Laser wars: no longer the stuff of science fiction - narrative review of 13 PCL and PostScript laser printers - Hardware Review - Evaluation

Home Office Computing, July, 1992 by Jack Nimersheim

As a science-fiction writer, I've conjured up my fair share of laser wars, all of which take place in an imaginary, far-flung future. Few, however, have matched the excitement of a high-tech battle that's being fought right now, in the real world. I'm referring to the escalating struggle among dozens of printer companies to dominate the lucrative laser-printer market.

My comparison of the current laser-printer wars to science fiction is no accident. Today's laser printers include features most people would have disbelieved a mere decade ago. And the cost of laser printers has plummeted like a crippled space ship spiraling through an alien atmosphere. Owning a laser printer was once the stuff of fantasy for all but the most affluent computer users, but current prices are now well within the financial reach of many small businesses and individuals. The dilemma facing today's shopper is not so much whether to purchase a laser printer but which to buy.

In this article I ask--and then answer--the questions you should consider when deciding on a laser printer:

* What features should you look for?

* How critical is Hewlett-Packard or PostScript compatibility, and what are the advantages of each?

* What are the real differences in performance between a four-ppm (page per minute) printer and one that's rated at six or eight ppm?

* Is purchase price the only important consideration when calculating the cost of a laser printer?

* Can that affordable printer you buy today be adapted to meet your future needs?

What language will suit your business? Like every other personal-computer journey, the road to choosing a laser printer winds through a maze of confusing terminology and product features: PDL, HP compatibility, bit-mapped vs. scalable fonts, PCL vs. PostScript, print engines, ppm ratings, font cartridges, footprints, and so on.

Topping this list is the page-description language, or PDL. Stated simply, a PDL coordinates the way your printer manages the almost 8.5 million individual dots that can comprise an 8.5-by-11-inch page printed at a resolution of 300 dots per inch (dpi). Two page-description languages currently dominate the market: Hewlett-Packard's Printer Control Language (PCL) and Adobe Systems' PostScript.

The prevailing HP standard is Level 4 PCL, the page-description language used by HP's LaserJet IIP and compatible printers. Level 4 PCL employs bit-mapped fonts to print text. If a font is bit mapped, each individual font--a combination of character design (typeface) and point size --is a separate entity, either a disk or a cartridge file. The characters for 8-point Times Roman, for example, would be stored in an entirely different file than those for 12-point Times Roman.

HP also sells a LaserJet III series, which uses the company's newer Level 5 PCL. Although it, too, supports bit-mapped fonts, Level 5 PCL can also generate scalable fonts. With scalable fonts, a single font file can produce characters of any size. As the term implies, different types sizes are generated by scaling the contents of each font file to a specified point size.

HP's Level 5 PCL hasn't caught up to Level 4 in popularity. If your work requires scalable fonts, however, you'll do better to look at PostScript.

Pricey PostScript. Unlike HP's Level 5 PCL, PostScript has been around since 1985. Consequently, PostScript drivers are available in most major applications, including Microsoft Windows, which does not yet support Level 5 PCL. The PostScript standard is also device independent, meaning that the same file can be printed on virtually any PostScript-compatible printer. The PostScript language assumes responsibility for generating printouts at the maximum resolution, dpi, available on a given printer, so it "knows" if you are printing to a 300-dpi printer or a 2,400-dpi imagesetter and prints at the respective resolution. Finally, PostScript has become the de facto standard of professional typesetters that accept both Macintosh and MS-DOS files. So if you take your work to a service bureau for final output, PostScript is the logical choice.

On the negative side, PostScript printers are still pricey compared to PCL printers. List prices for even relatively inexpensive models hover around the $2,000 mark, with street prices ranging anywhere from $1,400 to $1,600. Of course, only a couple of years ago prices for PostScript printers started at around $3,300. (One $1,295 PostScript printer, the Printer Works LX-29000, is included in the following reviews.)

PostScript printers also tend to be slower than their HP-compatible counterparts. It's not unusual to wait 10 minutes or more for a PostScript printer to print a single page containing multiple fonts and graphics. But in fairness, that page is almost guaranteed to be stunning.

All right, so which one is best for me? Is there a quick-and-dirty rule that will help you choose between these two popular standards? To some extent, yes. If your documents contain a limited number of typefaces, an HP or compatible printer will suffice. Conversely, if you need visual panache, PostScript is the way to go. PostScript is also the better choice if you print oversized spreadsheets.