Lab: multifunction printers

Many printers do much more than just print, adding copying, faxing and scanning to their repertoire. So how do you choose from the multitude of multifunction printers?

It is possible to simply buy a printer and a scanner and install a fax card in a PC and with the help of the right software turn the ensemble into a multifunction, print-scan-copy-fax workstation, but this has its drawbacks. The biggest being that it will probably cost more in time spent on installation and configuration than is saved on purchase price. Given that multifunction printers have recently dropped in price, you can probably justify the extra cost of a single multifunction unit over that of separates. You can even argue that a multifunction printer is a good investment even if you don't need to copy or fax at the moment.

Facing fax
Some multifunction printers simply couple a printer with a scanner to provide printing, scanning and copying and if fax is available at all it's an optional extra. So you need to determine if fax is something you really need as part of a multifunction package. If your users are going to send a lot of scanned faxes, it could add an unacceptable load to the usage of the machine. There is also the issue of finding a location for the unit where there is a network connection and a suitable phone line. Some multifunction units will share a phone line with an answering machine or extension, but this is never very satisfactory.
You also need to consider the natural mode of using the machine for some activities. When you print a document you generally initiate the process from your desktop PC, but when you need a photocopy you have little choice but to walk over to the copier with the original. The same is true when you have to fax a paper original. In short, multifunction printers can attract human queues of users waiting to access the machine.

The multifunction printers reviewed in this lab differed in their approach to the two different modes of use – from a PC or standing next to the machine. Some go out of their way to make it possible to allow the user to stand next to the machine and do everything very easily. For example, a large touch-screen interface allows the user to navigate though extensive menus offering copying and faxing.

When scanning, you have to visit the machine to place the original on the scanner but want the result of the scan back at your PC. You also want to adjust the scan quality, crop, colour balance and so on using an application installed on your PC, but this means leaving the machine unguarded from use by other "walk up" customers. To make this task easier, some machines provide facilities for scanning directly to memory or, better, built-in disk storage. They also provide preview facilities and sometimes the ability to transfer the resulting file either by e-mail, FTP or direct network copy.

The same approach is often used to allow standard documents to be stored within the machine and printed on demand or to a schedule using nothing but the machine's front panel controls.
A more difficult problem is how to handle incoming faxes. Mostly these are simply printed as they arrive and wait in the output tray. Alternative methods of dealing with incoming faxes include storing them in local memory and then allowing an administrator to review and delete them.

Photo opportunity
Colour lasers or inkjet printers are quite capable of producing photo-quality output and so a multifunction device could also function as a desktop photolab. In this case extras to look out for are the ability to read and process photos directly from a camera or memory stick. To make the process easier, a preview option of some kind is essential, otherwise uploading to a PC before printing is a more efficient way to work.
Finally, it is worth considering a multifunction printer as a departmental document processing workhorse. This is the natural development of the floor-standing photocopier plus finishing units – but able to generate documents more flexibly. A floor-standing unit can be coupled to a collator, stapler, hole punch and so on to produce multiple copies of a report either printed directly from a PC or from local storage.


Kyocera KM-5050

www.kyoceramita.co.uk
‹ Type Mono laser printer, scanner, copier
‹ Price £3,750
‹ Print resolution 1,200dpi
‹ Speed 50ppm A4, 26ppm A3
‹ First print 4 seconds
‹ Scan resolution 600dpi (double-sided)
‹ Input 50-sheet autofeed
‹ Direct photo print No
‹ Duplex Auto
‹ Display Mono touch-screen LCD
‹ I/O Parallel, USB 2.0, 1 x 10/100BaseTX
‹ Power consumption 1,010W (230W on standby, 17W Sleep)
‹ Size 59.9x64.6x74.5cm;
85kg (main unit)

This is a full size, floor-standing, A3 multifunction device. It is big and robust and with lots of expansion options that can turn it into a complete report and booklet production solution. The user interface takes the form of a large colour touch panel that makes it easy to navigate through its menus without the need for a PC. You can tilt the screen to make it usable from a sitting position. The screen can also be used to preview documents before printing either from the scanner, PDFs loaded from a memory stick or pre-stored documents. A 40GB hard drive is standard and this can be used to save scans or standard documents. Scanned documents can also be sent to an e-mail address or to a folder via SMB or FTP.

