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Issue #0528/1 - Epson’s new generation of inkjet devices are unremarkable, particularly in photo printing speed but are economical on paper.

New from Epson are the D series inkjet printers and DX series inkjet All-in-Ones, all billed as ‘affordable’. While the D series printers are described as ‘ideal for all your printing needs’, the DX series AiOs claim just to be ‘competent’!

Both D and DX series machines are 4-ink systems, based on Epson’s Micro Piezo inkjet technology, allowing only the empty cartridge to be replaced when required, thus minimising wasted ink.

It should be remembered however, that off-axis ink tanks (where tanks are separate from the print head) almost always require some ink to be left in the tank so that air is not introduced into the system. Hewlett-Packard’s new Scalable Printing Technology is about the only guaranteed exception to this rule – because it has the technology to recycle ink between head and tank and to remove air trapped in the ink. Canon however, claims that its printers use all the ink in the tanks.

With these new machines, Epson has released a new ink, DURABrite Ultra, which is claimed to extend the ink’s capabilities with regard to durability and longevity, together with wider flexibility of printing high quality results on plain or glossy photo media.

DX series AiOs

Targeted at personal home users with low usage requirements, the Stylus DX3800 is a Print/Copy/Scan device with 18ppm mono print speed and 9ppm colour print speed. In terms of printing photographs, the DX3800 is quoted as taking almost three minutes to print a 10×15 photo in default photo mode.

As a photocopier as well as printer, output speeds reduce quite significantly when copying. Mono text pages take 5 seconds to copy (equating to 12cpm if the original could be changed fast enough) while colour pages take 15 seconds (equating to 4cpm) and a 10×15 colour photograph takes a whopping six and one-third minutes to copy!

As a low usage home device, the DX3800 is equipped with just a USB 1.1 interface and has no memory card slots or PictBridge interface.

Designed to handle the higher volumes of a busy home or small office, the DX4800 shares much of the basic design with the DX3800 but is a little faster (especially in colour printing), more capable and more flexible.

Here we see print speeds of 20ppm in mono and 19ppm in colour, while a 10×15 colour photo prints in 81 seconds in default mode. Similarly, copy speeds are faster at 17cpm in mono and 16cpm in colour. The speed difference is particularly noted when copying colour photos – a 10×15 photo takes 89 seconds, only a little longer than printed photos.

Fitted with USB 2.0 interface rather than 1.1, the DX4800 is also equipped with a PictBridge interface and memory card slots.

D Series printers

Moving to the D series printers, both models are again 4-ink systems using the same ink tanks as the DX series AiOs. The major difference other than print speed is the provision of a parallel interface on the D88 in addition to the USB 1.1 interface that is the only interface available on the D68. Neither machine has a USB 2.0 interface.

Both these printers are labelled ‘Photo Edition’ but do not appear in the photo printer section of the Epson web site. This mirrors Hewlett-Packard’s decision to reclassify its inkjet ranges, separating machines that are more than capable of printing photographs from those that are specifically designed and targeted at the photo enthusiast.

Underlining the speed difference between these two models are the speeds quoted for photo printing. As with the DX series, the D88 is around twice as fast (at 92 seconds for a 10×15 print) as the D68 (at 173 seconds). For text printing, the D68 is a 17ppm mono and 9ppm colour printer while the D88 is capable of 22ppm in mono and 12ppm in colour.

Because Epson uses Micro Piezo print heads, which is a mechanical technology, the number of nozzles that it is possible to place on the print head is limited. In these new machines, the lower range models (D68 and DX3800) have just 90 nozzles for the black ink and 29 nozzles for each of the colours, while the higher end AiO (DX4800) has 90 nozzles for each of the four inks and the higher end printer (D88) has 180 nozzles for faster black printing but only 59 nozzles per colour.

Compare this to the numbers of nozzles that Hewlett-Packard and Canon are now capable of squeezing into a print head in their latest technologies (Canon more than 700 nozzles per colour and Hewlett-Packard 650 nozzles per colour, giving a native print resolution of 1,200dpi) and we see why the Epson devices are so much slower that their competitors. Epson’s fastest black print speed, even with 180 nozzles, is 22ppm while Canon can now achieve 30ppm and Hewlett-Packard can achieve 32ppm.

Similarly, colour photo printing speeds from Epson achieve a best of 81 seconds for a 10×15 (4×6) photograph (DX4800) while Canon can print a ‘Photo Lab’ quality borderless print in 36 seconds and Hewlett-Packard can produce a photo in as little as 14 seconds. To be fair to Epson, 81 seconds is quoted for ‘Default Photo Mode’ while the figure for Hewlett-Packard is a maximum speed quoted for draft photos. As we don’t know the precise print quality Epson’s default mode, it is difficult to make an accurate comparison but, even printing in ‘Best’ mode on Hewlett-Packard’s machine we’re still looking at only 50 seconds. The most probable direct comparison is Hewlett-Packard’s ‘Normal mode’ at 22 seconds – so still faster than Canon.

