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General Performance
Warm-up (5.01)
The Stylus Photo R2400 comes to ready status in 24 seconds, on par with many other inkjets, such as many Canon models, including the Canon Pro9000 and MP600 All-in-One.
Power Usage (8.20)
Watts used by the R2400 were once again similar to other inkjets, notably the two Canon printers mentioned in the Warm-up section. Similar measurements were taken for the smaller Epson compact printer, the PictureMate Snap.
Power usage was generally low, with no power consumed when the printer is shut off. Other printers, such as some HP models, use a small amount of power even when turned off. When the printer is on and ready to print, three watts are being consumed. In printing mode, fifteen watts are used.
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Power Usage (watts)
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Off
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Idle
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Ready
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Printing
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Self-Cleaning
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Epson Stylus Photo R2400
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0
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n/a
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3
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15
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12
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Canon Pixma Pro9000
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0
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n/a
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4
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13
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12.5
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Canon Pixma MP600
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0
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1
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5
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16
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14.5
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Epson Picture Mate Snap
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0
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n/a
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4
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12
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12
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Document Speed/Timing (3.50)
The Stylus Photo R2400 printed documents at a decent pace for a pro photo printer—black text documents printed at slightly greater than one page per minute (ppm), while multi-color text and graphics documents printed at just less than one page per minute. The R2400 performed slightly better than the Canon Pro9000, a dye-ink professional photo printer we’ve tested.
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Document Print Speeds
in Pages per Minute (ppm)
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8.5" x 11" Text
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8.5" x 11" Graphics
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HP Photosmart 5180
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6.00
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2.57
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Canon Pixma MP600
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2.81
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1.35
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Epson Stylus Photo R2400
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1.08
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0.92
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Canon Pixma Pro9000
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0.87
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0.74
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While they’re not directly comparable, in the table above we show document printing times for a couple of all-in-one inkjets that we’ve tested to give an idea of the range of printing times for other inkjets. The Canon MP600 printed black text documents at more than double the rate of the R2400, while the HP C5180 printed black text nearly six times faster. These rates are expected for multi-function printers, for which one of the main priorities is speed. We also expect high-end HP photo printers, such as the Photosmart B9180, to have faster printing times based on general performance of HP printers, but we’ll test this conclusively when we get one in the lab.
We used the best quality, called Photo Best or PhotoRPM (Resolution Performance Management), for our tests. We always use the best quality setting for our tests, and even though this was not technically a document quality setting, we believe it is directly comparable with the highest quality settings on printers, such as the Canon Pixma Pro9000, which do not list quality settings for documents and photos separately.
Document Quality
Text (3.00)
For the document quality test we photograph a single text character on a Sony Cybershot DSC-F707 through a microscope. Then we apply a standard set of changes in Photoshop.
This test really shows both the limited density of the blacks on the Epson R2400 prints and the bleeding and feathering of the text. The image on the left is from the Epson R2400, which prints with pigment inks, and the one on the right from the Canon Pro9000, a dye-ink printer. Both prints show evidence of the paper fiber at this magnification. Our standard document paper is Staples 100% Recycled Copy Paper (90 bright, 20 lb.). Epson recommends strongly the use of their own brand of plain paper, but we test on a single, commonly used stock for consistency and comparability. We used the photo black ink cartridge, which is also recommended by Epson.
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Epson Stylus Photo R2400
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Canon Pixma Pro9000
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Even without the use of a microscope, it is readily apparent that the R2400's text is not black, but rather a mid- to dark gray. While documents can be printed on the R2400, these tests indicate it would not be the best printer for that use.
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