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Benchmark Tests: What the Numbers Mean

M. David Stone
 & M. David Stone Contributing Editor

Our team tests, rates, and reviews more than 1,500 products each year to help you make better buying decisions and get more from technology.

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    Buying Guide: Benchmark Tests: What the Numbers Mean

    Contents

    View the Performance Tests: Laser All-in-Ones

    Given that the strongest argument for getting a laser-based AIO is that lasers are faster than ink jets, it's important to know how fast they are. To find out, we ran our performance tests using QualityLogic's PageSense 4.0 software and hardware ( www.qualitylogic.com ) to control and time the tests.

    For the business applications suite, we used each driver's default settings. For the photo suite, we set each driver to the highest-quality setting available. The photo suite is of relatively little interest relevant to monochrome AIOs; it's more pertinent to the Canon Color imageClass MF8170c. With either suite, however, the MF8170c isn't fully comparable to others, since it's the only color AIO included here. Given that 9 of the 13 tests in the business applications suite and all of the photos use color, the relatively slow times for the MF8170c simply reflect the fact that it's producing color output.

    Our tests show little correlation between engine speed and performance. This is because performance depends on a printer's processing speed, and an AIO may or may not reserve processing power and memory to let it fax even while printing. So we're not too surprised that the 15-ppm HP LaserJet 3030, for example, with a total 13 minutes 55 seconds for the business applications suite, was faster than five monochrome AIOs with higher engine speeds.

    We originally tested the HP LaserJet 3030, HP LaserJet 3380, and Lexmark X422 MFP with our last-generation test suite. In addition to retesting them, we also rerated their output because they were originally rated on a scale that lacked half-points. Most of the new scores are within a half-point of the original, reflecting the new scale.

    We've upgraded the photo quality for the LaserJet 3030 from 1 (poor) to 3 (good), a large difference even after adjusting the original score to 1.5. We also saw a significant difference in speed for two tests that overlap with the old suite. HP confirmed that since our original tests, the company has offered two firmware upgrades that would account for the differences in both speed and quality.

    As well as helping to explain the results of two sets of tests, this example serves to illustrate the value of downloading firmware updates for whatever printers you have. You may just turn your three-star workhorse into a five-star speed demon.

    About Our Expert

    M. David Stone

    M. David Stone

    Contributing Editor

    My Experience

    Most of my current work for PCMag is about printers and projectors, but I've covered a wide variety of other subjects—in more than 4,000 pieces, over more than 40 years—including both computer-related areas and others ranging from ape language experiments, to politics, to cosmology, to space colonies. I've written for PCMag.com from its start, and for PC Magazine before that, as a Contributor, then a Contributing Editor, then as the Lead Analyst for Printers, Scanners, and Projectors, and now, after a short hiatus, back to Contributing Editor.

    I'm pretty sure I'm the only person who worked on every "Project Printer" blockbuster PCMag ever produced, often writing 15 or more reviews for the year's big printer blowout. (I snuck in a single review one year when I was writing a book, strictly so I could keep that claim alive.)

    I've always worked for PCMag as a freelancer, which has freed me to take time away to write nine books, be a major contributor to four others, and write for other publications, including Wired, Computer Shopper, Projector Central, and Science Digest, where I was Computers Editor. I also wrote a computer column at one point for The Newark Star-Ledger.

    Although I started my career primarily as a science (mostly physics and astronomy) and science-fiction writer (published in Analog), my non-computer-related work runs the gamut from the Project Data Book for NASA's Upper Atmosphere Research Satellite (written for GE's Astro-Space Division) to the script for a video overview of a top company in the gaming industry (that would be gambling, not video games). My books include The Underground Guide to Color Printers (Addison-Wesley), Troubleshooting Your PC (Microsoft Press), and Faster, Smarter Digital Photography (Microsoft Press).

    Having covered a wide range of subjects, I've developed a serial expertise in many of them. The ones most relevant to my current work at PCMag.com are all imaging technologies.

    The Technology I Use

    I buy new PCs for my writing desk infrequently, because it takes a week or more to customize the settings the way I want them. At the moment, I have an HP Envy tower running Windows 10, but it's old enough to have a Windows 7 sticker on it. Its latest lease on a longer life is courtesy of a newly installed 500GB Samsung SSD 870 EVO.

    Elsewhere in my house is an assortment of older and newer PCs. The older ones are dedicated to specific tasks, like the one I've been using to slowly digitize all the paper stored in my filing cabinets, while the newer ones are testbeds for printer and projector reviews.

    For writing, I use Microsoft Word 2003, because I find it too annoying to take my hands off the keyboard to give mouse commands using the Ribbon. My workhorse printers are a Xerox Phaser 6280 color laser and a Dymo LabelWriter 450 Twin Turbo for labels and stamps. I also have a Canon Pixma iP8720 for printing photos, and a Canon ImageFormula DR-C225 for scanning.

    My first computer was bought to replace my IBM Selectric for writing. After rejecting both the IBM PC (which had just been introduced) and the Apple II because of the keyboards, I chose a Vector Graphics Vector 3 CP/M machine with dual floppies. The first MS-DOS machine I was willing to use for writing was the IBM AT, with its much-improved keyboard compared with the original PC and its gargantuan 20MB hard drive.

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