HP has always had the edge in the Indian market when it comes to sales. Many assemblers denounced Epson's printers as inferior and hard-to-service, whereas, the fact always has been that Epson offered better print quality, and cheaper ink cartridges, saving around Rs.400 or more per cartridge for the simple reason that Epson chose to separate the print head from the ink tanks, making it cheaper to produce a cartridge! This also allows them to use a more precise Piezo Electric technology-based print head, which offers finer dot resolution than HP's heads, which are embedded in the ink tank. The Epson system also has its shortcomings - it is a high maintenance printer, and if the print head isn't used for long, and if the ink cartridge is left inside the printer for that duration, it is prone to getting jammed, and if not cleaned soon, might get permanently damaged, and would need replacement.
Setting the trend...
We ran a series of tests on the C41SX ranging from printing high-resolution vector graphics (to test printer resolution and sharpness), to photos and many multi-picture patterns (to test color reproduction and photo printing quality), and text (to test text readability and sharpness, as well as print speeds), and for what it costs, the printer performed fairly well in almost all tests.
|
In the vector graphics test, even though the gray used in the image was very much a variation of black, and not a mixed color, it printed out a mixed greenish shade of gray. The sharpness was perfect and accurate till around 600 DPI, which is pretty good for an economy inkjet. Same goes for the color tests - the photos and patterns were pretty sharp, but lacked color depth, and seemed to be slightly off-shade. As for the text printout, even 2-point text was fairly readable, but the higher point sizes were a bit smudged at the edges. The printer gave an average speed of 7.64 PPM (Pages Per Minute) in our 20-page text test at normal print quality. Photo printing speeds at high quality on full-bleed A4 paper were around three minutes a page for an average of five pages.
This printer, at Rs.4400, provides the same level of quality that printers costing more than thrice as much used to provide till about three years back! And even by today's standards, this printer is a good buy - grab one now, if a cheap inkjet for occasional use is what you're looking for!
Test Unit Sourced From: Epson India Ltd.
