At a glance The Lexmark Optra Color SC1275n and HP Color LaserJet 4500N stand out as top performers in our speed tests. Many of these printers use identical print engines, but this doesn't always result in similar performance. Often a different motherboard and CPU is used, and software drivers and network interfaces can also have a large effect on performance. Printer manufacturers quote rated print speeds in pages per minute. These are generally the rate the print engine can feed paper and can bear little relation to real performance.
All printers use consumable items.
We've calculated the cost of printing 150,000 pages on each printer, taking all consumable items into account and based on the manufacturers' rated lifetimes and prices. Related to consumables use is the number of times printing stops while you replace an item. We've calculated this over 150,000 pages to reveal which printers are the hardest to run. All rights reserved. Reproduction in whole or in part in any form or medium without express written permission of ZDNet is prohibited.