custom test report - xerox · custom test report buyers lab.com 2012 buer aorator nc i report i te...

Custom Test Report

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MARCH 1, 2014

Buyers Laboratory (BLI) was commissioned by Xerox Corporation to conduct an indepen-dent comparative lab evaluation of the performance of genuine Xerox brand print cartridges against the performance of Colour Soft (from Zhuhai Warmth) and TopPrint cartridges in the Xerox Phaser 6500 color printer. The objective of the test was to compare the page yield, reliability, image quality and image permanence of the three brands of cartridges. Nine sets of black, cyan, magenta and yellow cartridges of each brand were tested across three print-ers dedicated to each brand (three sets per printer), in accordance with ISO/IEC 19798. All testing was conducted in BLI’s 10,000-square-foot test lab located in Hackensack, NJ (USA; www.buyerslab.com).

PERFORMANCE SUMMARY

Xerox

The results of BLI’s test showed that the Xerox Phaser 6500 cartridges were clearly supe-rior to both the Colour Soft and TopPrint brands in all aspects of performance. With regard to tested page yield for each color, the Xerox cartridges consistently exceeded their rated yields, as well as the yields of the third-party brands, and none of the Xerox cartridges failed out of box or expired prematurely.

In terms of image quality, the Xerox cartridges consistently provided very good overall re-sults.

Comparative Performance Evaluation

Genuine Xerox Phaser 6500 Brand Print Cartridges vs. Colour Soft and TopPrint Brands

FEBRUARY 2014

2 BuyersLab.com This report has been reproduced with the written permission of Buyers Laboratory LLC. Any duplication of this report without the written permission of Buyers Laboratory is unlawful and violators will be prosecuted. ©2014 Buyers Laboratory LLC. To purchase reprints, contact BLI at (201) 488-0404 (x17) or at [email protected]. • 021410

Comparative Performance Evaluation Genuine Xerox Phaser 6500 Brand Print Cartridges vs. Colour Soft & TopPrint Brands

Colour Soft

Only one set of Colour Soft cartridges reached the rated yields for cyan, magenta and yellow, but fell short with black.

• The other eight sets were classified as premature expires due to excessive toner flaking off pages and toner build-up on the fusers that resulted in images with severe defects and severe fuser dam-age.

• The fusers had to be prematurely replaced for each of these eight cartridge sets well before the car-tridges reached the rated yields and cartridge end of life was set at that point.

In contrast to Xerox, it was not possible to evaluate image quality with the Colour Soft cartridges due to the following:

• Excessive toner flaking resulting in severe image quality defects.

• Eight of the nine Color Soft sets damaging the printer fusers due to severe toner build-up on fuser components causing un-removable paper jams (due to the jammed pages binding to the fuser roller).

TopPrint

In the case of the TopPrint brand, BLI technicians were unable to complete yield testing on all nine CMYK sets due to an un-clearable “Replace Cyan Cartridge” message caused by these cartridges.

• With the first three TopPrint cartridge sets, this message occurred between 750 and 900 pages and could not be cleared by either BLI technicians or an authorized Xerox service technician.

• Consequently, all three of these CMYK cartridge sets were classified as premature expires, with end of life being between 750 and 900 pages.

• With the remaining six TopPrint cartridge sets, a “Replace Cyan Cartridge” message occurred when the cartridges were installed and could not be cleared, resulting in these six TopPrint cartridges be-ing classified as out-of-box failures as no pages could be printed.

It was not possible to evaluate image quality with any of the TopPrint cartridge sets due to the car-tridges causing the printers to malfunction, as noted above.



Incremental Costs Caused by Colour Soft & Top Print Cartridges Failures

In addition to the poor performance of the TopPrint and Colour Soft cartridge brands, it should be noted that the damage they caused to the printers resulted in significant printer and component replacement costs, as well as project downtime and lost productivity.

• The first three CMYK sets of TopPrint cartridges rendered all three of the printers dedicated to this brand inoperable; consequently, the printers had to be replaced at a cost of approximately $1,200 in order for BLI to test the remaining six TopPrint CMYK sets.

• While the remaining six TopPrint CMYK sets also could not be tested due to the “Replace Cyan Cartridge” message activating as soon as the cartridges were installed, these printers still worked once these TopPrint cartridge sets were replaced with original Xerox cartridges.

• Compounding the cost of replacing these three printers is the cost of lost productivity as a result of the downtime incurred while waiting for the Xerox service tech to arrive and diagnose the problem and time lost while waiting for delivery of the replacement printers.

