We awarded the best-overall printer laurels to Hewlett-Packard's DeskJet 1600CM ($2479) because it is by far the fastest ink-jet at pushing paper into the output tray (see the lab results on page 117). HP's DeskJet 850C is second best in performance.
At $618, the DeskJet 850C is much easier on the wallet than the network-ready DeskJet 1600CM; it is more of a traditional ink-jet than its big brother because it has just a parallel port for direct connection to a desktop system. The 850C has 1 MB of buffer memory. Black-text print speed is 6 ppm, and color print speed is 1 ppm at its highest (600-dpi) resolution, according to vendor specifications. HP provides an excellent user's manual with the 850C, and its software-based control panel makes printer management easy. The two HP ink-jets also performed better than the others when hooked up to Apple's Quadra 640 AV for our Macintosh tests.
The Epson Stylus Pro ($799) is number one in our black-text and color-quality tests. It provides excellent overall value and has good performance (1.8 ppm) when set at its lowest print density of 180 by 180 dpi. You see the performance hit, however, when going from the Stylus Pro's low-resolution draft mode to its intense 720-dpi high-resolution mode. At the higher r
esolution, you get output at only 0.3 ppm.
The Canon BJC-610 ($599) also deserves mention. This 720- by 720-dpi printer puts out sharp, high-quality documents. The BJC-610 has decent performance, and our test team preferred the control panel located on the printer rather than the software-based control panel that most of the ink-jet devices use.
High Quality
Epson's Stylus Pro is our top pick for producing high-quality brochures and professional-looking reports. It also has the highest usability rating of all the printers due to its easy-to-understand status indicators, its easy-to-install ink cartridges, and its above-average user's manual. Not far behind is Canon's BJC-610 and HP's two high-performance ink-jets--the 1600CM and DeskJet 850C. They both offer excellent speed and quality output. Apple's StyleWriter 2500 ($379) had the fifth-best rating in our subjective color test.
Low Cost
One of the best features about ink-jets is that they are inexpens
ive. Of the 12 printers we tested, five cost less than $400, making them affordable for most people. The Lexmark Color JetPrinter 2070 ($399) has one of the best scores in our subjective color tests, where we compare documents that contain complex graphics. The Canon BJC-4100 and the portable BJC-70 scrape the $400 limbo pole at $399 each. The Canon printers have excellent software utilities, and among the low-cost models we tested, they are the easiest ones to set up and use.
At about $282, Lexmark's Color JetPrinter 1020 is the lowest-priced unit we tested. Its specifications are typical of low-cost ink-jets: 600- by 300-dpi edge sharpness and 3-ppm print speed for black text. The Lexmark is a good mate for a student's home system.
screen_link (155 Kbytes)
These output samples are part of a series of complex graphics that we use to subjectively judge color quality.
Best Overall: Ink-Jet Printers