You can, of course, use the machine as a simple A3 photocopier with a range of two-sided copying options. There are optional "key counters" that you can fit to monitor the consumption of resources by individual users or departments. The processor is powerful enough to allow multitasking so you can, for example, scan a document while another document is printing. If you fit the optional fax kit you can even fax while printing. A data security add-on can be used to encrypt stored data from scans or printed documents.

Apart from a standard printer driver, no software is provided to make using the printer easier from the PC. This fits in with its role as a departmental printer, copier, scanner, fax machine.
The printer can handle A3 documents and the paper handling includes trays for different paper sizes. The simplest version has two 500-sheet cassettes and a multipurpose tray. Additional base units can increase the number of cassettes up to 3,000-sheet capacity and store paper and other consumables. A range of optional finisher units can be added to auto-staple documents or even create auto-stapled or hole-punched booklets. A seven-tray "mailbox" separator can also be fitted to deliver multiple users' output.

Even the basic unit is fairly substantial and with all of the extras bolted on, this is a very large piece of office equipment. It even has a small tray to store paper clips and a cleaning cloth!
This is a flexible piece of equipment. You can start with a base unit and build up to a more sophisticated machine as the need arises or proves itself. Given the capabilities of the machine, its only shortcoming is its lack of full-colour printing, but if mono is all you need, this will do it all.

Verdict: An ideal solution if you are serious about handling large paper documents.


HP Officejet Pro L7500

www.hp.com/uk
‹ Type Inkjet, scanner, copier, fax
‹ Price £169
‹ Print resolution 1,200dpi (4,800dpi max colour)
‹ Speed 35ppm mono, up to 34ppm colour
‹ First print 2 seconds
‹ Scan resolution 2,400x4,800dpi
‹ Input 50-sheet autofeed
‹ Direct photo print Yes, CF, SD, MMC, xD, etc
‹ Duplex Auto
‹ Display Mono LCD
‹ Emulation PCL 3
‹ I/O USB 2.0, 1 x 10/100BaseTX, PictBridge, Wi-Fi/Bluetooth optional
‹ Power consumption 55W (10W on standby)
‹ Size 52.5x45.6x35.6cm; 15.54kg

The HP Officejet Pro L7500/L7600/L7700 is a new range of all-in-one inkjet printers aimed at the small to medium workgroup but at a very reasonable starting price. They all have the same basic print engine and vary in extras provided. They all also take the form of a stylish black box that looks like a desktop photocopier. The L7500 has an external power supply and is network ready via a wired or optionally Wi-Fi connection. A USB connection is also provided.

The printer offers auto-duplexing which, although not fast – it pauses to allow the ink to dry before printing the second side – is rare in such a low-cost printer. It features print heads that are separate from the ink cartridges, which helps the printing speed. You can fill the four ink storage modules independently and the LCD display shows ink levels.

The fax is easy to set up and works in both mono and colour. It also has some useful extra features such as blocking faxes based on caller ID, delayed faxing and auto-fax forwarding. The 50-sheet autofeeder allows automatic faxing and scanning. The scanner works directly on networked machines, but has a tendency to lose the network connection for no apparent reason so you have to restart the printer. Software is provided to use the scanner and manage photos, but nothing is supplied to use the fax in anything other than the most basic mode – ie, print to fax.

Photo printing is a bonus on this printer. There is no preview option because the LCD display isn't big enough, but you can opt to print a page proof of all of the photos on a memory module, tick boxes to indicate what you want to print, scan the resulting sheet back in and the printer will do the rest. In an office environment, this probably works better than a fully interactive option.

Verdict: An amazingly versatile unit for a very reasonable price.

HP LaserJet M3035 MFP

www.hp.com/uk
‹ Type Mono laser printer, scanner, copier
‹ Price £889
‹ Print resolution 1,200dpi
‹ Speed 35ppm
‹ First print 10 seconds
‹ Scan resolution 600x600dpi
‹ Input 50-sheet autofeed
‹ Direct photo print No
‹ Duplex Auto
‹ Display Mono touch LCD
‹ Emulation PCL 5/6 and HP PostScript Level 2
‹ I/O USB 2.0, 1 x 10/100BaseTX
‹ Power consumption 1,250W (24W on standby, 0.1W Sleep)
‹ Size 42.6x48.5x53cm; 27.6kg

The target for this printer is photocopier replacement. It sits easily on a desk, but is big enough to need a space all of its own. It can be used as a fairly standard, medium-use, mono laser printer. In this role, it lacks the more advanced extras such as collating trays and finishing units, but it does print on both sides as standard. It also has a colour scanner, which can be used in copier or scan-to-disk modes.

