Late-Breaking Reviews of Printers, Monitors, and Storage Systems
HP Printer Flexes Its Muscle
Designed for small workgroups, the $1,799 Hewlett-Packard LaserJet 5M laser printer features several improvements that help it print faster and produce higher-quality output than its predecessor, the Hewlett-Packard LaserJet 4M.
The physical design of the LaserJet 5M is similar to that of the LaserJet 4M, but several improvements are evident here as well. The printer is smaller than the LaserJet 4M, and the built-in handles on the sides make hauling the LaserJet 5M from one side of the office to the other a lot easier. An easy-to-use control panel makes navigating through the printer's menus and options a breeze.
The LaserJet 5M has a maximum output resolution of 600 dpi with REt (Resolution Enhancement technology), which gives you smoother line art and text. The HP printer has a rated engine speed of 12 pages per minute. The standard 4-MB memory configuration is expandable to 52 MB via standard SIMM modules. The printer comes with built-in Adobe PostScript Level 2 software and 35 ROM-resident fonts. An HP JetDirect card for Ethernet and LocalTalk printing is standard. The printer also has a serial port for connecting an optional HP Infrared Connect module ($79), for people who want to print from their laptop computers with built-in infrared devices. You can then print from your laptop without the hassle of using cables.
The main paper tray handles letter- and A4-sized paper only; the manual-feed tray can handle envelopes and paper as large as legal-sized. Additional accessories include a duplexing unit for double-sided printing ($679); a 500-sheet universal-paper-tray attachment ($299); and a 250-sheet universal paper tray ($99), which replaces the standard pullout tray.
Simple to Complex
To test speed and output quality, we printed several pages of text, line art, and grayscale graphics. We timed the production of a variety of documents from simple files, which print quickly, to complex files, which take longer to complete. In our testing, we used the types of documents typically produced by business workgroups, the target audience for HP's latest laser offering.
Overall, we were impressed with the printer's output quality. Thanks to HP's REt, text was sharp, with smooth edges on all the characters. Graphics were equally impressive -- the detail we saw was clear and distinct. The light and dark grays in our grayscale ramps blended together quite nicely.
Output quality aside, however, we were surprised at how long the LaserJet 5M took to print our graphics-heavy Adobe PageMaker document. With the standard 4 MB of RAM, it took a sluggish 12 minutes to print the 5-page PageMaker file -- more than double the time it took most of the workgroup printers we've reviewed in past Quick Labs. According to Hewlett-Packard, if your workgroup often prints grayscale graphics, you should go with a higher RAM configuration than the standard 4 MB. The LaserJet 5M had no problem churning out text documents at a fast pace, however.
Reviewers / Rick Oldano and Roman Loyola
The HP LaserJet 5M workgroup printer offers a good combination of speed and output quality.
3 / OUTSTANDING 2/ ACCEPTABLE 1/ POOR
Product/ Estimated Street Price/ Color or Monochrome/ Technology/ Maximum Resolution/ Warranty/ Text Quality/ Graphics Quality/ Paper Handling/ Support/ Comments
HP LaserJet 5M Rating: Very Good (4 of 5 mice)/ $1,799/ monochrome/ laser/ 600 dpi/ 1 year/ 3 3 2 3/ Excellent grayscale output. Prints text at a fast clip.
Quantum Quorum of Wide Hard Drives
In the storage category, we feature three new hard drives that each use a Quantum mechanism and a Wide SCSI-2 data path. The $1,199 CMS Enhancements Platinum PL4000W and the $1,099 MacProducts Magic Quantum Atlas 4.3GB Wide each have a Quantum Atlas mechanism. The $1,406 Optima Diskovery 4100W has a Quantum Fireball mechanism.
Adobe Photoshop users who spend lots of time waiting for large files to open or who perform Photoshop operations that often access the disk will appreciate the speed of the CMS and MacProducts drives. The Optima drive offers good speed, but it isn't as fast as and costs more than the CMS and MacProducts drives.
Since Wide drives use a SCSI-2 connector and require a SCSI-2 interface card, it helps if the manuals contain specific information about Wide drives, but none of the manuals had any -- they were all written for drives that have a narrow data path and a traditional 50-pin SCSI connector.
