Canon i-sensys LBP3010

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Caractéristiques
Resolution	600 x 600 ppp
Speed B&W / color	14 ppm / N.A. v70
Ink drop size	N.C. picolitres
Number of cartridges	N.A.
Number of base colors	N.A.
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Scanner	no
Copier	no
Fax	no
WiFi	no
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Nilofar Hadjanadjiboudine
Test date: January 6, 2009

Canon i-sensys LBP 3010 vs. inkjets

Cost per page is cheaper than with an inkjet but remains quite high for a laser printer. Basically a black & white page will be almost as expensive as a laser colour print elsewhere. Canon says that this higher price is partly due to their all-in-one cartridge that contains the toner, drum and cleaning units. Strange, since the product is clearly not aimed at high-volume print businesses. At best, the cartridge will be replaced once or twice. How necessary is it really to change the drum unit?

The drum is rated at 20,000 pages, the toner 1,500 pages; this means that you could change toners up to 13 times before having to start to worry about the drum. Will you really be printing enough to use up 13 toners?

Canon may not be the world leader in the field of printers, but supplies other companies such as HP, the leader. Why not go straight to the makers then, it ought to be cheaper! Well, for them certainly, but not for the buyer. For example, the reviewed model is quite inexpensive but its running costs are high. The price tag is misleading as the cartridge in the box is rated at just 700 pages instead of the 1,500 pages on a regular version. This way Canon forces the customers to start buying consumables sooner. In comparison the Epson 6200L ships with a full capacity toner for 3,000 pages. In order to be able to compare the two, you have to do your maths, basing yourself on a 3,000-page capacity.

Speed and quality

Brother’s entry level model, the HL 2035, promises and delivers 18 pages per minute. Canon quotes 14 ppm (though the model we tried was a bit faster with 14,9 ppm). It is indeed slower than Brother’s but it is two times faster that anything you will get from a good inkjet. Do you really need to go any faster than that?
What’s more, there is hardly no warm-up time from sleep mode, so you can start printing straight away. This is thanks to Canon's Quick First-Print technology, which indeed will save you time on the first page. Quality is slightly better than with Brother’s model. As far as text prints go, both give superb results, after all laser is perfect for that. Letters are crisp, do not bleed and come out perfectly dry. The LBP3010 has better results with photos and graphics, even though it prints only in B&W. Gradients and contrasts come out well. There is little sign of banding. Epson and Lexmark however produce better quality.

The print mechanism is remarkably quiet, as you can see for yourself.

Cost per page
The starter toner supplied is rated at just 700 pages. The replacement cartridge will last 1,500 pages. Bear this in mind when you figure out the running costs. The cost per page is slightly superior to the average price of a laser page, but the quality is better. An inkjet page would still be two or three times more expensive.

Cartridge lifespan - ISO test for office