Image Makers

Testing Ink Jets

The PC World Test Center ran time tests for each printer from a 1.6-GHz Pentium 4-based PC equipped with 256MB of RAM and running Windows XP Home. All the printers were connected to the test PC via a USB 2.0 adapter. The Test Center printed out monochrome text, line art, and color and gray-scale photo samples for each printer. For photo printing, we used each manufacturer's recommended paper, settings, and inks. We used plain white paper and default settings for all nonphoto tests. A panel of judges rated the image quality of output samples. We timed how long each unit took to produce prints, and in calculating overall ratings we factored in price, ease of use, features, support policies, and cost of ink.

You might expect photo printers to be faster at printing photographs. But the results of our speed tests showed that general-purpose units produce photos at about the same rate that photo printers do. The general-purpose ink jets averaged about 0.43 pages per minute when printing our 5-by-7-inch test photo, while the average output of the photo printers was a slightly faster 0.51 pages per minute with the same file. (That's too small a difference in speed to be very noticeable in everyday printing.) In our tests, the Canon models printed photographs faster than the printers from other manufacturers did, with the Canon S530D topping the ratings at 0.77 pages per minute on our test photo.

On graphics files and on mixed text-and-graphics files, the photo printers again displayed a slight speed edge that would not be especially noticeable during real-life use. The fastest model overall on our chart was the Canon I850 Photo Printer, which cranked out text at 7.7 pages per minute and printed our test photograph in 75 seconds.

Only in our timed text-printing test did the photo printers in our roundup trail the general-purpose models: The general-purpose printers produced text documents at an average speed of 5.6 pages per minute, versus an average of 3.6 pages per minute for the photo printers. However, the text from the photo models appeared darker and crisper.

The general-purpose models turned out pleasing pictures, but the specialized photo printers--especially the models that use more than four ink tanks, like the seven-ink-tank Epson Stylus Photo 2200--printed the best-looking photographs, with smooth gradations, accurate colors, and realistic skin tones. With seven ink cartridges installed simultaneously (two of which hold the same type of black ink), the Epson Stylus Photo 960 earned a photo quality rating of Outstanding, producing photos that were nearly identical to the original test images. The HP Photosmart 7550 printed superb pictures, but fell short of the quality we saw in photo prints from the top printers on our chart. Interestingly, details in photos printed on the Photosmart 7550 actually appeared sharper than in the original image.

Prints from general-purpose models lacked the rich skin tones and smooth gradations we saw in output from photo printers, but we rated the photo quality from most of them as Good. One exception was the Lexmark Z55se Color Jetprinter, whose photos showed visible graininess, washed-out colors, and ashen skin tones; we rated it Fair.

See our Features Comparison chart for in-depth reviews of the top ten printers we tested, and see the end of this article for reviews of the six printers that missed the chart.