Plain paper print quality & speed


Our plain paper black text printing quality and speed test uses a page containing four paragraphs of single-spaced 12 point Times New Roman text, totalling 43 lines, including a heading. Timings are taken from the time the first page of a three-sheet print run completes until the second is completed.


In draft plain paper text mode our test document shot through the printer at an amazing rate: one page every 5.5 seconds or 11 pages per minute. But all this haste had a steep price in terms of print quality. The above magnified characters would blend in well amongst a few zebra and to the naked eye the text is grey, not black as it should be.


At the more leisurely pace of one page every 12 seconds, or 5 pages per minute, when printed using the standard text mode, print quality is transformed. The magnified characters look a bit woolly, but to the naked eye the deep black of the pigment ink saves the day.

As demonstrated on the previous page, colour photos print remarkably well on plain paper, with good colour and sharpness, considering media.