Canon and Hewlett-Packard are able to achieve high print speeds because the nozzle density is high enough to allow a wide swath of bi-directional printing (where the full image is printed while the print head moves both ways across the paper) of everything up to a normal quality image. There is no need for a second pass to fill in the gaps.

Previous generations of printer (up to about five years ago) always relied on two or more passes of the print head to build a high enough quality image. In most current printers, multi-pass printing is reserved for best quality print modes and printing of photographs in particular. This is very much the equivalent of the move to single-pass printing from four-pass printing in colour laser devices.

Taking a more direct comparison with the DX4800, Hewlett-Packard’s PSC 1610 is a 23ppm mono, 18ppm colour device at £85 that can print a 10×15 colour photo in 88 seconds in normal mode. Although this machine is a much closer match to the Epson DX4800 in almost every way, the difference is that Hewlett-Packard has a device that is almost 50% faster than this, while Epson does not.

Canon’s MP170 is also a direct comparison with the DX4800 at 22ppm in black and 17ppm in colour but is rather faster at photo printing, producing a 10×15 print in 55 seconds. It is a little more expensive to buy, at £99, than either the Epson or the Hewlett-Packard but this is typical of Canon.

When it comes to running costs and Total Cost of Printing, we actually see that the Canon is a full 100% more expensive to run, at 10.53 pence per page over three years, than either the Epson or Hewlett-Packard machines! This somewhat belies experience with the cost of photo printing from Canon – photo printing tests undertaken by CharisCo Printer Labs 18 months ago placed the machine of the time from Canon as the most economical. It was certainly noted at the time though, that office style printing from the same machine did not ‘appear’ to be as cost effective as photo printing.

In point of fact, Epson’s DX4800 here works out as the most economical AiO of the four on paper. This may be because of the individual ink tanks – note that the Brother machine is next most economical with its individual tanks – or it may be that Epson is taking a view that it must compete more aggressively on price in order to counter the performance handicap of its Piezo system.

UK Calculated for 4 ink usage only	Purchase	Print Speed		Nominal CPP	Mixed Mono/Colour CPP over 3 years
Brother DCP-110C	£85.00	Mono Colour	20 ppm 15 ppm	2.80 pence 8.79 pence	5.34 pence
Canon PIXMA MP170	£99.00	Mono Colour	22 ppm 17 ppm	6.54 pence 16.97 pence	10.53 pence
Epson DX4800	£84.26	Mono Colour	20 ppm 19 ppm	2.25 pence 8.99 pence	5.24 pence
Hewlett-Packard PSC 1610	£85.00	Mono Colour	23 ppm 18 ppm	3.11 pence 8.66 pence	5.72 pence

Note that for this level of machine, the mixed mono/colour CPP over three years shown in the accompanying table is calculated on the basis of 250 pages per month using maximum capacity inks and takes into account any standard, or starter, cartridges shipped with the printer and includes the purchase price.

Epson’s 2.25 pence mono print cost is particularly attractive, especially for this class of printer. Epson has a recent history of offering low mono CPPs, particularly on its colour laser printers. One of the reasons that Canon’s costs work out so high is that the ink cartridges for the MP170 are very low yield.

With Epson’s D88 printer, matched against Canon’s PIXMA iP2200, the nominal CPP remains the same as in the above comparison while the long term CPP changes slightly because of the purchase price differences.

UK Calculated for 4 ink usage only	Purchase	Print Speed		Nominal CPP	Mixed Mono/Colour CPP over 3 years
Canon PIXMA iP2200	£69.00	Mono Colour	19 ppm 16 ppm	6.54 pence 16.97 pence	10.20 pence
Epson D88	£58.72	Mono Colour	22 ppm 12 ppm	2.25 pence 8.99 pence	4.96 pence
Hewlett-Packard DeskJet 5740	£57.00	Mono Colour	26 ppm 18 ppm	2.23 pence 6.96 pence	4.23 pence

Slightly unusually, there is no DeskJet printer that uses precisely the same cartridge configuration as Hewlett-Packard’s PSC-1610. Whereas the PSC-1610 appears to be restricted to using the moderate volume No.338 black cartridge, the comparable DeskJets are also able to accommodate the high capacity No.339 cartridge.

Using the high capacity cartridge makes a significant difference to the nominal mono CPP and therefore the long term CPP. No longer can the Epson claim the prize as most economical because the DeskJet 5740 undercuts it in all three CPP categories – and is 4ppm faster in mono and 6ppm faster in colour.

Referring back to last week’s article ("Canon launches 40 consumer products"), Epson’s consumer inkjet product range is relatively small and tight – perhaps some would say too small. There are 13 A4 inkjet printers and seven AiOs in the Epson range but the one aspect still missing from Epson’s line-up is an AiO with integrated fax.

However, within the range there is a choice for almost every user – from budget machine for the home user, through home darkroom for the photo-enthusiast, to sophisticated three-function AiO for small businesses.

~End~

This entry was posted on Friday, September 30th, 2005 at 12:02 am and is filed under Supplies, New Products, News, Total Cost of Printing. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.