Printer Image Consultation * Hard-Drive Case Study * Monitor Panel Discussion
Appearances aren't always deceiving, at least in the case of Mac peripherals. Sometimes you can tell a great deal about a product and how easily it'll fit into your work environment simply from a superficial look.
A glance at an output sample from this month's workgroup laser printer, for example, tells you a lot about its impressive 1,200-dpi resolution. And a peek at its front panel tells a bit about its ease of setup.
Hard drives too: Even those often inscrutable desktop boxes betray something of themselves in their outward appearance. This month's 2-GB removable drive, for example, appeals to a considerably different audience than the spartan-but-small 800-MB model we tested.
Monitors, of course, are all about outward show, but even when they're unplugged, their appearances can offer hints: The control panels on this month's offerings range from three unlabeled buttons (for navigating through on-screen menus), to LCD panels, to bristling arrays of switches. Each may entice or repel, depending on your tastes and needs.
Of course, once you've been pulled in by an attractive face, you should always take a long, hard second look. That's what MacUser Labs is for. So read on for our observations.
A New Workgroup Printer
Impressive output at 1,200 dpi is the chief asset of the Lexmark Optra Lx+, the lone printer we tested this month. This workgroup printer delivered solid blacks, clean and accurate line art, and excellent detail.
The Optra Lx+ uses Lexmark's proprietary PostScript Level 2 emulation and ships standard with 4 MB of memory, expandable to 64 MB. It's designed to live happily in a mixed Mac/PC environment, having built-in serial and parallel connectors and automatic emulation switching, but you can tell that the printer was designed primarily with PCs in mind: Its manuals contain almost no references to the Mac, unless you purchase separate Mac-specific hardware -- a Mac Ethernet adapter ($369 list), which we strongly recommend, or an AppleTalk connector ($299 list).
Despite its lack of Mac documentation, configuring the Optra Lx+ is simple, thanks to its easy-to-read LCD front panel. The 500-sheet paper tray holds only letter-sized paper; the printer can handle legal-sized sheets, but you have to feed them manually. Optional feeders, including those for duplex printing, are available at additional cost.
Network administrators get help -- albeit limited -- from Lexmark's MarkVision software, which lets you remotely change the printer's front-panel settings and get reports on jobs in progress.
To test speed and output quality, we timed the printer producing a variety of documents and weighted the results to reflect everyday usage. You can compare the result to those of workgroup printers we've reviewed in past Quick Labs, but you can't compare it to results for personal printers. We print longer, more complicated documents on workgroup printers, in order to better reflect real-life conditions.
Reviewer / Roman Loyola
Testing / Jim Galbraith
Lexmark Optra Lx+
Rating: Acceptable/Very Good (3.5 of 5 mice)
Estimated Street Price: $2,300
Resolution: 1,200 dpi
Warranty: 1 year
Text Quality: Outstanding
Graphics Quality: Outstanding
Paper Handling: Acceptable
Support: Acceptable
Comments: Outstanding output
quality, simple controls compensate
for poor Mac documentation.
Five New Hard Drives
Five hard drives, four with capacities higher than 2 GB and the fifth an 800-MB model no bigger than a pound of butter: This month's drives reflect a trend toward innovative case design and plummeting cost per megabyte.
On the nifty-case side, the 800-MB FWB hammer*PE 800 offers a compact, no-frills design that won't crowd your desktop (and in a pinch could serve as a portable). More portable, however, is the MicroNet DataDock HD 2070 (pictured), a 2-GB drive with carrying handle that slides into MicroNet's Docking Station base ($799). The base, which accommodates two DataDocks, furnishes a power supply and a SCSI-ID selector. Surprisingly for such an advanced system, the DataDock HD 2070 was the only drive we tested that doesn't ship with active termination.
On the plummeting-storage-cost front, the 4-GB APS ST 4200 offers a great value, at just 27 cents per megabyte; Dynatek's HDA 4.0, this month's fastest drive, offers a similar deal.
We tested drive speed by using MacBench 2.0's Disk Mix test. The scores are relative to that of a 250-MB Quantum IDE drive in a Quadra 630, which has a score of 10.
Reviewer / Jim Shatz-Akin
Testing / Kristina De Nike
APS ST 4200
Rating: Very Good (4 of 5 mice)
Estimated Street Price: $1,099*
Formatted Capacity: 4,090.6 MB
Price Per Megabyte: $.27
Warranty: 5 years
Case: Outstanding
Software/Manuals: Acceptable
Support: Outstanding
Comments: Great storage value in a
well-designed, durable case.
MicroNet DataDock HD 2070
Rating: Very Good (4 of 5 mice)
Estimated Street Price: $735+
Formatted Capacity: 2,044.7 MB
Price Per Megabyte: $.36
Warranty: 3 years
Case: 2
Software/Manuals: Acceptable
Support: Acceptable
Comments: Flexible removable design.
Bulky dock lacks switchable termination.
APS Q 2210
Rating: Acceptable/Very Good (3.5 of 5 mice)
Estimated Street Price: $799*
Formatted Capacity: 2,045.8 MB
Price Per Megabyte: $.39
Warranty: 5 years
Case: Outstanding
Software/Manuals: Acceptable
Support: Outstanding
Comments: Time-tested SR 2000 case, with
good active termination.
