Top 10 Printers

Abstract

Littman reviews the top ten printers, including Hewlett-Packard's DeskJet 420C, Epson's Stylus Color 900, Canon's BJC-6000, and Minolta's Color PageWorks L.

Photographs by Marc Simon

After years of experience, ink jet manufacturers should be able to produce printers with near-perfect color quality. But two of the new models we reviewed this month indicate that's still not the case--no matter what you pay. At the low-price end, the $99 HP DeskJet 420C may be cheap, but with its crummy print quality, it's no deal. The high-end $449 Epson Stylus Color 900--one of the most expensive SOHO ink jets around--produces much poorer image quality than we expect for the price. Both printers miss the chart.

Prices aside, it was a busy month for us. Besides the HP and the Epson, we tested two other small-business/home color ink jets. HP's DeskJet 882C, a worthy successor to the recently retired 722C, arrives in third place on the chart. Meanwhile, Canon's BJC-6000, a printer with almost all the earmarks of a chart maker, falls short due to unimpressive print quality. For the corporate world, we tested a super-cheap color laser, Minolta's $1699 Color PageWorks L, but it prints too slowly to make the grade at any price.

Bogus Bargain

HP's DeskJet 420C costs only $99--but it's still no bargain. While most ink jet printers hold both a black and a color cartridge simultaneously, the 420C accommodates only one at a time. As a result, when the color cartridge is installed, color documents lack the black ink needed to produce accurate, vibrant colors. Instead, the 420C relies on overlaid magenta, yellow, and cyan to create a composite black that betrays a faint bluish tint. And with the black cartridge installed, the 420C does a lousy job on plain text. Strike three: It's excruciatingly slow. If you really must go the low-cost route, opt for the Epson Stylus Color 440, our number six unit, which offers much better print quality for a budget-friendly $129.

At the other end of the SOHO price spectrum, Epson's Stylus Color 900 rings up the register to the tune of $449. For that price we expect a lot of a printer. On speed, the 900 delivers: It prints text at 6.4 pages per minute, faster than any other ink jet we've tested recently, and text quality is reasonably good. Unfortunately, its gritty, flat gray-scale and color graphics lack detail. Other complaints: The paper trays are flimsy, and the driver is unduly complicated. On the bright side, when you register the 900, you can select two free pieces of serious business software from a list that includes Ventura Publisher and Lotus Freelance, and the printer is covered by an overnight exchange warranty.

Mainstream Ink Jets

HP discontinued production of its top-ranked DeskJet 722C late last year, and this month we tested its successor, the DeskJet 882C. Our verdict? The 882C is almost the same printer--not a bad thing. It delivers similar performance on text, at 4.3 ppm, and on graphics it's considerably faster than the 722C, at 0.8 ppm. The 882C's print quality impresses, too. Text looks attractive, while color and gray- scale graphics shine on plain paper and dazzle on coated ink jet stock. But the 882C's price tag also harkens back to the 722C era: At $299, it's more expensive than most current SOHO ink jets.

The other new ink jet we saw, Canon's BJC-6000, doesn't try to replace the just-retired BJC-5000--and a good thing it doesn't: The BJC-5000 was our top-ranked ink jet, while the BJC-6000 doesn't make the chart. (We'll test the 5000's replacement in August.) The BJC- 6000 prints fast for a $249 model: At 4.6 ppm on text and 0.9 ppm on graphics, it's faster than anything on the SOHO chart. It prints black text cleanly, but quality breaks down on graphics--color images look washed out and lack detail, and gray scales are wretchedly coarse and gridlike. Finally, the 6000's driver is complex and has the only watermark tool we've seen that doesn't let you define your own watermarks.

Slowpoke Lasers

Minolta's Color PageWorks l bears some resemblance to QMS's Magicolor 2 DeskLaser (see April's ("http://www.pcworld.com/apr99/t10printers") Top 10 Printers). Both are stripped-down versions of excellent color laser printers, and both are unacceptably slow. On top of that the Minolta isn't nearly as cheap as the $1299 QMS: At $1699, it costs only $151 less than the top-ranked Tektronix Phaser 740/N.

Competition remains vicious in the color laser arena. Tally cut a huge $630 from the price of its T8104 (to $1799), moving the unit up to second place. Meanwhile, Lexmark trimmed $250 off its third-ranked Optra SC 1275--but even the new $1899 price couldn't keep it above the Tally.

Copyright (c) 1999 PC World Communications. All Rights Reserved.