Choosing the Right MFD

This is the third year in succession that we're evaluating MFDs, and over this period of time, we've seen this market grow and flourish with better, faster and cheaper models emerging. This time we decided to look at laser-based MFDs for workgroups and received seven of them. These were models with various price points and duty cycles, meaning plenty of variety for you to choose from. We divided them broadly into three categories. The first category contained two models from HP and Samsung, whose prices started from Rs 175,000. The next category had three models with a price range of Rs 50,000 to Rs 65,000 and duty cycles from 10,000 to 25,000 pages per month. The third and last category had two models from Xerox and HP costing Rs 18,000 and Rs 29,000 respectively but with the 10,000 pages per month duty cycle. 

With so much variety in MFDs available, choosing the right one can become quite a daunting task. So let's begin by
understanding some important considerations when choosing one. 

There are the small personal MFDs that cost less than Rs 5,000 and there are powerful workhorses whose cost goes into lakhs. Then there are the in-betweens for workgroups, branch offices and departments. This is the category that we'll focus on in this buying guide, and that too the monochrome laser-based models. Most of these MFDs support all functions of print, scan and copy, with some supporting fax as well. The fax function affects the cost to some extent. Other major ones are the performance specs of the MFD, its recurring costs, and the features. Before evaluating these figure out the usage scenario in your office. How many pages do you print and copy every month? How much scanning do you do? Then see which MFDs are available with similar duty cycles, and go for one with a slightly higher duty cycle to account for future growth in your work requirements. If you do bulk printing, then obviously, print speed would be a criterion. This time we received MFDs with a wide range of duty cycles from 7000 to 200,000 per month. Even if two MFDs have the same duty cycle, they may not cost the same. The difference comes primarily due to features. 

Consumables matter

Cost of consumables come next. While the debate of whether to buy a MFD or go for a printer, scanner, copier and fax separately is long gone, another interesting one has started. That is of the cost of consumables. If you buy these devices separately, then in the long run, you might end up spending more on the cost of their consumables than if you were to go for a MFD. So you'd buy printer toner, copier toner and fax thermal paper all separately. 

In an MFD, a single toner or cartridge is used to print and copy a document, plus you don't have to buy thermal paper for the fax. In addition, you are getting a decent scanner, which can be shared across the network in some cases. Next check out the value added features such as ADF with duplex option (in some cases you have to pay extra for an ADF duplexer), paper sizes supported, number of paper trays and paper capacity, life cycle of a cartridge or toner (How many pages can it print?), scanner optical resolution, fax memory (how many pages it can store as fax?) and also check out the control panel buttons, LCD and touch pads. 

Ease of use

How easy it is to operate MFD? How easy are the controls? They shouldn't intimidate your users. How informative is the LCD panel of the MFD? And will this be usable for your users? Remember, the MFD is meant for non-technical users. What kind of networking capabilities does the MFD have? How well can it manage things over the network? Does it also let you perform other functions besides printing over the network? What kind of privacy do users have when they print, scan and copy from an
MFD? 

Other options

A new trend we saw in MFDs this time was wireless networking capabilities. Out of the seven MFDs we got, three had an option for Wi-Fi expansion. Another important consideration is manageability. Some MFDs have Web-based management consoles from where you can do all the needful modifications remotely. You can even generate e-mail notifications when some crucial threshold is crossed. 

How we tested

We used an IBM Thinkpad (now Lenovo) notebook with a Centrino and 760MB of RAM as a client to test all MFDs. They were evaluated for their performance, features and pricing, wherein price included the cost of consumables as well. We used the Brown-Gibson model to arrive at the weightages for various parameters.

Printing tests

Four major features were taken into consideration to test the printing capabilities of the MFDs. Bulk printing speed, time taken for the first page to print, time taken to print a full-sized graphics, and then quality of prints. Time taken for the first print to come is usually longer as some MFDs need to warm-up and buffer the document before they can start printing. 

For bulk-printing test, a 30-page Word document was used in draft mode and we timed it minus the time for first page to come out. For testing the print quality, we printed a full-page monochrome graphic as well as line-art and curves.

Copier

For copier testing also we checked the time taken to copy a full-page of text, time taken to copy a full-page graphic and a page with both text and small graphics. The copies were then compared on how true they were to the original documents.

Scanner

Scanner testing was done by taking into consideration two basic parameters -scan time and quality of scanned images. An A4-sized high-resolution color photograph was scanned at 300 and 600 dpi respectively.

Usability options 

Lastly, we checked all the additional features by manually using them extensively and seeing whether they were really good in a real life usage scenario. Here we basically tested how easy was the control panel to use, manageability from its Web interface (if any) as well as from a machine. 

We also checked the footprint and design of the device for a standard workspace environment. Finally we checked how maintenance free and easy to configure was the device. Such as how easy it is to set up the device for the first time and how you can do the routine maintenance work such as freeing up paper jams etc.

Anindya Roy and Debasish Misra