Dynatek HDA 4.0
Rating: Acceptable/Very Good (3.5 of 5 mice)
Estimated Street Price: $1,300
Formatted Capacity: 4,149.3 MB
Price Per Megabyte: $.31
Warranty: 3 years
Case: Acceptable
Software/Manuals: Acceptable
Support: Outstanding
Comments: Disk was unformatted. Software
disables setting of write cache.
FWB hammer*PE 800
Rating: Acceptable/Very Good (3.5 of 5 mice)
Estimated Street Price: $559
Formatted Capacity: 808.4 MB
Price Per Megabyte: $.69
Warranty: 2 years
Case: Acceptable
Software/Manuals: Acceptable
Support: Acceptable
Comments: Compact drive comes with
external active-termination block.
* Direct price.
+ Excludes price of required DataDock base unit ($799).
Listing is alphabetical within groups of equal mouse ratings.
Six new monitors
This month's crop of monitors is a showcase for the variety of available control-panel designs. Push-button controls, on-screen dialog boxes, and even an LCD panel grace the faces of the six monitors we tested.
The Smile CA1706 (pictured) has an LCD panel built into the front. It also lets you save three sets of monitor settings as "channels," which may come in handy if the lighting in your work environment often changes.
The Sampo AlphaScan 15mx and the Corion ArtMedia TC1664 have front-panel push-buttons for adjusting settings. The Sampo monitor has a somewhat confusing set of four control buttons that govern multiple functions, which you toggle through by using a fifth button. The Corion monitor has a simpler array of nine single-function buttons.
Easier to use are the on-screen controls of the Iiyama Vision Master 17 and Vision Master Pro 17 and the Panasonic PanaSync 1791Ei. All three use thermometer-style bars to help you fine-tune your settings, which are automatically saved in the monitor's memory. The Iiyama monitors each use three buttons to navigate through a series of 17 on-screen controls. The Panasonic model has the best control set we saw this month, with 14 settings and helpful numeric indicators for precise adjustment.
The image-quality scores reflect the results of our tests for various image-quality characteristics. Maintaining focus and sharpness is more difficult on larger monitors. A score of 1.0 is considered acceptable.
Reviewer / Roman Loyola
Testing / Martin Wong
Iiyama Vision Master 17
Rating: Acceptable/Very Good (3.5 of 5 mice)
Estimated Street Price: $749
Screen Size: 17 in.
Maximum Resolution: 1,280 x 1,024 pixels
Warranty: 3 years
Manuals: Acceptable
Support: Outstanding
Controls: Acceptable
Comments: Same as Pro model, but
slightly dimmer shadow-mask tube.
Iiyama Vision Master Pro 17
Rating: Acceptable/Very Good (3.5 of 5 mice)
Estimated Street Price: $849
Screen Size: 17 in.
Maximum Resolution: 1,280 x 1,024 pixels
Warranty: 3 years
Manuals: Acceptable
Support: Outstanding
Controls: Acceptable
Comments: Bright aperture-grille tube.
Great on-screen controls.
Panasonic PanaSync 1791Ei
Rating: Acceptable/Very Good (3.5 of 5 mice)
Estimated Street Price: $949
Screen Size: 17 in.
Maximum Resolution: 1,280 x 1,024 pixels
Warranty: 3 years
Manuals: Acceptable
Support: Outstanding
Controls: Outstanding
Comments: Pricey, but on-screen controls
are great.
Sampo AlphaScan 15mx
Rating: Acceptable/Very Good (3.5 of 5 mice)
Estimated Street Price: $389
Screen Size: 15 in.
Maximum Resolution: 1,280 x 1,024 pixels
Warranty: 2 years
Manuals: Poor
Support: Poor
Controls: Acceptable
Comments: Great image quality at an
attractive price.
Corion ArtMedia TC1664
Rating: Acceptable (3 of 5 mice)
Estimated Street Price: $449
Screen Size: 15 in.
Maximum Resolution: 1,280 x 1,024 pixels
Warranty: 1 year
Manuals: Acceptable
Support: Acceptable
Controls: Acceptable
Comments: Affordable monitor. Good for home use.
Smile CA1706
Rating: Acceptable (3 of 5 mice)
Estimated Street Price: $695
Screen Size: 17 in.
Maximum Resolution: 1,280 x 1,024 pixels
Warranty: 1 year
Manuals: Acceptable
Support: Poor
Controls: Outstanding
Comments: Easy-to-use LCD control panel.
GET INFO / APS Technologies 816-483-6100 Corion Industrial 408-980-8988 Dynatek Automation 416-636-3000 FWB 415-833-4616 Iiyama North America 215-957-6543 Lexmark 606-232-2000 MicroNet Technology 714-453-6100 Panasonic 201-348-7000 Sampo Technology 404-449-6220 Smile International 714-546-0336
LISTING IS ALPHABETICAL WITHIN GROUPS OF EQUAL MOUSE RATINGS.
