How We Tested
Colour Inkjet Printers
We tested each of the printers with an HP OmniBook 6000 notebook configured with a Pentium III 700, 128MB SDRAM and Windows 98.
We paused the Print Manager until the entire file was processed by the notebook, then began timing from the moment we -un-paused" the Print Manager.
All of the tests were performed on Reflex 80GSM A4 paper with the exception of the photorealistic test where we used Resolution Computer Supplies 90GSM -High Resolution Premium Inkjet Paper".
The applications used during testing were:
- Word for Windows (Office 2000)
- Adobe Photo Shop 5.0 LE
- Adobe Acrobat Reader V4
Wordâ€"Simple
10-page Test
This test comprised ten pages with a single font (Arial 10-point) and is used to evaluate the printer's maximum real-world throughput at its fastest 300 or 360dpi modeâ€"excluding -Economy" mode. We exclude Economy mode because we believe that Peak throughput should reflect a text print quality that is acceptable, and in most cases Economy mode produces output we would rate as unacceptable.We derive the PEAK Pages per minute (ppm) with the following formula:
Peak ppm = (60 / (time to print all 10 pages - time to first page)) * 9
Wordâ€"Complex
4-page Test
This test comprised four pages of complex word processing and includesâ€"18 different fonts some in multiple sizes, eight images ranging from simple clip art to high-res TIFF photos and multiple column styles. In almost all cases the printer driver was set to 600 or 720dpi plain paper mode for this test. We derive what we call our -Average ppm" figures from this test using the following formula (please note the time includes the time to print the first page):Average ppm = (60 / time to print all 4 pages) * 4
Photo Realistic Graphics Test
The very large 44MB test image was created and printed using PhotoShop 5.0 LE. The image is a composite comprising a large landscape with fine cloud, forest and wildflower detail, a sleeping baby, a vase of multicoloured flowers, a close-up of purple and white irises, an island and water scene, multicoloured balloon and finally a monochrome but highly detailed image of a cow skull hung on a weathered wooden panel. The diversity of the graphic content allows us to evaluate a whole range of printer abilities such as skin tones, sky colour fidelity, accuracy with fine white on colour details, accuracy of dithering (particularly in areas of low contrast), handling of low contrast shadows and overall colour or greyscale accuracy.The image also provides a good indication of the printer's speed with relatively complex graphics and is timed. The printer driver was set to its best -high-quality inkjet paper" mode for this test.
Capability and Print Quality Tests
There are three Adobe PDF files used to confirm the printer's language capabilities and determine its print quality in addition to the previous three tests. Unlike the previous tests these are not timed.Fontkey.PDF
This test confirms the printers ability to correctly and accurately render multiple font sizes from 4-point up to 48-point in two font stylesâ€"Times New Roman and Gaudy Handtooled.Laserkey.PDF
This test exercises the printers ability to produce smooth greyscale gradients, (both linear and greyscale,) smooth straight, oblique and radial fine lines and smooth solid black fills.Colorkey.PDF
This test is similar to the previous test but also includes smooth colour gradations, ink mixing, fine yellow grid lines on a solid green background, and a JPEG image of a small child.Printing Quality Assessment
Printer output was assessed for quality by the Test Lab staff, both with the naked eye and also an 8x magnifier. Purity was also judged with the naked eye, assessing how close the output was to the actual screen image. While we acknowledge this is a largely subjective process, especially given the different technologies we feel that most users would use similar purity criteria. Fonts were assessed for accuracy of formation, smoothing of radial and oblique edges and any evidence of ink -spatter" particularly in the white-on-black font test. Smoothness of colour/greyscale gradations and dithering was assessed, as was the accuracy of fine radial and oblique lines.Consumable life test
We devised a new improved consumable life test for this inkjet comparison. Each vendor was requested to supply a second set of consumables for this test to ensure we obtained the longest cartridge life possible for each printer. Using Photo Shop we constructed two full page A4 graphic images, one a full page of black and the other a full colour page comprising one third page bands of Cyan, Magenta and Yellow. The first corresponds to 100 percent black coverage the second to 100 percent colour coverage. We then calculate the number of black pages at 5 percent average coverage, which equates to a simple monochrome text page, with the following formula:Pages(5%) = Pages(100%) *(100/5)
The colour coverage is calculated at 15 percent average coverage, which roughly equates to an Excel graph or a report page that includes some embedded charts or graphics.
Pages(15%) = Pages(100%) *(100/15)
Printing the pages at a full 100 percent coverage simply cuts down on the paper consumed and in a small way lowers the burden on our forests. To further reduce the number of pages consumed the tests were carried out at either 600dpi or 720dpi (rather than 300dpi and 360dpi) depending on the resolutions supported by the printer. We also calculated a per page costing for both the black and coloured ink as follows:
Cost = cost of ink refill / total pages printed
Note that this does not take into account the cost of any other consumables such as paper for sample.
- Adobe Photo Shop 5.0 LE
4%
2%
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