• Because of the fuser damage caused by the Colour Soft cartridges, eight fusers had to be replaced at a cost of $850, resulting in downtime of several days and significant lost productivity.

TABLE 1: Performance Summary

XEROX COLOUR SOFT TOPPRINT

Average Page Yield Excellent Poor Poor

Reliability Excellent Poor Poor

Image Quality Very Good † †

Image Permanence Excellent † †

OVERALL Excellent Poor Poor

†These performance categories could not be rated, as image quality and permanence was not evaluated for these brands due to major reli-ability issues and image quality defects.



OVERALL PERFORMANCE BY CATEGORY

PAGE YIELD

The nine Xerox black, cyan, magenta and yellow cartridges all exceeded their rated yields and well out-performed the two third-party brands. In fact, only one set of the Colour Soft cartridges completed BLI testing, with cyan, magenta and yellow exceeding the rated yield and black falling short by about 90 pages. All of the other Colour Soft cartridges fell well short of their rated yields and failed to complete testing due to severe image quality defects and severe fuser damage caused by excessive toner flak-ing and build-up on fuser components, resulting in un-removable paper jams. Average page yields for the TopPrint cartridges could not be obtained due to the cyan cartridges causing un-clearable “Replace Cyan Toner” messages that rendered the printers inoperable.

TABLE 2: Average Page Yield

Brand Color Number of Cartridges Tested

Number that Met Rated Yield Rated Yield Average

Tested YieldTested ISO 90%

LCB Yield*

Xerox

Black 9 9 3,000 3,195 3,166

Cyan 9 9 2,500 2,886 2,793

Magenta 9 9 2,500 2,916 2,663

Yellow 9 9 2,500 2,638 2,571

Colour Soft

Black 9 1 3,000 1,592** 1,062

Cyan 9 1 2,500 1,549** 1,059

Magenta 9 1 2,500 1,548** 1,059

Yellow 9 1 2,500 1,550** 1,060

TopPrint

Black 9 0 3,000 *** ***

Cyan 9 0 2,500 *** ***

Magenta 9 0 2,500 *** ***

Yellow 9 0 2,500 *** ***

* ISO 90% LCB calculation accounts for variations in yields across the nine cartridges and is therefore more accurate than simply averag-ing the results for all cartridges; it represents a yield that can be expected to be achieved or exceeded with 90% confidence.

**Testing ended prematurely due to unremoveable paper jams in the fuser resulting from excessive toner build up causing the paper to bind to the fuser roller.

*** Average page yields could not be obtained with these cartridges due to a “Replace Cyan Toner” message caused by these cartridges that could not be cleared by BLI’s technicians or by the Xerox technician that was called in to service the printers.



TEST YIELDS PER CARTRIDGE TYPE

XEROX Black Cyan Magenta Yellow

Test Set 1 3,145 2,845 2,675 2,675

Test Set 2 3,180 2,965 2,765 2,630

Test Set 3 3,190 2,640 2,685 2,535

Test Set 4 3,235 3,070 2,620 2,600

Test Set 5 3,175 2,705 3,105 2,515

Test Set 6 3,175 2,785 2,610 2,500

Test Set 7 3,305 2,950 2,600 2,735

Test Set 8 3,160 3,055 3,565 2,795

Test Set 9 3,190 2,960 3,620 2,760

AVERAGE 3,195 2,886 2,916 2,638

COLOUR SOFT Black Cyan Magenta Yellow

Test Set 1 1,450 1,450 1,450 1,450

Test Set 2 1,650 1,650 1,650 1,650

Test Set 3 †† 2,910 2,530 2,520 2,535

Test Set 4 1,885 1,885 1,885 1,885

Test Set 5 1,950 1,950 1,950 1,950

Test Set 6 270 270 270 270

Test Set 7 1,920 1,920 1,920 1,920

Test Set 8 2,090 2,090 2,090 2,090

Test Set 9 200 200 200 200

AVERAGE 1,592 1,549 1,548 1,550

†† Only one set of Colour Soft cartridges completed yield testing without damaging the fuser; all other cartridge yields listed indicate when BLI technicians had to replace the fuser unit on the printer due to excessive toner buildup, which damaged the fusers and rendered them inoperable.

