HP Instant-on All-in-One Performance Report Summary

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QualityLogic Performance Report

HP LaserJet All-in-Ones vs. All-in-One Competitors

QualityLogic Inc., an independent test firm, recently performed tests to compare the print throughput performance of two monochrome HP LaserJet All-in-Ones (with Instant-on Technology) against a selection of currently available competitive products without Instant-on Technology. The devices chosen for this test span a range of performance and price points from various manufacturers.

Printer specifications may provide PPM rated throughput without indication of the warm-up time required prior to printing. A recent research study by InfoTrends, sponsored by HP, indicated that users will usually be printing from power-save mode. It also reported that over 60 percent of business documents are five pages or less. The study noted that the typical document printed was four pages long.

Our testing included the warm-up time that a typical business user might experience when printing a typical job from the power-save mode. Note that some All-in-Ones in this study enter their power-save mode in as little as five minutes after printing a job. For this test, documents of five pages each were printed 30 minutes after having ensured that each device entered its power-save mode.

The testing demonstrated the HP LaserJet All-in-Ones were much faster than their counterparts in printing from power-save. When printing the first page from power-save, the HP LaserJet All-in-Ones with Instant-on Technology are 2.7 times faster on average than the tested competitors without Instant-on Technology. In addition, the HP LaserJet All-in-Ones printed the test documents faster from power-save even when compared against All-in-Ones rated at a higher PPM (Pages-Per-Minute). Usually, the HP LaserJet All-in-Ones completed printing an entire five page document before the competitors printed their first page.

Enabled by Instant-on Technology, the HP LaserJet All-in-Ones delivered all of the pages in the print jobs sooner than the other All-in-Ones tested, resulting in faster throughput for the entire job. In addition, in no case was a HP LaserJet All-in-One slower in completing the print jobs than a competitor. Under these test conditions, the HP LaserJet All-in-Ones on average outperformed the competitors with similar and higher price/performance points for each of the five pages. In this report we include the average times for each of the five pages.

The following table shows the All-in-Ones tested, their manufacturer-specified print speed and first page out (FPO) times, if available, compared to the actual performance achieved during testing by QualityLogic. The devices in the test are order ranked from fastest, at the top, to slowest based on the average time to print the first page of the five-page jobs. (This column is highlighted in blue.) The HP LaserJet All-in-Ones are highlighted in green and occupy all of the top or fastest positions in the set of test results.

Printer	List Price	Published Specifications		Actual Performance (All times in seconds)
	Base Model	Speed (PPM)	FPO (sec.)	1/5	2/5	3/5	4/5	5/5
HP LaserJet 3050 All-in-One	$300⁽¹⁾	19	8	11.1	14.2	19.3	22.6	26.0
HP LaserJet 3055 All-in-One	$500⁽¹⁾	19	8	11.1	14.2	18.6	22.8	26.3
Brother MFC-7220	$200⁽¹⁾	20	*	21.8	24.6	27.4	30.2	33.0
Xerox Phaser 3200MFP/B	$399⁽¹⁾	24	10	23.1	26.0	28.4	30.7	33.1
Dell 1125	$249⁽¹⁾	21	*	23.3	26.1	28.9	31.8	34.6
Brother MFC-8220	$300⁽¹⁾	20	*	23.6	27.2	29.9	32.7	35.4
Samsung SCX-4725FN	$285⁽²⁾	24	10	26.4	29.3	31.7	34.0	36.4
Lexmark X342n	$399⁽¹⁾	27	10	27.4	30.9	36.3	41.1	46.0
Xerox PE220	$400⁽¹⁾	20	11	33.2	36.6	39.6	42.5	45.4
Samsung SCX-4521F	$287⁽²⁾	20	11	34.9	38.3	41.2	44.2	47.1
Samsung SF-565P	$268⁽²⁾	16	12	36.3	40.7	44.2	47.7	52.0
Samsung SCX-4720F	$441⁽²⁾	22	10	46.3	49.0	51.7	54.2	57.1

^Notes:(1) - Price obtained from manufacturers web site for base model in series.
(2) - Price obtained from retailer in US.
All pricing is from original purchase data and is subject to change.

* Manufacturer does not provide this information on their web site or in accompanying manuals.

Summary

The average time to first page out for the Hewlett-Packard LaserJet All-in-Ones with Instant-on Technology in this study was 11.1 seconds compared to an average time for the competitors without Instant-on Technology of 29.6 seconds. In printing the first page out, the Hewlett-Packard LaserJet All-in-Ones with Instant-on Technology were 2.7 times faster on average than the tested competitors without Instant-on Technology.

As mentioned previously, a recent study reported the typical business document is four pages long. In this test, HP LaserJet All-in-Ones with Instant-on Technology often printed the first four pages from power-save before the competing All-in-Ones without Instant-on Technology printed their first page. Overall, HP LaserJet All-in-Ones with Instant-on Technology printed the fourth page in 22.7 seconds on average, while the competing All-in-Ones without Instant-on Technology printed the fourth page in 38.9 seconds on average. In printing the fourth page out, the HP LaserJet All-in-Ones with Instant-on Technology were 1.7 times faster on average than the tested competitors without Instant-on Technology.

Test Platform

Testing was performed using the QualityLogic PageSense 4.2 automated performance test tool, connected to a desktop personal computer with an AMD Athlon 2GHz processor with 256Mb of memory, using the Microsoft Windows XP Professional Edition operating system. All printers were connected to the test computer using a USB connection.

Test Approach

All print drivers were installed using the Plug-n-Play method and tested using the default settings. Printing was done on letter size paper. All products were selected by HP and purchased by QualityLogic from various vendors.

Each printer was tested using the default settings as delivered from the manufacturer. No modifications were made to the printer or driver settings.

Based on HP’s belief that typical print jobs for the business environment are between one and five pages, documents of five pages in length were chosen for this test. This belief is supported by a recent InfoTrends study sponsored by HP which found that over 60% of users print an average of 5 pages or less per document.

For all printers, each test file was printed 30 minutes after having ensured that the printer entered the power-save state. PageSense was used to automate the testing and provide consistent timing between tests. All files were printed twice. Any files logging a five percent deviation between test runs were retested.

QualityLogic selected test files that it considered typical of a small/medium business environment from PageSense’s suite of performance test files. The test included files from Microsoft Internet Explorer 6.0, Microsoft Office 2000 Suite, and Adobe Acrobat Reader 6.0. Standard PageSense test files were modified to fit the five-page document length requirements of this test.

PageSense uses application test files and an automated process for printing and recording time measurements using a smart paper sensing unit. Performance data is logged into a database automatically. Many leading printer manufacturers and industry publications, such as PC Magazine, use PageSense to automate testing and provide comparable results between printers. PageSense is a standard, automated approach to performance testing.

This study was commissioned by HP.

About QualityLogic

QualityLogic is a leading Software Quality Services Company offering a variety of testing services and related tools focused on the conformance, performance, and interoperability testing needs, from low level firmware testing, to high level multi-tier application testing. QualityLogic has over 21 years' experience, both in developing specialized test tools and providing comprehensive testing services for top industry manufacturers.

Test results provided by QualityLogic. Tests were performed under laboratory conditions and your results may vary.