This is a case for rudedog.
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March 25, 1999
Two New Machines
Offer Many Functions
By WALTER S. MOSSBERG
THE TROUBLE WITH a one-man band is that while it's amazing that the guy can play all those instruments at once, he doesn't sound as good as several people playing separate instruments well. And setting up the band just right is a pretty complicated process.
That's also the difficulty with "multifunction products" or MFPs -- the inelegant industry term for computer printers that also operate as fax machines, copiers and scanners.
These products are aimed at people who need two or three machines but want to save money and desktop space. They usually work in two modes. They can send and receive faxes and make copies, using the buttons on their control panels, even when the PC is turned off. And they can work with the computer to print out documents, scan them in, or fax things right from the PC screen.
In my experience, however, these combo products are hard to set up and prone to failures because of their complexity. And, in many cases, their print speed and quality are inferior to those of current standard printers.
Despite my skepticism, I've been testing two new all-in-one devices that claim to be simple, fast and high quality. They come from Xerox and Compaq, upstarts in this category. Interestingly, both machines use the same Lexmark-designed print engine -- the innards that actually do the printing. But the two companies have designed and engineered very different user control panels, in effect different user interfaces, for the machines.
UNFORTUNATELY, neither worked perfectly as promised. The Compaq, in particular, had major problems in my tests. That's a shame, because Compaq's design includes some breakthrough features that make it especially easy to use.
On the plus side, the print quality and speed of both the Compaq and Xerox machines were excellent, on a par with the popular, high-quality $275 Hewlett-Packard 722c color printer.
The Xerox WorkCentre 480cx is due in stores in May at $499 and will come with a $100 rebate starting in June. The Xerox unit installed quickly and effectively on a top-of-the-line IBM ThinkPad I used for testing. Its standalone functions worked well, though unlike the Compaq, it can't do color copying. But it beats the Compaq in a few areas: It includes a printer cable, works with old versions of Windows and has a greater memory for storing incoming fax pages.
However, I found one of the Xerox-supplied software elements, a program called LaserFax that allows direct faxing of PC documents, was balky and impossible to get to work right. More problematic was the front panel of the Xerox, which was like a traditional high-end fax machine, with rows of buttons whose functions were hard to figure out. I thought the Xerox was too hard to use for any but the simplest operations.
The Compaq A900, the computer giant's very first all-in-one device, has a much better design and will cost less when it hits stores in late April: $349, after a $50 rebate. Its front panel has only about half the buttons on the Xerox, and everything's much clearer.
Unlike the Xerox, it can do color copying, if the PC is on. The function can also be entirely controlled from the machine's front panel, without requiring you to use PC software. In fact, one hallmark of the Compaq A900 is that every operation can be controlled simply and quickly with a couple of buttons on the front panel, as well as from the PC.
Compaq's other breakthrough is something called a Control Form. This is a magical cover sheet the A900 prints out at the touch of a button, which can automate and customize the machine's operation for each job.
USING A PENCIL or pen, you just check off various options on the sheet, feed it back into the A900 atop whatever pages you want faxed, copied or scanned, and the machine just follows the instructions on the control form, automatically.
You can specify whether you want a document faxed, scanned or copied (or any combination thereof), then check off fax recipients from a list that's printed on the form using data from an address book you maintain on the PC. You can also check off various options for document quality, quantity and size.
These great features would be even better, if only the A900 worked. I had tremendous trouble getting the Compaq to set up and function with a PC. On my Dell desktop, the A900's software couldn't communicate with the printer or its fax modem. I shifted to the IBM ThinkPad, but it still worked only intermittently, even after I switched to a printer cable Compaq sent me, and later, to a new revision of the software. Finally, I got the A900 to work properly in all its functions, but only after using the Compaq-supplied cable and revised software, and a virgin Compaq laptop the company loaned me for testing.
Despite my eventual success, I can't say that the A900, for all its virtues, is ready for prime time. I never got it to work on a non-Compaq PC or one that had been used before with other printers and a variety of software. I think Compaq will probably get it right eventually. Compaq executives took very seriously the problems I reported, and even pushed back the product's launch date to repair the software. If they can fix the software, they may have a winner.
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