Xerox XJ4C

For inkjet printer users, the high cost of each new print cartridge is the quid pro quo for the printer's superb photo-quality print capability. Xerox's first inkjet printer, the XJ4C, is aimed straight at the low-end PC user, and it's one of a very few modern inkjets to use individual ink cartridges for each of the colours: cyan, magenta, yellow and black.

The potential benefit is lower ink costs. First of all you don't need to throw away the perfectly sound print head electronics when you run out of ink. Neither do you have to throw away unused cyan and magenta ink just because, for instance, the yellow ink has run out. However, the XJ4C's ink reservoirs themselves are rather small: Xerox claims each refill is good for 275-295 pages at five per cent coverage.

Unfortunately, at a street price of £9 per colour, a trio of cartridges works out more expensive than a complete new print head and ink cartridge for the Hewlett-Packard DeskJet 690C (£21.30). Consequently, the price per page works out over the odds at 4.3p per page of text and 14.1p per full-colour page, both at five per cent coverage.

The four-ink cartridge approach means that some extra assembly is required before the XJ4C is ready for action. With most inkjets, you simply fix the new print head into position. However, with the XJ4C you need to assemble the print head itself. You first snap the ink reservoirs into the electronic print head; this single piece now snaps into position on the platform. Although it's one extra step for users, the process is simple enough.

Xerox loses marks, however, for its software installation. Despite Xerox's plug and play claims, Windows didn't automatically detect the printer, so you have to run the floppy disk setup program manually. Once the driver is loaded, you also need to check print spool settings by running an obscurely-named utility. Setup software for a modern inkjet really ought to perform this sort of housekeeping invisibly.

I tried the printer with a range of paper, from plain copier through generic bright white and inkjet-coated varieties to Xerox's own stock. And, despite the lack of a straight-through paper path, the XJ4C deals commendably with heavier media. Printing on 160g/m2 white card proved no problem at all - the card was still perfectly flat after printing, with none of the unwanted curl usually caused by tight turns inside a printer.

On plain paper, output is typical of low-cost inkjets - on black text there's some ink spatter and wicking which adds spidery, jagged edges to characters. Photographs and business graphics lack contrast, but this is a problem nearly all inkjets suffer from. Using generic, uncoated, bright white paper increased colour quality: images - especially photos - were much warmer.

On coated paper, however, the leap in print quality was more significant. Black text was sharp, with jaggies almost entirely eliminated, and there was more contrast and vibrancy in the photographic prints. If anything, the XJ4C suffers a little too much vibrancy - skin tones, although smooth, appeared to have a magenta cast. The business graphics and charts pages revealed much improved dithering and none of the fuzziness of the plain paper equivalents. Vector graphics from CorelDraw appeared sharp and smoothly shaded.

Unfortunately, Xerox was unable to supply its photo-quality paper for testing, so I used some Kodak stock. The XJ4C turned out some commendable results for an on-the-street price of below £150 printer. It's not able to compete with more expensive printers - some dithering patterns were visible - but the output was passable.