It has a very large touch-screen LCD that allows users to work their way through a comprehensive and comprehensible range of menus at the machine, rather than trying to scan something in from a PC. For copying, this is a natural choice. In use it behaves much like a standard photocopier.
 
A 40GB hard disk can store standard documents that can be printed on demand using the menu system. An administrator menu allows stored jobs to be printed on schedule and gives a range of other management options. By default documents are scanned to the hard disk and the touch screen pops up a full qwerty keyboard graphic to allow the user to create folders and name documents. Stored documents can be printed or e-mailed or sent to another machine. Overall the copy and print facilities are easy to use.

Verdict: An easy-to-use copier replacement.

Canon PIXMA MP970

www.canon.co.uk
‹ Type Colour photo-quality printer, scanner, copier
‹ Price £150
‹ Print resolution 9,600x2,400dpi
‹ Speed 30ppm mono; 9ppm colour
‹ First print 2 seconds
‹ Scan resolution 4,800x4,800dpi
‹ Input Single sheet manual, 35mm slide scanner
‹ Direct photo print Yes, CF, SD, XD, etc
‹ Duplex Auto
‹ Display Colour LCD
‹ Emulation PCL 5/6 and HP PostScript Level 2
‹ I/O USB 2.0, 1 x 10/100BaseTX, PictBridge, IrDA, optional Bluetooth
‹ Power consumption 22W (3.6W on standby, 1W Sleep)
‹ Size 47.1x39.6x21.4cm; 11.9kg

This is very much a photo-oriented multifunction printer and while it can stand in for a general-purpose printer/scanner/copier, this would be wasting much of its potential. It claims to produce "photolab" quality prints and indeed it does – mostly due to its high resolution and use of seven separate inks, including two types of black ink, used for documents and photos respectively. The ink tanks only hold enough ink for between 500 and 1,000 A4 pages and, although usage will vary depending on type of output, this isn't a lot. For maximum photo quality you need photo paper and there are settings to optimise ink use and quality according to paper type.
Although it has a network connection, you first have to set it up using a USB cable. After this you can install software to machines that access the unit over the network without having to connect it via USB. It also installs lots of useful software that allows you to scan and print photos. You can use the machine from the front panel, however, with the help of a large, full-colour LCD display and a wheel type selector. You can copy documents directly to the printer and print photos directly from the camera or from a memory card. An IrDa interface can be used to connect directly to mobile phones and PDAs. The LCD can be used to preview and edit the image before committing to a print. The scanner also has a removable backing plate that reveals a 35mm film strip scanner, adding to the scanner's versatility and making the machine even more of a "desktop photolab".

There is an auto-duplex feature, but it is slow as it leaves the print to dry for 8 seconds before starting to print the other side. A CD/DVD carrier is also provided so that you can print directly onto discs.

Verdict: A good choice for a photo-quality printer that can also be used to input colour originals, both prints and 35mm film.

Brother MFC-8460N
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www.brother.co.uk
‹ Type Mono laser printer, scanner, copier, fax
‹ Price £250
‹ Print resolution 1,200dpi
‹ Speed 28ppm mono A4
‹ First print 8 seconds
‹ Scan resolution 600x600dpi
‹ Input 50-sheet autofeed
‹ Direct photo print No
‹ Duplex Optional
‹ Display Mono LCD
‹ I/O USB 2.0, 1 x 10/100BaseTX
‹ Power consumption 1,004W (85W on standby, 15W Sleep)
‹ Size 53.1x45x47.5cm; 16.5kg (main unit)

This is a solid desktop printer, copier and fax machine. It can connect to a PC directly via a USB port or indirectly via the network and is easy to set up using the supplied software via the network. There are lots of buttons, most of them speed dial buttons for the fax. Three large buttons allow the user to select fax, scan or copy. A good range of software allows printing, scanning and faxing from a remote PC.

The built-in fax has lots of extra features, including 300 speed dial combinations, 40 one-touch and 20 group dials. It is also very flexible about sharing a line with other equipment such as an answering machine. The 50-sheet auto-feeder can be used in scanner, copier or fax mode for multi-page documents. Incoming faxes can be stored in memory and printed or deleted as required.

