20 Evaluating color laser printers
Evaluation guidelines
Before you print the sample documents, make sure that your test environment simulates the
end-user’s and that you make a fair comparison between printers. Follow the guidelines below:
Measure how a printer will perform from the end-user’s perspective.
• Print from computer systems that closely match the typical end-user’s machine.
• Test print features.
• Test and compare default settings. (What settings will the end-users use most often?)
When evaluating more than one printer’s performance, it is crucial that you make a fair
comparison between printers.
• Print from identical computer systems, so that variations in speed are not due to differences in
processing power.
• Print the same files on all printers, using the same or equivalent print mode settings. (Some
manufacturers provide different print modes, such as Draft, Normal, and Best. The
HP Color LaserJet 2600n printer’s default print mode is Best, which ensures the highest quality
images consistently and simply.)
• Use more than one software application to make sure software/driver conflicts are not
affecting print quality.
• Use the same type of paper for each test.
• Use the same operating system and software application, and be sure to test comparable
printer drivers. (Each of these components interacts with the printing process and can affect
printer performance.)
• Run your tests with the memory that the printer ships with and make sure that it is sufficient for
all of your files. Record the number of memory errors, especially when testing complex
documents.
Note If you have to add memory to printers that you are testing in order to print in the highest
print quality mode and/or successfully print your sample documents, don’t forget to add
the price of the memory to your total cost of ownership calculation.
• If printers are networked, use the same client and isolated network, to provide a controlled
and repeatable environment. Network traffic can affect performance; therefore, when
comparing relative performance of printers, an isolated network should be used so that
network traffic is the same when testing all of your printers. You can use a sniffer on your
network to record the amount of network traffic being generated.
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