Issue #0710/2 - Having rejected the Lexmark P4350 out-of-hand, and preferred to move away from the Canon PIXMA MP-450 and Epson Stylus Pro RX620, does either the Brother DCP-330C or Hewlett-Packard Photosmart C4180 have an edge over the other?
On the basis of the information presented in "Inkjet All-in-One lab tests – Printer roundup", we can easily dispense with one model completely and rule out two others as not offering close enough to best value for money:
Canon PIXMA MP-450Canon PIXMA MP-450
- VERY noisy
- Disappointing, oversaturated photos
Epson Stylus Photo RX620Epson Stylus Photo RX620
- More expensive to buy
- Photos are over-saturated
- Uses expensive photo inks to print office documents
- Micro Piezo head prone to clogging if not used frequently
- Low nozzle density causes relatively slow office printing
Lexmark P4350Lexmark P4350
- VERY expensive
- Poor build quality
- Appalling paper transport
- Consistently slow in operation
- Etc., etc.
This leaves us with making a very difficult choice between the Brother DCP-330C and the Hewlett-Packard Photosmart C4180.
Each printer has excellent qualities and few faults.
Hewlett-Packard C4180Likewise, Brother’s DCP-330C is very flexible – and, it does not need a change of cartridge to turn it into a very high quality photo printer. It is always ready to go, is easy to use and navigate and, again for the office user, comes with Nuance PaperPort Special Edition –£100/€150/$200-worth of highly capable Document Management Software with high level features like PDF creation and optical character recognition built in.
On the downside, Hewlett-Packard’s software gives some cause for concern.
Firstly, the latest iteration of the AiO installation suite takes an enormously long time to install.
Secondly, there are no options to ignore certain programs. The HP Solution Centre offers three options to catalogue, organise, edit, share and print photos – Photosmart Premier, Photosmart Essential and Photosmart Express, which loads Photosmart Premier to perform certain functions – leaving the user confused as to which to use!
It also means that, for instance, if users elect to use third party management and manipulation programs like ACDSee, they cannot avoid loading elements of the Hewlett-Packard suite.
Thirdly, the software has a tendency to be unreliable – scan buttons frequently do not pass the necessary communication to the PC and software regularly crashes in the scan attempt.
Brother’s software is not perfect either though. Features are sparse and focussed on managing the copy and scan-to options and moving images from memory cards to PC. There is certainly no specific photo printing software, though users can use PaperPort for that function. In its favour, it does install easily and rapidly.
One of the more annoying problems with the C4180 is that it prints pages smaller than real size. For letters and memos this is not a huge problem but when attempting to print a page layout, this is not helpful and wastes user time (and materials) if repeated attempts are required to obtain the desired paper image.
Brother’s DCP-330CAt the annoying end of the DCP-330C is the fact that certain media do not feed well, particularly those that are a little thicker and more rigid than standard plain paper. Labels are a particular problem; it proved totally impossible to feed C5 envelopes; and 10×15 glossy photo media gave problems from the photo paper tray but all glossy photo media feeds well from the main paper tray.
These annoyances are probably outweighed by the economy of the device and its overall ease of use and attractive size and looks.
At the end of the day, Brother’s DCP-330C was the overall favourite, and our choice of All-in-One, but only with a short lead over the Hewlett-Packard Photosmart C4180 and only if envelope printing is not required. Where the DCP-330C is the only printer available for general office use, then users should perhaps wait for the next generation of the product to see if these feed issues have been resolved.
However, the advantages of this latest generation of inkjet device are such that Brother should certainly be given every consideration during a selection process.
For most users, the choice between these two equal-runners is bound to come down to brand value and perception. Brother is not yet well-known for its printers outside of corporate circles, where laser printers are the predominant technology, while the Hewlett-Packard name is synonymous with printing in any environment.
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