Ink Jets: a laser alternative? - Hardware Review - Apple's StyleWriter II; Brother International Corp.'s HJ-400; Canon Computer Systems' BJ-200, BJ-230; C. Itoh Inc.'s SpeedJet CJ-300; Epson America Inc.'s Stylus 800; HP's DeskJet 500; NEC Technologies Inc.'s JetMate; Texas Instruments Inc.'s microMarc - Evaluation

Home Office Computing, Nov, 1993 by Stephen W. Plain

Need High-Quality Output on a Tight Budget? Look to These Nine Printers

You've seen thne ads: "Near laser quality at a dot-matrix prioce!" While it may seem too good to be true, many ink-jet printers do live up to that claim. But with personal laser printer prices falling to as low as $600, a big question is whether it still makes sense to buy a monochrome ink-jet printer.

The answer may be yes--at least for now. Ink jets are a premium choice for offices where the money is tight, but high-quality text output is required: A narrow-carriage, monochrome ink-jet printer typically discounts for around $300, about one-half to one-third the street price of many 4- or 5-ppm (page per minute) lasers. Even if you're not on a budget, you may be enticed by ink jets' other advantages: They're smaller and lighter than most laser printers, and they generally consume less power in operating mode, which saves on electricity bills. While a typical laser printer uses about 200 watts, the ink jets we reviewed from Apple, Brother, Canon, and Hewlett-Packard consume fewer than 30 watts, and the Epson Stylus 800 is rated at 60 watts in full operation.

Ink jets also handle envelopes and labels well, making them suitable as primary--or perhaps secondary--printers. Most ink jets have adjustable manual feed trays that make it easy to use different size media, and the printhead can often be adjusted for thicker stock. Because of their flexible paper handling and compact, lightweight design, even ink jets that are not portable by definition are desirable for use at temporary locations like trade show booths and hotel rooms.

Admittedly, ink jets can't compare with lasers in all areas. They are slower, and their graphics output generally suffers in comparison. Typically, their input trays won't hold as many sheets as a laser printer's, and few of the printers reviewed here have more than a single inteface port. Additionally, you pay with most ink jets, compared with about one or two cents for a laser. The Epson Stylus 800, however, uses a technology that brings its cost per page down to about three cents. Rather than a disposable cartridge that houses both the printhead and the inkwell (a part that usually costs between $25 and $40 and must be replaced fairly regularly), the Epson printhead is fixed; you need to replace only the long-life ink cartridge, which sells for about $20.

The downside is that this approach may make the unit more vulnerable to clogged printheads, and a replacement printhead costs about $200.

Many vendors are getting that ink jets still fill important needs. No fewer than eight companies introuduced monochrome-only desktop ink jets this year. We look at these new printers, as well as the de facto standard, the HP DeskJet 500.

QUALITY AND PERFORMANCE

With resolutions of 30 and 360 dpi (dots per inch), ink-jet printers match or better the resolutions of most lasers. Accordingly, their output--especially for text documents--compares favorably with what you'll get out of lasers, particularly those that don't offer amenities like resolution enhancement to eliminate jaggies from text and line art. (Ink jets are somewhat prone to jaggies since ink spreads as it's prone to jaggies since ink spreads as it's absorbed by paper.) Because the print from an ink jet tends to be darker than that of a laser printer, you usually won't get the same level of definition, subtle shading, and grayscale graduations on graphics output. Many ink jets are susceptible to smudging as well. If you touch a page that's just come out of an ink jet with moist fingertips, the output might smear, especially if water-soluble ink is said.

To test quality and speed, we printed a photographic image saved in the TIFF format and the same text document twice--once using a single 12-point font internal to the printer and once using several True Type typefaces (which ship with Windows and the Macintosh) and differing attributes (underlining and bolding, for example). We also evaluated quality using various vector graphic images that further stress a printer's ability to produce shades of black and crip, sharp lines. In each case, we used the Windows or Macintosh printer drivers shipped with the unit or recommended by the vendor.

THE FUTURE

Consider the amount of market activity, it's interesting that some products are actually the twins of others. The C. ltoh SpeedJet CJ-300, NEC JetMate 1000, and Texas Instruments microMarc are all functionally identical to one another, and the Apple StyleWriter II uses the same mechanical internals as the Canon BJ-200. Other printers, however, also offer unique features: the Epson's low cost-per-page design, the Brother HJ-400's ports for both a Mac and a PC, and the Canon BJ-230's ability to accept 11-by-17-inch paper.

Not included here are portable ink jets (see the February 1993 issue for our last review of them) and color ink jets, which are getting a lot of attention with entries from manufacturers like HP and Canon beginning to make high-quality color affordable. But at $850 to $1,200, they're still a little costly for general business use. These prices will eventually come down, and someday every ink jet may very well be color capable. But until then, if you're looking for a low-cost, high-quality printer, one of the these monochrome ink jets might fit the bill. Apple Computer's StyleWriter II offers Mac users paper-handling facilities similar to that which the Canon BJ-200 provides to PC owners; the main difference is that the StyleWriter II handles 15 envelopes at a nine. In fact, the StyleWriter II is externally the same as the Canon BJ-200, with one exception--the Apple unit has only one button (to power the system on). The printer dialog boxes are the sole control panel, which offers convenience and simplicity but sacrifices some flexibility. For instance, there's no way to output a status sheet.