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-------------------------------------------------------------- This story was printed from ZDNet Australia. --------------------------------------------------------------
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You can take it with you: 5 portable printing options October 25, 2002 URL: http://www.zdnet.com.au/reviews/hardware/printersscanners/soa/You-can-take-it-with-you-5-portable-printing-options/0,139023422,120269374,00.htm
Mobile printing can be a pain, whether you head to the copy shop or find a hotel business centre. Our Australian review examines five different options for printing on the road. If you find you need to create printed copies on the move, you've generally got one option; pay a large sum of money to somebody, be that a hotel business centre or the local printing centre. If you find yourself continuously in this predicament, however, the cost of getting pages printed will quickly stack up, and it may be worth looking at purchasing a mobile printer. Printers in this category are still predominantly inkjets; it's much easier to make a small ink printing head than a laser one, and the use of cheaper commodity parts keeps the prices within suitably tolerable levels. An inkjet may still sting you with the prices of the replacement inks, especially if you need to print a lot of colour pages, although over time you'd still see a decent return compared to the cost of having colour prints made up for you. These five printers fall into two distinct categories. There's three truly portable mini-printers suitable for shoving into a briefcase or laptop bag. Then we've looked at two different inkjet printers that could conceivably be placed into a suitcase or similar bag. These last two aren't the only ones in their class; many inkjet printers now have relatively small footprints. The advantage with buying a small-but-regular inkjet is that you don't pay the absolute premium price that the very small portable printers carry.
Ultraportables Canon BJC-85 HP Deskjet 450 Luggables Lexmark Z25 Canon BJC-55
If size is something that really matters to you, you can't go past the BJC-55 -- it's the printing size champ by a sizeable margin. Weighing in at 900 grams, we've seen notebook port replicators bigger than the BJC-55. Installation of the BJC-55 was quite simple, and as the unit supports IR printing, there's even a good setup procedure for verification of IR signal. Your other option for connectivity is USB, and like every other printer in this roundup, there's no sign of a cable in the package. It's the fundamental equivalent of selling a car without a steering wheel; sure, maybe everyone else does it, but it doesn't make it less annoying.
One way that the BJC-55 maintains its small profile is by not shipping with a sheet feeder, which is an AU$116 optional extra. Without that, you're stuck with manually feeding in each page as needed, which was how we tested the printer. Here the printer drew our ire quite often in testing; it would often just feed a sheet straight through without printing anything. It never actually dropped printing a page this way; it just seemed to reject the perfectly flat, uncreased paper for some mysterious reason. Like other printers in our roundup, the BJC-55 maintains its portability through the use of a battery. The battery inserts just above the paper-in slot, and must be inserted for the printer to work at all, even if the power adapter is plugged in. Canon rates the battery pack as good for up to 100 A4 prints. If your needs are likely to run to more than 100 A4 prints when you're nowhere near a power source, you could opt for a second battery. The BJC-55 uses Canon's drop modulation technology to deliver prints of up to 720 dpi. Match that in with the capability to swap out the black or colour cartridge for a photo cartridge, and the flexibility of the BJC-55 (and the fairly high entry price) becomes apparent. One extra we quite liked was the puck-shaped carrying container for whichever cartridge you're not using at a given time. In our tests, the BJC-55 managed a black text page with simple graphics in 29 seconds. Bear in mind that we tested without the sheet feeder; as such we couldn't determine a ppm count for the printer as we continually had to manually feed paper into the printer. Canon rates the BJC-55 as capable of up to 5ppm with the sheet feeder; our figures would seem to suggest just under 2ppm with a manual feed. The other trick that the BJC-55 can pull out is single sheet scanning with the optional scanner head. Again, this didn't fit our existing test pattern, so it was not tested here, but it's a decent theoretical addon for the the traveller who may need to not only print but scan documents as well. You'll pay a premium for the BJC-55's small profile, but if you're particularly stretched for space it has no competition.
Canon BJC-55
Canon BJC 85
There's a convention in computing that newer products increase in numeric suffixes; version 6 is usually followed by version 7. This is obviously a convention that Canon's chosen to ignore with the BJC-85. The convention would state that it should be an upgrade on the BJC-55, but the reverse is true; the BJC-85 has older technology, a larger form factor and fewer inbuilt options. The first clue that the BJC-85 is an older printer is in its connectivity options; unlike the BJC-55, the BJC-85 comes with a parallel port. The second clue is in the bundled software, which only supports up to Windows Me. For our test system, running Windows 2000, we had to download drivers from Canon's website, which was thankfully both uncomplicated -- no registration period -- and relatively quick; the entire driver is under 2.5MB.
