What operating systems, hardware platforms, and networking protocols are supported?
Futureproofing
What is the maximum amount of RAM you can install on each printer, its papers handling options
ROI
Initial cost of printer and replacing consumables vs print speed and quality.
Service
What is the length of the warranty and the support hours?
We tested each of the printers over the Test Labs internal test network. The test PC was a Dell Desktop PC with a P4 1.7GHz CPU, 512MB of memory and loaded with Windows XP Professional SP2. The applications used during testing were:
- Word for Windows (Office 2000)
- Adobe Photo Shop 6
- Adobe Acrobat Reader V5
The printer drivers used were those provided by the vendor.
Printer Speed
Peak pages per minute print benchmark
This is derived using a 30-page simple format document. This is in effect a measure of the printer's peak page speed and generally does not indicate real world performance but makes an interesting comparison to the vendors' page throughput claims. Typically the printer driver is not set to its lowest quality mode but is instead set to the vendors recommended "Normal" or "Standard" document mode. The print output is timed from the moment the print button is pressed, the time to first page out is recorded but only the elapsed time of the remaining 49 pages is used to calculate the peak performance. The following formula is used:
Peak PPM = (60 / (time to print all 30 pages - time to first page)) * 29
Average page per minute print benchmark
This is derived using a more complex 24-page Word document that includesââ,¬"18 different fonts some in multiple sizes, eight images ranging from simple clip art to high res TIFF photos and multiple column styles. Average PPM is more indicative of "real world" printer performance. Again the printer driver is set to the vendors recommended "Normal" or "Standard" document mode. In this case the time to produce the first page is included in the PPM calculation. The formula used is as follows:
Average PPM = (60 / (time to print all 24 pages)) * 24
Print Quality
Fontkey.PDF
This test confirms the printer's ability to correctly and accurately render multiple font sizes from 4-point up to 48-point in two font styles - Times New Roman and Gaudy Handtooled. The printer driver is set to the vendors highest recommended "plain paper" quality setting.
Laserkey.PDF
This test exercises the printer's ability to produce smooth greyscale gradients, (both linear and greyscale,) smooth straight, oblique and radial fine lines and smooth solid black fills. The printer driver is set to the vendors highest recommended "plain paper" quality setting.
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. The printer driver is set to the vendors highest recommended "plain paper" quality setting.
Photo Realistic Graphics Test Photo (Max Resolution)
The large 33MB test image was created and printed using Photo Shop 6.0. 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, and accuracy of dithering (particularly in areas of low contrast).
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 toner "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.
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