If you plan to use the printer in "unattended mode" for any length of time, upgrading the 32MB of memory will enable it to store more than the estimated 500 faxes. You can also set the machine to forward faxes to a PC. This can also be done in "remote mode" – you can dial it to see if it has received any faxes and supply it with a number to forward any you want.
Documents can also be stored in memory for printing on demand and a PIN security system can be used to restrict access.
Verdict Excellent fax handling and network integration.


Epson AcuLaser CX21NF

www.epson.co.uk
‹ Type Colour laser printer, scanner, copier, fax
‹ Price £560
‹ Print resolution 1,200dpi
‹ Speed 25ppm mono A4, 5ppm colour
‹ First print 7 seconds mono, 29 seconds colour
‹ Scan resolution 600x600dpi
‹ Input 50-sheet autofeed
‹ Direct photo print No
‹ Duplex Auto
‹ Display Mono LCD
‹ I/O USB 2.0, 1 x 10/100BaseTX
‹ Power consumption 790W (59W on standby, 18W Sleep)
‹ Size 46x46.7x66.7cm; 33kg

This device rolls up colour printing, copying, scanning and faxing in a single, fairly large, but still desktop unit. Its design looks a little odd, as if a separate scanner has been transplanted on top of a printer, but it is very functional. The entire scanner module hinges to allow access to the printer paper delivery area. Optional paper trays can be added to make the unit taller, but still not quite floor standing.

Four toner cartridges are used to create CYMK colour prints and there is a single user serviceable drum. Setting up is easy using just the network connection or via the USB port. A document feeder is standard but the fax mode is only available on certain models. The user interface is fairly simple with a small LCD display and three mode – copy, fax, scan – buttons.
The fax has three one-touch buttons, 60 speed dial memories and 20 group dials. The machine's memory is sufficient to store 200 fax pages. A speed dial utility is supplied as the only specific faxing application. Software is supplied to allow users to scan documents or you can opt to use the standard TWAIN driver with software of your choice. If you prefer to scan at the device, you can output to a PDF file, e-mail or to a locally connected PC. Copying can be performed in full colour or in black and white. Although it doesn't claim to be a photo-quality printer, you can use the copier to copy photos. Note that there are no facilities for the direct printing of photos or general documents from a memory stick.

Verdict: A versatile do-it-all colour machine at a reasonable price.


Lexmark X9575 All-in-One

www.lexmarkonline.co.uk
‹ Type Colour inkjet, scanner, copier, fax
‹ Price £180
‹ Resolution 1,200dpi mono, 4,800dpi max colour
‹ Speed 11ppm mono, <5ppm colour
‹ First print 2 seconds
‹ Scan resolution 600x600dpi
‹ Input 50-sheet autofeed
‹ Direct photo print No
‹ Duplex Auto
‹ Display 6cm colour LCD
‹ I/O USB 2.0, 1 x 10/100BaseTX, Wi-Fi 11b/g and PictBridge
‹ Power consumption 10-20W (8W on standby)
‹ Size 46.5x38.4x26.9cm; 10.3kg

This is a remarkably versatile and compact unit comprising scanner, copier, fax and colour printer. Connection is via either a USB 2.0 socket or a wired or Wi-Fi network. A large colour LCD screen lets you configure the printer and preview photos. A digital media socket accepts a wide range of solid state memory and the USB PictBridge connection is another way of getting photos into the machine.

Installation is easy but setting up a Wi-Fi network using nothing but the front panel is next to impossible. It is easier to connect the printer to a machine using the USB and then use the Wireless configuration utility to set the necessary parameters – you can't do this using a wired connection.

From a networking point of view, the printer isn't shared in the usual way. You can connect it to a particular workstation or server and then offer it as a printer share, but in standalone mode you need to install the supplied software on each workstation that wants to use it. This isn't unreasonable as there are no standard ways of sharing scanners and fax machines.
The supplied software allows the user to scan and fax remotely using the autosheet feeder or the flatbed scanner. The scan file can be stored locally or e-mailed to another user. You can also use its OCR, PDF conversion and document management facilities.  As a printer it's a little slow. Print quality is good for an inkjet and photo reproduction is excellent with the right paper.

Verdict: An incredible range of features in a very small, reasonably priced package.