lower rating over Canon Pixmas. Photosmart D5360 fills the fifth spot for its photo printing features.

PC World conducts tests on various inkjet printers in their laboratory. They test for print speeds for grayscale text, colour text and grayscale and colour photos, and the quality of output. The to-be printed document contains text with different sized fonts and colours, text with images, grayscale photograph, spreadsheet, presentation and a full colour blooded photograph.

Here are the toppers again:
1. Canon Pixma ip3500
2. Canon Pixma ip4500
3. Canon Pixma ip2600
4. HP Photosmart D7460
5. HP Photosmart D5360

We had inks for inkjet printers and also toners for laser printers, Ricoh wanted to try out a third alternative bridging the two; gel based printers. While the technology has a long way to go, Ricoh’s gel based printers seems to be an expensive affair.

Ricoh’s GX2500 was touted as an alternative to colour laser printers but as CA found out, it is no match to the tested solution in quality as well as economy.

The colour gel cartridge can print 1000 pages and is priced at £30 whereas colour toner for a laser cartridge costs £80 and can print around 4000 pages. Calculating per print cost, laser printers cost 2p per print while the technology meant for economical printing is at 3p per print. Clearly, Ricoh seems to have lost the plot with the economy of printing.

Major printing flaws were unearthed while printing text with images. Level Colour technology which ensures that colour gel used is minimal while printing images proved ineffective, as the text quality was found to be poor.

On the upside, although the photo print quality is poor, the speed of execution was quicker than most other printers.

Priced at £111, GX2500 is expensive and holds no race to other economical solutions available in the market. Replacement cartridges are no saints at £120. The bulky design at 13 kilos makes it highly unattractive for homes and small offices.

Brother’s colour laser printer 4040CN released a few months back and we had duly introduced its features and other necessities on Cartridge Save a few months back. The available features, usability options and the price were totally acceptable to us then. This time round, we decided to put it to grind.

The 4040CN is boxy and on the heavier side with 64 pounds of dead weight. Boxy, bulky and heavy works for offices. But, why do offices need PictBridge and USB ports on its printers? The main criteria for offices would be to channelise printing through authorised workstations. The presence of these input ports seems ambiguous to us.

4040CN can hold 250 pages of paper at best. Offices need much more than this. Refilling paper every hour or two doesn’t make much sense. The absence of a second tray and the ability to hold more paper rules this one out for bigger firms. For smaller offices, the present capability might be optimum.

Excellent sharp black prints. Average colour prints. This is grand for offices as the major use revolves around printing in black. A better colour output would have been desired but no qualms. But here’s a notable problem: the speed of prints for black. It prints around 15ppm for both black and colour. The print speed for colour is perfectly OK, but while its competitors are spitting out 30-40ppm, this Brother office printer might lose out of the race.

Priced moderately at £200, there should be no complaints on the pricing. Even toner cartridges are on the cheaper range with each black print costing a penny and colour at around 5 pennies. But, the lack of speed along with notable omission of duplex printing will make it tough for the sales team to push this to offices. But, an exceptional printing quality and a few other sans-PC features makes it appealing for smaller offices.

Scott Elder, an expert photographer has reviewed six photo printers which fall into the economy range. He gathered two ordinary inkjet printers and four dye sub printers. The review was on the basis of photo printing quality and the available features. He added weightage for quality and each feature to determine the best photo printer available in the market.

Here are the highlights of the review conducted:

1. Panasonic KX-PX 2M
Price: £50
Cost Per Print: 23 pennies
Printing Time: 74 seconds
Conclusion: Picture quality: 9 (out of 20), Ease of use and features: 5 (out of 15), Value bonus: 0 (out of 5), Total: 14 (out of 40)

2. HP Photosmart A526
Price: £50
Printer style: Inkjet
Cost per print: 14 pennies
Printing time: about 83 seconds
Conclusion: Picture quality: 10, Ease of use and features: 6, Value bonus: 3, Total: 19

3. Canon Selphy CP740
Price: £50
Printer style: Dye-sublimation
Cost per print: 14 pennies
Printing time: about 75 seconds
Conclusion: Picture quality: 12, Ease of use and features: 8, Value bonus: 4, Total: 24

4. Sony Picture Station DPP-FP70
Price: £75
Printer style: Dye-sublimation
Cost per print: 14 pennies
Printing time: about 53 seconds
Conclusion: Picture quality: 15, Ease of use and features: 12, Value bonus: 3, Total: 30

5. Kodak Easyshare G610 Printer Dock
Price: £50 (not including camera)
Printer style: Dye-sublimation
Cost per print: 14 pennies
Printing time: about 76 seconds
Conclusion: Picture quality: 17, Ease of use and features: 11, Value bonus: 3, Total: 31

6. Epson PictureMate Dash PM 260
Price: £50
Printer style: Inkjet
Cost per print: 12 pennies
Printing time: about 38 seconds
Conclusion: Picture quality: 18, Ease of use and features: 14, Value bonus: 5, Total: 37

Scott found a number of image editing features like cropping, black and white option, and manual image adjustments with this printer which was unique to the others reviewed. The controls, menu and the features were easy to use which is important for amateur users. The LCD screen displays images in a thumbnail view which allows users to locate images hassle-free. The quality was exceptional and spotless. Most importantly, coupled with the low price of printer, Epson cartridges are cheap.

Economical is a word that I try not to use along with a photo printer. The quality of a print is highly dependent on the technology behind the printer and good photo printers cost more. If you are looking for an economical printer, you get what you pay for.

We have seen time and over again that Canon has produced the best prints at our labs and we stick to our stand. The Canon Pixma Pro 9500 although expensive, is worth every penny.