The BJC-85 does share the same ink cartridge types with the BJC-55, including the optional scanner head and neat cartridge carrying puck. Unlike the provided battery of the BJC-55, if you want to go totally portable with the BJC-85, you'll have to shell out for an external battery, which will set you back around AU$175. Physically the BJC-85 is about twice the size of the BJC-55. It comes in at a relatively light 1.4Kgs, whihc shouldn't break too many weight limits. Its sizes does give it some advantages as well. The entire lid of the printer flips up to form a paper feeder, something that costs extra on the BJC-55. While a larger printer does need more desk space, it's still not onerous, and does give the printing process stability; we didn't encounter the blank page feeding problem of the BJC-55 with the BJC-85. Canon rates the BJC-85 and 55 at the same basic text speed of 5ppm. With its sheet feeder, we were able to assess the BJC-85 against our sample document in colour and black printing. With the black printer cartridge installed it managed a respectable 3ppm in standard quality mode. Installing the colour cartridge to deal with the small areas of colour in our test document revealed a significant bottleneck; speed dropped to around 1.4ppm. As it shares the same ink cartridge types with the BJC-55, it's also possible to add the scanner head to add functionality. Ultimately while the BJC-55 sells itself on its remarkably small size, the BJC-85 doesn't compare well to the HP Deskjet 450. If you were standardised on Canon printers, it wouldn't be a bad option, but otherwise we'd suggest the Deskjet 450 ahead of the BJC-85.
Canon BJC-55
HP Deskjet 450
HP's Deskjet 450 is an attractive ultraportable printer brimming with features and capable of fast quality printing. HP's Deskjet 450 is an ultraportable printer that in size terms sits inbetween the Canon BJC-55 and BJC-85 lines. At 1.9Kgs without battery or print cartridges, it's also a touch heavier than Canon's ultraportable offerings. Those are about the only concessions that this printer makes, as HP has stacked in just about everything else that you could look for in a full size printer into this much smaller unit. The Deskjet 450 does makes us ponder what it is exactly that designers get paid for. On the base of the printer, there's a slot that acts as a business card holder. Sure, it's a neat way to identify your personal Deskjet 450 if you happened to be at a Deskjet 450 Appreciation Society Bridge night, but how many potential customers are ever likely to look at the bottom of your printer? It's also only a promotional device; there's only space for one single business card, so it's not as though you could use it as a default holder.
From a technology perspective, it's hard to look past the Deskjet 450. Legacy users are dealt with via a custom parallel port, standard users can opt for USB (still, sadly no supplied cable) and truly mobile users can opt for a CF Bluetooth solution or good old standard IR. The deskjet can handle up to 1200dpi resolution for photo printing, 600dpi at normal text print quality, which gives it the highest quality range of any of the printers we've examined in the ultraportable class. Like the two Canon printers, you've got the option of a chargeable battery, which does cost extra. Installation of the Deskjet 450 was the usual business of cartridge insertion and software installation with one notable difference. As part of the installation, users are offered the option to send HP Printer status updates for its own database. We passed on this 'opportunity', which is what we suspect many users will do. Without registering, however, you can't view printing statistics generated by your own system, which could be useful if you share the printer with a lot of people, or just print a lot from a particular cartridge type. Like the Canon BJC-85, the Deskjet 450 uses its cover as its sheet feeder. The sheet feeder on the Deskjet 450 is rather unusual. Paper sitting in the tray ends up standing almost vertically before actually feeding into the printer. This could be an issue if you constantly only fed in single sheets of a low GSM paper. In our tests, the Deskjet 450 managed to beat every other printer we've examined, including the two larger models. It shot out an average of 3.5 ppm in greyscale, and this only dropped to 3ppm if we permitted colour printing. The Deskjet 450 uses HP's standard colour, black and photo cartridges, so if you've got other HP equipment cartridge swapping should be painless.
Canon S200SP
Canon's S200SP is a relatively small standard sized inkjet printer that weighs in at 2.4Kgs. Of interest in the portable category is the fact that both the paper in and out trays are fully removeable; if your space was at a particular premium, you could forgo the out tray especially if you had a flat surface for your finished prints to fall on. With the paper tray installed the S200SP can hold 50 sheets of paper, which should be enough for most mobile printing needs. Setup of the S200SP was the usual printer affair; good documentation, quite well laid out, and we still hate the fact that virtually nobody ships a printer with a USB cable supplied. For what it's worth, the S200SP is USB only, with drivers for Windows 98 and better and Mac OS 8.6 and higher. The S200SP also boasts a high resolution print head - up to 2880 x 720 dpi if you want to go into photo printing with it. From a mobile standpoint that makes it somewhat attractive if you need the extra printing grunt. Like our other semi-small model, the Lexmark Z25, the price you pay here is the bigger impact on your travelling bag; the S200SP weighs in at 2.4Kgs, around the same as many notebooks.