TOPPRINT Black Cyan Magenta Yellow

Test Set 1 **** 900 **** ****

Test Set 2 **** **** **** ****

Test Set 3 **** **** **** ****

Test Set 4 **** 800 **** ****

Test Set 5 **** **** **** ****

Test Set 6 **** **** **** ****

Test Set 7 **** 750 **** ****

Test Set 8 **** **** **** ****

Test Set 9 **** **** **** ****

AVERAGE **** 817 **** ****

**** Page yields could not be obtained with these cartridges due to un-clearable “Replace Cyan Toner” messages that rendered the print-ers inoperable.



RELIABILITY

There were no failures whatsoever with the Xerox cartridges, whereas eight sets of Colour Soft car-tridges and all TopPrint cartridges failed to complete BLI’s testing.

Only one of the nine sets of Colour Soft cartridges completed BLI testing, although there was almost constant toner flaking on pages. The other eight sets of Colour Soft cartridges expired prematurely due to severe toner flaking, background on images, and excessive toner build-up on the fusers that caused an un-removable paper jam that stuck to the fusers, rendering the devices inoperable at that point (see Exhibits A, B, C and D on pages 9).

With the TopPrint cartridges, BLI technicians were unable to complete testing on all nine CMYK sets. The first three CMYK sets failed prematurely at between 750 and 900 pages due to the printers becom-ing inoperable as a result of a “Replace Cyan Toner” message that could not be cleared by BLI’s techni-cians or by the Xerox technician. Testing on the remaining six TopPrint CMYK cartridge sets also could not be completed due to “Replace Cyan Toner” messages that occurred at the very start of testing with these sets; consequently, as noted below, eight of the TopPrint cartridges sets were classified as out-of-box failures and one as a premature expire.

TABLE 3: Cartridge Reliability

Brand Color Number of Cartridges Tested

FAILURES

Out-of-Box Premature Expires TOTAL

Xerox

Black 9 0 0 0

Cyan 9 0 0 0

Magenta 9 0 0 0

Yellow 9 0 0 0

Colour Soft

Black 9 8 8

Cyan 9 8 8

Magenta 9 8 8

Yellow 9 8 8

TopPrint

Black 9 8 1 9

Cyan 9 8 1 9

Magenta 9 8 1 9

Yellow 9 8 1 9

Note: Out-of-Box Failure: a cartridge that was inoperable upon installation or produced 20 or fewer acceptable pages. Premature Expire: a cartridge that produced less than 75% of the rated yield.



TABLE 4: Printer Damage Caused by Cartridges

XEROX COLOUR SOFT TOPPRINT

Un-clearable “Replace Cartridge” Message 0 0 9

Fuser Damage 0 8 0

Fusers Replaced 0 8 0

Printers Replaced 0 0 3

Total replacement costs 0 $850 $1,200

IMAGE QUALITY

With regard to image quality, BLI technicians only evaluated output from the Xerox cartridges as these were the only cartridges to successfully complete testing. Due to the major reliability issues encoun-tered, BLI technicians considered all images from the Colour Soft and TopPrint brands to be unaccept-able.

The Xerox cartridges produced very good overall output: at the start of testing with a new set of car-tridges, color business graphics were bright, fine details had average sharpness, and production of pastel shades and backgrounds was above average, while skin tones were natural looking. With black output, text and solids had above average darkness, characters were fully formed and line art had aver-age smoothness and consistency of line weight. However, at approximately 600 to 700 pages into test-ing, density decreased and black and color images appeared lighter and mottled (see Exhibits E and F on page 10), although still acceptable.

While the few images that could be printed with the first set of TopPrint brand lacked any major defects (see Exhibit G on page 11), these cartridges rendered the printers inoperable. Images produced by the Colour Soft cartridges exhibited inconsistent toner coverage and mottling (see Exhibit H on page 12), as well as severe toner flaking on the sides and backs of pages, which became worse as testing pro-gressed. More importantly, eight of the nine sets of Colour Soft cartridges tested damaged the fusers due to excessive toner build up on the fuser roller, at which point testing had to be discontinued for these cartridge sets.



TABLE 5: Image Quality

Xerox Colour Soft TopPrint

Text 3 # #

Line Art 2 # #

Solids 2 # #

Color Business Graphics 3 # #

Color Photographic Images and Density 3 # #

TOTAL 13 # #

AVERAGE 2.6 # #

Note: 4 = excellent; 3 = very good; 2 = good; 1 = fair; and 0 = poor.

#BLI technicians did not evaluate image quality on the Colour Soft and TopPrint brand cartridges due to the major reliability issues of both brands.



EXHIBITS

Colour Soft Exhibit A: Toner flaking on the back of pages printed using the Colour Soft cartridges.

Colour Soft Exhibit C: Visible toner buildup on fuser roller due to Colour Soft cartridges.

