• Top motor speed. 10 pages in draft mode with a small "o" in the middle.
• 10 pages of black text filled at about 6% in economy or draft mode.
• 10 pages of black text filled at about 6% in driver default mode.
• 10 pages of a compound document (color text and graphics).
• A Web page.
• Time required for the first page of a monochrome document to start printing.
• 10 x 15 color photo on photo paper at the printer's top resolution.
• Color photo in A4 format on photo paper at the printer's top resolution.
• Color photo in A4 format on standard paper at the highest resolution possible for this kind of paper.
• Black and white photo in A4 format on photo paper at the printer's top resolution.

3 - Cost Per Page

Time goes by, but reputations endure: manufacturers are often accused of making a lot of money, not on the devices themselves, but on their cartridges. Take the Deskjet 932c, for example, which shows the extent of the problem. The shop price of a new printer is about $130. A full set of cartridges (black + one color) costs about $75. And it's even worse if you want a double-filling set of cartridges, the price shoots up to $120.

Under these circumstances, estimating the cost per page is vital, because this, more than the price paid for the actual machine, gives you the true cost of the printer.

We assessed two costs:

• The cost for monochrome, based on pages printed in black and white, filling 10% of the total surface.
• The cost for color pages filled with 5% per color: black, cyan, magenta and yellow.

The three prices noted (purchase, black and white, monochrome) were combined to find the cost at 3000 pages assessed as follows:

Purchase price + 1500 monochromes pages + 1500 color pages = price at 3000 printed pages.

The results are illuminating. They will make you realize that so-called inexpensive printers, the cheapest on sale, are not necessarily the best bargain. It's often better to spend more for a more expensive model, which turns out cheaper in the long run.