Re: Good All In One for a teacher


"Ben" <ben@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote in message news:1156688048.436319.249720@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

I don't think it ever hurts to be skeptical of a manufacturer's claims.

It does hurt if you incorrectly infer that the manufacturer is trying to pull a fast one or otherwise mislead consumers.

Especially when it comes to you and your money. In any case, my
original analysis was done using HP's numbers. As I said, if one
believes those, the Photosmart 3210 remains the least expensive choice
in terms of two-year costs.

Also, while I applaud HP's effort to standardize page yield, nothing on
the HP web page you reference mentions anything about the quality
setting.

Hmm, that is correct. I know for a fact that the page yield tests are conducted in normal mode, or specifically whatever the default driver mode is. This is specified in the ISO standard AFAIK.

I have not tested the latest crop of inkjet printers, but
historically, I have been unhappy with the text/B&W print quality of
inkjets set for anything less than "highest" or "best" quality mode.

I do not know how old the printers you have tested are, but since about the DeskJet 850 the HP DeskJet's draft mode has been pretty good for plain paper text, and for most cases there is little difference in print quality between normal and best mode for text. Different manufacturers make different tradeoffs - I have seen printers that have very "drafty" draft modes. [And BTW, the page yields are very nearly identical for normal and best modes for most HP DeskJets.] Some of the recent printers use underprinting in best mode, where black text is first printed in color to provide "blacker" text. In these cases best mode may look better for text. On the other hand, I stand by my original assertion that draft is pretty acceptable for most users for normal printing on any recent HP inkjet printer.

While certainly a completely different product line, I have found the
EconoMode on some HP's LaserJet printers to be unusable.

I don't know about that. My last LaserJet was the LaserJet 4 (after owning the LaserJet, LaserJet+, LaserJet II and LaserJet III....) and I have mostly used only inkjets in the last dozen years or so.

Another limitation of HP's test is that it tests for ink life operating
in continuous mode. This probably hurts HP relative to other
manufacturers since HP seems to have invested more effort in maximizing
the efficiency of their cartridge for the start-stop way that most
people use their inkjets. However, the real cartridge yield for a
typical owner will be less than estimated.

Maybe less, maybe more. A foam based ink system will generally deliver slightly more ink if given some time to rest between printing near end of life. There is probably some optimum print rate for page yield, it is likely not continuous printing. http://h10060.www1.hp.com/pageyield/articles/us/en/EfficiencyArticle.html has some graphs near the middle of the page that show the differences between continuous and "user rate" printing.

In the development of the ISO standard there were those that wanted to make the testing based on continuous printing and those that favored a user rate test, or at least both tests. The problem with the user rate test is that it can take several months to run a single set of cartridges, compared to one day or less for a continuous test. This argument (and perhaps the competitive disadvantage....) kept this out of the standard.

regards,
Bob Headrick, MS MVP Printing/Imaging

.

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