Black and white speed, one page
The speed
Printers have significantly improved in this area and this is the case with HP and their new cartridges. They claim attaining 30 ppm in black and 20 ppm in color. This was in draft mode, however. In “standard” quality the number was 22 ppm (C86). Canon claims 25 ppm (iP4000) and Lexmark 22 ppm (Z815).
So are these printers up to the test?
Monochrome tests
The "Deskjet 6540 Photo" result was obtained by replacing the standard black cartridge with the “optional” photo cartridge.
The situation is completely the opposite compared to previous years. HP is up to expectations with their new nozzle and finishes second, just behind Epson (C86) and in front of Lexmark and…Canon.
Canon’s position in third place is due to the fact that we decided to leave the drying function activated this year. Canon imposes a break (up to 15 seconds) between pages to leave enough drying time. In our opinion, this function is not good, not really useful and slows down the printing process for no apparent reason. However, Canon seems to disagree as they didn’t removed or change this option in the past three years. Canon’s black or color printing rates double if the drying time is set to 0. Canon would normally be in first place in black and color.
In draft mode with the drying function deactivated, Canon was still unable to take the lead. Lexmark, however, with its Z815 finished between the iP3000 and iP4000. HP took first and second.
We also must add that print quality wasn’t equivalent in all printers. While Canon’s and Hp’s prints were correct and useable, the Lexmark’s and especially the Epson’s prints can only be used to review a document, the quality being quite poor.
Canon had better results in the “one page printed” test. Their printers were two to three times faster than their competitors.
The second set of results changes our first impressions. If you only have one page to print, Canon is the right choice, but for multiple page documents HP was better.