Colour Soft Exhibit B: Excessive toner flaking from the Colour Soft cartridges was even visible on the edges of printed pages.

Colour Soft Exhibit D: Toner buildup from the Colour Soft cartridges caused a page to become lodged in the fuser of each printer. As the paper could not be removed due to binding to the fuser roller, the fuser for each printer had to be replaced before BLI could resume test-ing.



Xerox Exhibit E: Output from the original Xerox Phaser 6500 cartridges at the start of the test was bright with smooth and consistent toner coverage. Image at right magnified to show detail.

Xerox Exhibit F: After 600 to 700 pages into testing, solid images became lighter and displayed some mottling. Image at right has been magnified to show detail.



TopPrint Exhibit G: Although the few images printed by the TopPrint cartridges did not show noticeable defects from beginning (left) to end (right) of testing, the cartridges rendered the printers inoperable prematurely and out of box.



Colour Soft Exhibit H: Images printed by the one set of Colour Soft cartridges that completed testing without damaging the fuser showed mottling and inconsistent toner coverage, which got worse from the beginning (left top) to end (right top) of testing. Image at bottom depicts final output magnified to show detail.



TABLES 6–9: Density Readings

Xerox CartridgesBLACK

High Low AVERAGE

1 1.70 1.06 1.33

2 1.29 1.08 1.18

3 1.70 1.00 1.24

4 1.60 1.23 1.42

5 1.24 1.15 1.21

6 1.25 1.15 1.18

7 1.62 1.23 1.40

8 1.35 1.13 1.24

9 1.26 1.12 1.21

AVERAGE 1.45 1.13 1.29

The higher the number, the darker the color. Average for devices tested to date: 1.44

BLI technicians did not evaluate the black density of the Colour Soft and TopPrint brand cartridges due to the major reliability issues of both brands.

Xerox CartridgesCYAN

High Low AVERAGE

1 1.11 0.86 0.95

2 0.95 0.87 0.92

3 1.11 0.84 0.92

4 1.03 0.86 0.94

5 0.92 0.88 0.89

6 0.94 0.82 0.91

7 0.93 0.89 0.91

8 0.97 0.79 0.91

9 0.90 0.77 0.83

AVERAGE 0.98 0.84 0.91


BLI technicians did not evaluate the cyan density of the Colour Soft and TopPrint brand cartridges due to the major reliability issues of both brands.



Xerox CartridgesMAGENTA

High Low AVERAGE

1 1.38 0.93 1.11

2 1.13 1.06 1.10

3 1.38 0.93 1.11

4 1.29 0.83 1.11

5 1.16 1.06 1.11

6 1.37 0.89 1.13

7 1.26 1.16 1.21

8 1.25 0.93 1.10

9 1.21 0.94 1.08

AVERAGE 1.27 0.97 1.12


BLI technicians did not evaluate the magenta density of the Colour Soft and TopPrint brand cartridges due to the major reliability issues of both brands.

Xerox CartridgesYELLOW

High Low AVERAGE

1 1.00 0.69 0.81

2 0.84 0.63 0.75

3 1.00 0.63 0.78

4 0.98 0.75 0.86

5 0.89 0.77 0.83

6 0.86 0.71 0.79

7 0.96 0.72 0.84

8 0.85 0.67 0.75

9 0.79 0.70 0.77

AVERAGE 0.91 0.70 0.80


BLI technicians did not evaluate the yellow density of the Colour Soft and TopPrint brand cartridges due to the major reliability issues of both brands.



IMAGE PERMANENCE

Sutherland Rub Test

The Sutherland Rub Test is used to evaluate the adhesion and smudge resistance of toner on pages by subjecting image samples to various measured abrasion cycles with a Sutherland 2000 Rub Tester. Degradation of images is measured by taking density readings with an X-Rite 500 Series at the start of testing and following each abrasion cycle. The closer a reading following each abrasion cycle is to the reading at “0,” the better the image permanence. Image permanence of output delivered by the Xerox cartridges was considered to be excellent, showing no image degradation at every reading point. Due to major reliability issues of the third-party cartridges, BLI technicians did not evaluate image permanence on the Colour Soft and TopPrint cartridges.