A Wide SCSI-2 bus makes as many as 15 SCSI IDs available, but the Optima drive is the only one that comes in a case that supports 15 IDs. This means that you can connect as many as 15 SCSI devices, compared to the 7-device limit of a built-in Mac SCSI bus.
Reviewer / Kristina De Nike Tester / Chris Moreno
The Optima Diskovery 4100W is the only Wide drive we tested that supports 15 SCSI IDs.
Product/ Estimated Street Price/ Wide SCSI/ Formatted Capacity/ Price Per Megabyte/ Warranty/ case/ Software/Manuals/ Support/ Comments
CMS Enhancements Platinum PL4000W Rating: Acceptable/Very Good (3.5 of 5 mice)/ $1,199/ yes/ 3.9 GB/ $.31/ 5 years/ 3 1 3/ Documentation lacks information on Wide SCSI-2.
MacProducts Magic Quantum Atlas 4.3GB Wide Rating: Acceptable/Very Good (3.5 of 5 mice)/ $1,099/ yes/ 3.9 GB/ $.28/ 5 years/ 3 1 2/ Documentation lacks information on Wide SCSI-2.
Optima Diskovery 4100W Rating: Acceptable/Very Good (3.5 of 5 mice)/ $1,406/ yes/ 3.9 GB/ $.36/ 1 year/ 2 1 2/ Only Wide drive we tested that supports 15 SCSI IDs.
LISTING IS ALPHABETICAL WITHIN GROUPS OF EQUAL MOUSE RATINGS.
Sampo Monitor Stands Out
The $649 Sampo AlphaScan 17mx and the $649 Pacom 7Fgs each has a standard set of controls and good image quality, but neither has the diversity of controls nor the image quality that imaging experts require. We ranked the Sampo monitor higher than the Pacom one because it came out ahead of its similarly priced rival in our image-quality tests.
The $999 ArtMedia TN1885T and the $1,099 LG Electronics Studioworks 78i scored well in our image-quality tests, but imaging experts will find their image controls limited. You can also attach an optional speaker set ($79) to the LG Electronics monitor to enhance the sound of multimedia CD-ROMs.
The $399 Mag InnoVision DX1595 suffers from several drawbacks. It is missing such necessary controls as trapezoid adjustment and rotation control. We needed this latter control in our tests, because the on-screen images were horizontally misaligned. Also given a pincushion error we could not correct and its strictly analog controls, the DX1595 is a 15-inch monitor we recommend you avoid.
Reviewers / Rick Oldano and Roman Loyola Tester / Brian Fikes
The $649 Sampo AlphaScan 17mx is a good monitor for home-office and business use.
Product/ Estimated Street Price/ Screen Size/ Maximum Resolution/ Warranty/ Manuals/ Support/ Controls/ Comments
Sampo AlphaScan 17mx Rating: Very Good (4 of 5 mice)/ $649/ 17 in./ 1,152 x 870 pixels/ 2 years/ 2 2 2/ Good all-purpose monitor at a great price.
ArtMedia TN1885T Rating: Acceptable/Very Good (3.5 of 5 mice)/ $999/ 17 in./ 1,600 x 1,200 pixels/ 3 years/ 1 2 2/ Could be good for DTP, but needs better control set.
LG Electronics Studioworks 78i Rating: Acceptable/Very Good (3.5 of 5 mice)/ $1,099/ 17 in./ 1,152 x 870 pixels/ 3 years/ 2 2 2/ Could be good for DTP, but needs better control set.
Pacom 7Fgs Rating: Acceptable/Very Good (3.5 of 5 mice)/ $649/ 17 in./ 1,152 x 870 pixels/ 3 years/ 2 3 2/ Good all-purpose monitor.
Mag InnoVision DX1595 Rating: Poor/Acceptable (2.5 of 5 mice)/ $399/ 15 in./ 1,280 x 1,024 pixels/ 3 years/ 2 2 1/ Lacks controls necessary for adjusting image quality.
LISTING IS ALPHABETICAL WITHIN GROUPS OF EQUAL MOUSE RATINGS.
GET INFO / ArtMedia 408-980-8988 CMS Enhancements 714-517-0915 Hewlett-Packard 208-396-2551 LG Electronics 201-816-2000 MacProducts 512-892-4070 Mag InnoVision 714-751-2008 Optima Technology 714-476-0515 Pacom 510-440-7200 Sampo Technology 770-449-6220
