Multifunction Printer Roundup

 

The role of the multi-function Device, or MFD, has changed significantly over the last couple of years. Not only has the quality of these devices increased dramatically, but the digital camera explosion, and to a smaller extent the prevalence of the DVD-R, has changed how we use such machines.

 

And so we see that several of the machines in this month's roundup shy away from the traditional SOHO setup of past units and launch headlong into digital photography territory. For example, the Epson Stylus Photo RX630 not only offers sophisticated negative scanning but also no longer includes faxing facilities.

DVD and CD burning has created a market for direct-CD printing, as the old method of printable stickers causes havoc with some drives, and one of the units also includes this facility. And though the MFDs we present this month are the cream of the crop, the features they include at the price were unheard of even 12 months ago.

 

So, which one is for you? If you're looking for simple text printing and scanning for business or school, these devices will handle the job, and if you're a photography enthusiast, then you won't be disappointed.

 

Price-wise all-in-one devices are a much better buy than selecting an assortment of separate devices. Over the following pages we sort out the good from the ugly to find the ultimate MFD.

We ran an exhaustive suite of tests this month to find the best MFD. In every applicable test we performed two runs to ensure consistency and then averaged the results.

 

 

The first test consisted of scanning a picture (the cover of February '05 PC Authority) at 300dpi, timing it, saving it in TIFF format, and comparing the resulting image to the original. In particular we looked for inconsistent colours, loss of detail and blockiness, and gave each scan a score out of ten.

We then used the MFDs software to scan a heavily formatted text document which was partially overlaid onto a planet graphic. This was used to test the unit's OCR (optical character recognition) abilities. We timed each test from button press to onscreen result. We then checked the formatting, number of spelling errors, and number of graphical elements that were kept and gave the result a score out of ten. The Epson didn't come with OCR software so in its case we used Omnipage SE.

 

 

The black and white printing test consisted of a heavily-formatted 15-page document which was printed out using standard A4 and timed. The colour test consisted of 4 pages of mixed text and colour graphics, which included graphs and a photo. Each print run was timed and converted to pages per minute (ppm).

 

As Samsung is a mono printer it couldn't be expected to perform on the same level as the colour printers and the colour photo test wasn't run at all. For the others, we printed each photo on photo-paper at the default 'photo' setting and timed how long each print took. We graded each photo by comparing it to the original image and checking contrast levels, colour accuracy, detail, and telltale errors such as colour banding. A straight paper path is preferable for photo printing, but some of the machines have a 'C'-paper path, meaning that the photo surface is dragged through rollers during printing. This can cause channels in the picture and some machines lost marks for that. We gave each photo a score out of ten.

 

The spool test consisted of a ten page document with a singular full-stop on each page which timed the minimum amount of time each page takes to spool through the rollers.

 

The text and image tests were two-fold, it consisted of one page with different sized black and white fonts, followed by a colour photo of a teapot and followed by a black to white gradient. We printed each page in the default style as recognised by the printer software. For the text part of the test we checked for banding in the text itself and any bleeding of the letters -- common for inkjet printers.

 

For the image portion as printed on plain paper we checked the photo and the gradient for banding, contrast, and colour consistency

 

 

There's a good mix of features among this group of devices, with something to cater to everyone. If you're looking for a simple printer and scanner combination then the Brother or Samsung may be to your liking. But when it comes to all-out ability in a number of different disciplines you cannot mistake the Canon's talents. It performed well in all tests while excelling in some. Unfortunately two of the devices were either trying to do too much and not succeeding in anything (the Hewlett Packard) or too tightly focused when it's main function issn't up to par with its main rival (the Epson).