How we test
Inkjet or laser, we put all printers and MFPs through a battery of tests, designed as much to bring out greatness as to uncover weaknesses. First off, we run untimed quality tests involving blocks of strong colour and regular patterns – the objective here is to show up uneven printing or inkjet colours that run into each other. We print a page of text in font sizes down to tiny 5pt, and use an eyeglass to scrutinise the results.
Next, we dust off the stopwatch and send the printer 25 pages of black text. We time from the moment we click Print to the point when the first page arrives in the output tray, and continue until the last page is done to get both a time to first page (TTFP) and a pages per minute (ppm) figure for black text. For inkjets, we repeat the test in draft or fast mode, while on a laser we’ll repeat it from cold to assess warm-up time.
We then send a 24-page colour document of web, magazine pages and presentation slides to get a speed for colour (or, for mono printers, mono) graphics. On a colour laser, we get a TTFP, and again repeat it from cold. On duplex-capable printers, we print ten pages of this document onto five sheets of paper. Then we switch to a printer’s best quality setting, load up photo paper if necessary, and time two 10 x 8in photos and six 6 x 4in photos – the latter test is borderless on inkjets that support it.
For MFPs, we test copy speeds from standby, timing a single page and, where supported, ten pages from the ADF in both mono and colour. We use an imaging app to acquire images via TWAIN, timing from the moment we click Scan to the moment the image is complete and control is returned to the user. We time a preview, an A4 scan at 150 and 300dpi, and a 6 x 4in photo at 600 and 1,200dpi. Then we capture a Kodak Q60 scan target ( see image below) at 600dpi, which helps us spot strengths and problems with colour accuracy or dynamic range.
On top of these core tests, we use a power meter to measure consumption in sleep and standby modes, and the peak consumption when printing or (if supported) copying. We poke buttons, load up various paper feeds, try direct prints and scans, and fool around with mobile and cloud features. If we find problems, we’ll tell you about them.