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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...