Product reviews on 6 printers

"... I measured 9.0ppm and 3.9ppm, bettering the black claim. These speeds are only beaten by the Epson. Print quality is good, though not quite matching HP's 'laser quality' claim. Printed text is clean and sharp, but black text in copies is a little fuzzy. Photo prints are surprisingly good and, considering a 15 x 10cm print can finish in 40s, very quick, too. ... The best value of the six printers I tested by a big margin, and it's reasonably nippy too. I can't complain too much about the print quality, either."

"... the Epson machine was a good way ahead of any of the other machines in the group, achieving 5.4ppm in colour and an impressive 14.2ppm in black. You pay for this extra speed in noise, with one of the noisiest paper feeds in the group. Plain paper print quality is fair, while not up to Canon or HP standards. Text is a little more uneven and colour graphics are a bit over-bright, but photos are excellent, with smooth colour textures and accurate tones. ... A capable, fast machine, with a good feature set, though text print can be jagged."

"... Canon quotes ISO figures for print speeds, which is refreshing, and gets quite close to what I saw under test, which is more so. ... Print quality is good, with clean, sharp black text, vibrant colours on plain paper and superb colour photos, given that it's a four-colour machine. Copies lose little of the saturation of prints. Running costs come out at 4.7p for black, the highest in the group, and 11.9p for colour, the second highest. ... Good print quality and reasonable print speeds are let down by poor running costs."

"... Print quality from the new Vizix ink system is much better than it was with earlier Lexmark printers, with relatively clean black text, bright colour graphics and photos nearly as smooth and natural as from Canon or HP. The dye-based Vizix inks don't have very good fade resistance though. Cartridge prices give page costs of 4.1p for black and 11.6p for colour print, the higher end of the scale in this group. ... Lexmark has produced a competent all-in-one printer, but it doesn't do anything better than any of its rivals do."

"... A photo print took 103s, nearly 30s slower than any other machine, and a colour photocopy took 42s. Print quality is adequate, but hardly sparkling. Black text is fair, but colour graphics on plain paper are pale and insipid. This is worse when you copy a colour print. Photo prints are bright and smooth, though there's little point in using 'Highest' quality, which is slow, over normal 'Photo' quality. Running costs are high, with a black page costing 4.2p ... Small, neat and cheap to buy - but also slow and very expensive to run."

"... I calculate a black page at 1.7p and a colour one at 5.5p, both the lowest in their respective categories. ... Print quality is generally good, with crisp black text, slightly mottled colour graphics and natural, well-coloured photos. This is another noisy printer, with measured peaks of 68dBA, and Kodak takes back some of its low consumables cost by reducing the feature set of the printer. ... The Kodak delivers running costs, but with no ADF or fax capability, it doesn't stand up so well against those that do. Overall, this makes it a poor-value offering."