In terms of print speed, the S200SP got off to an impressive start. It managed to spit out its first greyscale page in 25 seconds every time, around five seconds quicker than any other printer in this roundup. From there, however, things slowed down quite a bit. Canon claims 5 pages per minute black; we managed just under 2.5 copies of our test print within a minute. Switching to colour printing, it managed to send out two pages of our document in colour. The quicker initial printing could be useful if you do print a lot of individual pages however. One thing the S200SP did manage was quite good page quality at a relatively low price. Our test document had areas of bold and italic text, and these came through very cleanly in both colour and greyscale. Canon rates the black cartridges that the S200SP uses as capable of up to 1,550 pages in super economy mode. While we didn't have any unpublished novels around that we wanted to print, that's still fairly impressive. One thing that does endear the S200SP to us is the relatively low cost of replacement cartridges; a replacement black cartridge will set you back around AU$14, while a colour one runs to AU$36. Given that the low-end printing market runs almost exclusively on the margins that can be made on ink, it's nice to see a printer that still has cheap ink to complement a budget entry price.
Canon BJC-55
Lexmark Z25
Lexmark's Z25 colour printer is incredibly cheap, and prints well. But you still can't get something for nothing. We've included it in this roundup because while it's hardly a small printer, it is quite light for its size (2.3kgs) and extremely cheap; if you had the suitcase space but were under tight weight and budget constraints it could be a possible contender. Setup of the Z25 couldn't be simpler. The printer itself is extremely lightweight, although it still has a fairly regular sized footprint. Tear off a single tab of blue plastic, install the print cartridges in the correct colour-coded slots, push in the power brick and plug in the USB cable, and the physical setup is done. There's just one thing wrong with this picture; like every other printer in our roundup, no USB cable is supplied. We'll just let out an exasperated sigh and move on.
Like the physical setup, driver setup is smooth and easy. We installed under Windows 2000, but the Z25 also supports Mac and Linux platforms. Plug in our own USB cable, cancel the printer wizard, and step through the provided CD install process. The printer driver tracks ink usage, shows printing progress, and even has a pleasant and polite voice to tell you when printing has commenced and finished. In one of the weirder software choices we've ever seen, the printer interface is skinnable. We suspect someone at Lexmark has far, far too much time on their hands. The Z25 handles resolutions of up to 1200x1200. You can't expect superfine production from a printer in this price range, but we had little to complain about in terms of colour bleed or incorrect colour presentation. Something had to come last in our printing tests, and the Z25 was it. Printing in normal quality greyscale, it managed a paltry 1.2 pages per minute of output, although its normal mode did deliver quite crisp print for an inkjet. Switching to colour saw no degredation of performance, but still left it at the back of the pack. Given that Lexmark rates it as having better ppm performance than any other printer in this roundup, that's quite disappointing. One thing that printing a large number of pages did demonstrate to us is that the colour cartridges don't last an awfully long time. Lexmark offers cartridges for the Z25 in two configurations. The moderate user cartridge (AU$45.95 Black, AU$49.95 colour) was what we tested with, and after four high definition A4 prints, was 1/8th drained. Lexmark claim yeilds of 410 draft black and 280 draft colour pages for this cartridge, which is designed for those who only want to print very intermittently. At the other end of the spectrum, Lexmark offer high resolution cartridges (AU$69.95 black, AU$76.37 colour) which they claim can manage 820 draft black and 520 draft colour pages respectively. If you're likely to print a lot the costlier cartridges make more sense on a cost per page basis, except of course that by the time you've gone through two of them, you've spent more than on the original printer itself. Ultimately the Lexmark Z25 can only be recommended for travellers who find themselves light in the wallet, but heavy in the suitcase, and who can stand to wait a little while for their documents.
Lexmark Z25
How we tested
A portable printer should be able to do two things well. Firstly, and most obviously, it should be able to print, and print well. We looked at details of what formats our test printers could handle, what resolutions they could deal with and any other special features. Our print testing was done with a single document printed in greyscale and colour. Where necessary, black and colour cartridges were exchanged for those printers that required that step. While it's possible to print a passable black page with a colour or photo cartridge, it's generally of poor quality and a terrible investment in terms of the ink used. Manufacturer's claims of page counts are always nebulous at best. We weighed these claims against the mean number of pages we could actually produce in a minute, averaged over several tests.
Often print speeds quoted by manufacturers will be for large runs of draft printing. For our printing tests we opted not to use draft modes; while they will produce the fastest text, except in the most extreme circumstances they're not of a quality you'd want to hand on to other people in a travelling environment. Most users will generally just click "Print" and not assess printer settings, so we used normal printing settings on plain paper. Where a printer was capable of additional printing styles as a feature, it was noted. The second factor to consider with a portable printer was how portable it actually was. This isn't just a matter of having the smallest printing box, however. If the paper tray is huge and unwieldy, or the power supply is a 3kg millstone, then the smallest printer in the world suddenly becomes the least convenient to carry around. We assessed printers on their size, weight, and overall ease of transport in working out the benefits and drawbacks of each printer. Editor's Choice: Portable PrintersHP Deskjet 450
There were two clear frontrunners for our Editor's Choice award; the HP Deskjet 450 and Canon BJC-55. The Deskjet 450 inched itself over the line with an impressive array of configuration and connection methodologies, superfast printing for a unit of its size and a reasonable price point. The BJC-55 is still the best choice if you're absolutely stuck for space, but potential purchasers would need to put out the extra cash for the sheet feeder.
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