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Buyer's Guide: The Best Monitors 
Epson Stylus Office B42WD vs HP Officejet Pro 8000
Marine Goy
Translator: Jack Sims
Updated: August 10, 2011
Translator: Jack Sims
Updated: August 10, 2011
| On the left, the Epson Stylus Office B42WD, an entry level inkjet with Ethernet and wi-fi, double-sided printing, a 250-page front paper loader, four ink cartridges, both Mac and Windows compatible. | | | | | | | |
On the right, the HP Officejet Pro 8000, an inkjet with Ethernet, double-sided printing, 32 MB of memory, a 250 page front paper loader, four ink cartridges, PCL6, PCL3 and PS language support, running on Mac, Windows and Linux. |
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| 4 ink cartridges |
| | 4 ink cartridges |
| Black & white: 18 ppm - Colour: 9 ppm |
| | Black & white: 22 ppm - Colour: 16 ppm |
| Resolution: 1200 dpi |
| | Resolution: 1440 dpi |
| Wi-fi and double-sided printing | | | Ethernet and double-sided printing |
| Ink drops: 1 picolitre |
| | Ink drops: ? |
| THE BACKGROUND |
.jpg) Epson is no. 2 in sales, behind HP. The Epson range is divided into three: the Stylus Photos for photo enthusiasts, the SXs for individual consumers with mainly text requirements and, lastly, the Stylus Office series designed for the pro market (small businesses, SMEs and so on). |
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 HP start from the principle that mobility and distance working have changed printing requirements.Like the HP Office jet 100 Mobile, this colour printer has been designed to meet the requirements of users who need to print outside of the office context. |
| Both Espon and HP use the same sales arguments: gain in time and money, without compromising on speed and quality. Added to this come an easy-to-use interface, networking and/or wi-fi, which is vital for sharing the printer within an office environment. You get wi-fi from Epson and Ethernet from HP and high capacity cartridges from both. Epson sells both standard and XL cartridges for its machine, whereas with HP you can only buy XXLs, either in a pack or separately. |
| HARDWARE: A DRAW |
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Espon Stylus Office B42WD
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HP Officejet Pro 8000
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| Both printers have a very basic button design - touch screens feature more often on high end models or those designed for individual consumers. |
| Not many buttons: the indispensable 'cancel' for stopping prints and the on/off. Two cartridge capacities: the 'Apple' series for the standard (lifespan around 300 pages), and the 'Deer' series XL cartridges (800 pages).
Machine size: 44.5 x 33 x 15.4 cm Weight: 4.5 Kg Energy Star Certified |
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Maintenance: simple access to cartridges from front and on-screen ink level display. Single cartridge capacity: XXL by default with 2200 pages for the black cartridge and 1400 pages for the three colours (cyan, magenta, yellow).
Machine size: 52.3 x 42 x 23.1 cm
Weight: 6.3 Kg Energy Star Certified |
| SPEED: HP WINS |
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Very fast start-up in all modes. It has the advantage from off position and 9 seconds to print the first page when the printer is up and running is very fast.
 Time to print first page from off position, standby and when running
Print speeds: 9 pages per minute (ppm) for colour and 18 for black & white. Although these speeds are good, they are nevertheless down on what you get with the HP Officejet Pro 8000.Number of pages per minute
 Higher performance double-sided: double-sided is indispensable for economising on paper and producing pro reports. In this mode, speeds fall to 11 ppm. This is better than average - speeds are often at least halved.
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Responsiveness: HP has the advantage from standby and is comparable to the Epson when printing from on position. It is slow, almost twice as slow as the Epson, when printing from off position however.
 Time to print first page from off position, standby and when running
Speeds are measured with our test documents (which include graphs and photos as well as text), on which the graphs require some drying time. The readings given are for standard mode but can be reduced by cutting down on drying time.Number of pages per minute
 Double-sided printing: horrible! Speeds drop to 4 pages per minute, which is very slow indeed! |
| QUALITY: HP WINS for office docs |
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Office document prints lack precision: for simple text this Epson does fine but on our test graph, the size of the ink droplets is particularly visible in the shaded colour areas and the contours of the lettering lacks precision. The legibility of documents isn't therefore what it could be and not up to standard for a pro printer designed to be used in an office environment.
 Document printed at default quality, in colour, then scanned at 300 dpi.
 In photo prints, the size of the ink droplets is also visible in places. The colours are cold and there's a tendency towards green in the black and white print. The results are a good deal better on the Epson than the HP however.  10 x 15 colour print scanned at 300 dpi.
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Excellent office document prints: although the size of ink droplets is slightly visible in the shaded colour areas of the graph, the result is much more precise than on the Epson. The letters are nice and legible and the contours round the letters clear and precise, with the shaded colour areas well reproduced. A 5-star performance. Document printed at default quality, in colour, then scanned at 300 dpi.  The photo print quality isn't as good. The size of the droplets is visible, especially on faces. The colours tend towards red and there's a general lack of precision in the details. And don't even bother trying to get the photos to print without a margin. It can't be done! 
10 x 15 colour print scanned at 300 dpi.
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| ENERGY CONSUMPTION: Epson WINS |
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Good standby consumption: 1 W is the target to aim at, in accordance with the 2012 standby standard.
Epson and HP both score 2 W, which is still pretty good (you'll often find lasers draw up to 15 W and more in standby). Energy consumption reading: 2 W in standby and 13 W when printing
Noise: 60 dB(A), noisy! |
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Low consumption: both printers do very well when printing. Epson has a slight advantage with 13 W against 15 W for the HP. Remember that lasers draw anywhere from 250 to 1200 W when printing. Energy consumption reading: 2 W in standby and 15 W when printing
Noise: 48 dB(A)
A difference of 12 dB(A) is quite significant. The Epson is much noisier than the HP.
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| COST PER PAGE: HP WINS |
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Economical: 5.5 pence per page with high capacity cartridges. This is a good deal below average and heavy consumers of ink will be pleased. All the same HP has done even better.
XL still more economical: when you buy the cartridges, two formats are available (standard and XL). The XL's work out to be twice as economical in the long run. The advantage of separate cartridges over monoblocks is that you only have to change the empty cartridge and not the whole lot at once.
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Even more economical: 4.5 pence per page with the XXL cartridges, the only size available. Black & white prints cost just 1 pence, making this machine even more economical in ink than a laser. The ISO lifespan for the black cartridge is 2200 pages and 1400 pages for the three colours. This is more than twice the lifespan you get on the Epson. This printer cleans the heads each time you turn it on and this does waste quite a bit of ink. We advise you to leave it on standby. |
| RESULT: HP WINS FOR QUALITY, SPEED, NOISE AND COST PER PAGE |
| Epson gives better quality with photo prints, but lets the side down when it comes to office documents. Demanding users will opt for the HP Officejet Pro 8000 for pro document quality. Better double-sided printing Almost three times as fast in this mode and twice as fast to print the first page from off position, but for the rest it's behind the Officejet Pro 8000. In spite of the fact that two cartridge sizes are offered, the XLs have only half the capacity of the single format HP cartridges. |
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HP holds to its word Pratical and well-thought out, this model is designed for users looking for a colour printer that can handle large capacities. The price of the cartridges remains very reasonable for the lifespan they give, which results in lower maintenance and very competitive cost per page. Quality and speed The quality of office documents is a nice surprise on this model. The photo prints won't be good enough for the most demanding users but the fact that it can extend to photos is nice - the machine is positioned as an office document printer. In spite of the fact that it slows down in double-sided mode, it's a speedy operator overall. |
