Mouse Clix

By: Hobie Lunin

Is it time yet?

Time for what, you ask. Maybe it's time to get a better printer. When I bought my own computer 3 plus years ago, it was a package that included a Lexmark 1000 printer.

Now, I am not going to say anything bad about the printer as it was certainly adequate at the time. Never gave me any trouble and printed both black and white and color adequately, if slowly. However, after I bought a digital camera I wanted photos that looked more like those you bring home when you have had a roll of film developed.

At first I thought the answer was in the paper. If I bought a good grade of glossy paper, I would have better results. Then I thought that maybe it's the resolution, so I tried going up to 200 pixels per inch for the photos. After that I tried to use the Photo program to intensify the picture with a host of enhancements. I was still not happy.

That's when the question appeared on the screen in my head. Is it time yet?

When you come to the same conclusion, somewhere along the way, you might take a note from my printer purchase experience that follows:

The process started on the Internet where I went to Zdnet.com, then clicked reviews, then printers. It was a while before I realized that some reviewers were testing for black and white performance and others were looking at the color printing. Often a printer may be better at one rather than the other, so keep that in mind. In addition, I also discovered that speed versus quality of print was not always directly connected. My conclusion there was to ignore speed and concentrate on the printers with the highest ratings for color photos.

Then, I made the rounds of all the stores: Circuit City, Best Buy, Staples, Office Max, Gateway, etc. At each store they usually had several printers that would make a print for you of a color image right there. I marked each sheet with the name and model number and the price. I ended up with nearly a dozen of these from various stores. At home I got out a good magnifying glass and ranked each printer by my perception of the color quality. As all were printed on plain paper, there wasn't a clue of what the print would look like on good glossy paper, but I thought it would make a good comparison of one model to another. I made a kind of grid with the name, model number, my ranking of quality, the speed and the price. You may want to also find out the cost of the printer ink cartridges too, so you can get a rough idea of the cost per print if there is a clue in the literature on the printer as to number of photos per cartridge. I did not factor that in my tests.

I started realizing at this point what an important factor the resolution of the printer was. That is, how many ink dots does it put down in an inch. I also discovered that not all printers use the same technology. Some try to concentrate on getting the smallest droplet of ink, measured in picoliters. (The very smallest droplet you can imagine.) Other manufacturers work with a bigger droplet but control the spread of the ink over the adjacent droplet to give the image the look of small droplets.

Experience that I have now indicates you will get a very good print out at 720dpi (dots per inch). And even better at 1440dpi, but the process there is very slow and only really needed occasionally. 360dpi is fine for a quick test print. Get a printer that allows a choice of all 3.

Then, I headed for the library to look at the consumer reports. I put their ranking on the grid that I had made.

At that point 2 printers seemed to rise out of the ranks. The first choice was a printer that was 3 times my budget for this purchase but only a little better in quality. It was also very fast, but I tried to keep that out of my thinking.

I now went back to the Internet to look again at the reviews for the last remaining printer on my grid. This was positive. I also learned that there was a rebate being offered.

I am sure that everyone has a different perception of what the best photo looks like. Because of that I am not inclined to list the printer I bought but rather to encourage you to go through this test process yourself. It will make you happier about the purchase knowing that you had done the work.

If you still want to know what my winner was or would like to tell me what yours is, please use the Mouseclix address below.

One last thing I learned on this particular adventure may also be helpful: I took the printer home. I did not buy a cable for it as I already had a spare one at home. After loading the software, I had trouble getting the printer to work properly although I got prompt replies from the manufacturer with suggestions. After a few more days of frustration I realized that the cable I was using was not "bi-directional" and this was causing me all the grief. Lesson learned. Is it time yet? Any time is a good time to learn something new.

Hobie Lunin is a Computer Instructor and Consultant, and can be reached at hlunin@email.com. To see previous articles, tips and recommendations point your browser to http://mouseclix.tripod.com