TABLE 10: Sutherland Rub Test Density Readings

Xerox Colour Soft TopPrint

Abrasion Cycles

Cartridge 0 5 40 160 0 5 40 160 0 5 40 160

1 0.07 0.07 0.07 0.07 NA NA NA NA NA NA NA NA









Hard-Creasing Test

The objective of the hard-creasing test is to evaluate toner adhesion on pages by rolling a weighted cylinder over a fold in pages and visually observing the degree of image cracking or flaking off pages. The Xerox cartridges demonstrated very good image adhesion in the hard-creasing test. A visual exami-nation of print samples revealed little to no cracking on solid lines. Due to major reliability issues of the third-party cartridges, BLI technicians did not evaluate image quality for the Colour Soft and TopPrint brands.



TEST METHODOLOGY

Test Conditions

BLI performed all testing in its 10,000-square-foot U.S. lab located in Hackensack, NJ. All tests were conducted under controlled conditions of temperature and humidity, with conditions monitored 24/7 by an Extech RH S20 Digital RH/Temperature Recorder and Honeywell Model 61 Seven-Day Temperature/Humidity Chart Recorder. Running average temperature was 68°F to 78°F, and running average humidity range was 35% to 65%. All test devices and materials were conditioned for a minimum of eight hours prior to testing. A total of 108 cartridges were evaluated across nine printers: 9 Xerox CMYK cartridge sets in three devices, 9 Colour Soft CMYK cartridge set in three other devices, and 9 TopPrint cartridge sets in three devices.

Page Yield

BLI used the five-page ISO 24712 color test target (see Exhibit I below). When a device prompted BLI technicians on the display to insert a new cartridge, the current cartridge was considered to be at the end of life. The total page count per cartridge was defined as the number of acceptable pages printed (that is, pages without image quality defects). The overall average page yield per color and brand was defined as the combined total number of acceptable pages printed by all of the cartridges of one color and then divided by nine.

Exhibit i: ISO 24712 color test target



Reliability

Throughout testing, any malfunctions observed such as operational/mechanical failure, error messages, out-of-box failures, premature expires, physical defects or toner leakage were recorded. Out-of-Box Failure: a cartridge that was inoperable upon installation or produced 20 or fewer acceptable pages. Premature Expire: a cartridge that produced less than 75% of the rated yield.

Image Quality

In assessing image quality, BLI’s lab test technicians assigned a grade of 4, 3, 2, 1 or 0 to each perfor-mance category, with four being the best. Averages of the individual cartridge grades were calculated in order to assign a value and overall grade to each brand of cartridge. Visual assessments were made in a Graphiclite D5000 Standard Viewer and with an Edmund Scientific PL-B776U PixeLINK Camera. Black density was measured with an X-Rite 508 Series Spectrodensitometer.

Image quality was evaluated based on the following categories: text, line art, halftones and solids. Sam-ples were taken at the start of testing at 25%, 50% and 75% of claimed page yield. Based on the test target, each was rated according to a cartridge’s performance in the following related sub-categories: boldness, sharpness, fullness of formation, and smoothness of serifs for Text; line consistency and for-mation of circles for Line Art; separation of grayscale levels, graininess and banding for Halftones; and visible darkness/boldness and consistency of coverage for Solids. Four density measurements were taken for each sample, two each on the right and left side of the page, top and bottom. The scores were totaled across each category and averaged to obtain a grade for each brand. All criteria were then aver-aged and constitute the overall grade for each brand.

Image Permanence

Samples were evaluated for image permanence via the ASTM F1571 Standard Test Method for Deter-mination of Abrasion and Smudge Resistance of Images Produced from Copy Products (Sutherland Method), and via the ASTM F1351 Standard Practice for Determination of the Effect of Hard Creasing Paper on Images Produced by Business Imaging Systems.



ABOUT BUYERS LABORATORY

Since 1961, Buyers Laboratory LLC (BLI) has been the leading global independent office-equipment test lab and business consumer advocate. In addition to publishing the industry’s most comprehensive and accurate test reports on office document imaging devices, each representing months of exhaustive hands-on testing in BLI’s US and UK laboratories, the company has been the leading source for exten-sive runnability testing on imaging media and consumables, as well as extensive specifications/pricing databases on MFPs, printers, scanners and fax machines. BLI also has a long-standing reputation for being the industry’s most trustworthy and complete source for quality testing services and global com-petitive intelligence.

In addition to testing over 200 office machines and related consumables annually for its subscribers, BLI provides consulting services to buyers and a range of private testing services that include document imaging device beta and pre-launch testing, performance certification testing, consumables testing (in-cluding toner, ink and photoconductors), solutions evaluations, and imaging media runnability testing.

For more information on BLI, call (201) 488-0404, visit www.buyerslab.com or email [email protected].

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