THE NEWS IN PRINT

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.

Xerox released Phaser 8860, a laser printer that uses solid inks. It had directly compared it's performance with HP's 4700, a popular office laser printer in the market. HP was quick to fire back with allegations that 8860 consumed excessive power and was much slower while printing. They also put down the solid ink technology terming it as a non-durable print. Well, we have been reporting all about it last week. Here's an analysis conducted by Rob Mitchell, a blogger at Computer World. Here are some of the main points:

Solid Inks

HP accused solid inks to leave a coating on the page. Other complaints were scratching, bleeding through, scratching and cracking.

Observation: Durability exceeds customer's expectation. Print cracks on the crease when folded. It can be a challenge to write on the printed characters. Similar characteristics are observed from other colour laser printers.

Power Consumption

HP accused Phaser 8860 of consuming more power than its counterpart.

Observation: When compared to the wastage of 90% of printing supplies and the impact to the environment, excess power consumption will become a trivial point.

Turning ON Time

4700 takes 2 minutes to turn on the laser printer while the Phaser 8860 takes 13 minutes as per HP's fire.

Observation: It takes a longer time to heat the solid ink. On the up side, Xerox tracks usage patterns and turns itself ON and OFF based on the usage.

Conclusion

It is probably too early to declare a winner before the Xerox Phaser 8860 is tested in the real world. So far, Xerox has impressed reviewers and has got some accolades. Maybe Xerox might finish the job that was started by Kodak six months back.

Tom's Hardware has done a massive testing on several inkjet printers to produce a bible-like document for inkjet printer buyers. The inkjet printers that were pitted against each other are all-in-one printers that have a good market. There are over 200 inkjet printers in the market that meet the above criteria and TH settled in to test the top 11 inkjet printers in the market. Prices range from £15 to £130 for the printers mentioned below.

The Contenders

- Canon Pixma iP1800
- Canon Pixma iP4300
- Canon Pixma iP6310D
- Epson Picturemate Pal PM200
- Epson Stylus Photo R260
- Epson Stylus Photo R380
- HP Business Inkjet 1200
- HP Deskjet 4160
- HP Deskjet 9800
- Lexmark Z1300
- Lexmark Z1420

A list was prepared with features on the rows and printers on the columns for comparison. This table is useful if you are looking for some specific features before buying an inkjet printer.

All 11 printers were tested for quality, speed, price and features offered against price.

TH team couldn't converge on one buyable printer as there was no single printer that outdid others in every category tested. Here's my favourite part, the conclusion:

We give special marks to the Lexmark Z1300 for offering decent print and photo quality at a very low price, and also to the Canon Pixma iP6310D and Epson Stylus Photo R380 for delivering outstanding photo-handling features at very reasonable costs. Any of the printers in this guide is likely to satisfy your needs for low-volume output, but only the HP Business Inkjet is likely to be able to satisfy needs somewhat beyond such modest levels. That printer and the Lexmark Z1420 also earn bonus points for offering a wireless 802.11b/g interface, in addition to more typical interfaces (USB for both and parallel for the HP).

It is surprising to find that three major printer companies are missing from the list. Brother, Dell and most importantly Kodak are notable omissions. I have been a great fan of Kodak printers for its quality and reasonable price, and its non-consideration raises some doubts on the printer selection by TH. Still, this is the most comprehensive buyer's guide that I have come across for printers. There are more to follow for other categories.

Kodak's introduction into the printer market has thrown other printer manufacturers into tantrums. Kodak has climbed the ladder quite easily but a leader for years under the banner of HP has been a fierce competitor presently.

Computer World's national correspondent, Robert Mitchell has perhaps conducted the most detailed comparison between HP and Kodak printers for cost per page deduction. He pitted HP Photosmart C5180 All-in-One printer against Kodak Easyshare 5300 All-in-One printer.

Robert decided to use low grade paper for testing from the respective companies as low grade papers tend to use less ink. He used HP's Everyday paper for testing with 5180 and Kodak's Photo paper along with the 5300.

The difference between the quality of prints between the compared printers was minimal. The Kodak cost per page for black prints was £1.5 for 100 pages while HP was doubly expensive at £3. Kodak won the battle hands down for colour prints. Kodak's cost per page for colour prints was at £3.5 for 100 pages while HP measured at £12.

However, both printers have its share of pros and cons and would make it hard to find a single winner.