Number of colors
The color palette that a printer or MFP can print.
A large number of colors is required for high-quality photo printing and obtaining color prints with many shades. As a standard, for a color MFP,
4 colors are provided.
First page print
The time passed from pressing the Copy button to the completion of the first copy in MFPs. Typically specified for low quality black and white printing on A4 paper. The time for the first copy to be released is the longest (because of the time to prepare for work and scan the document); subsequent copies of the same document are printed much faster.
Fast first copy time is important if you have to copy documents frequently.
B/W copy
Black and white copy speed – the number of copies of one page that the MFP can produce in 1 minute. Typically indicated for poor print quality. This option is important if you often need to make many copies of a single document.
Colour copy
Colour copy speed – the number of full-colour copies of one page that the MFP can produce in 1 minute. Generally slower than black and white copy speed.
B/W printing
The number of pages the printer can produce per minute in black and white mode. Typically indicated for low print quality, higher print quality takes longer. This setting is important if you need to frequently print text documents.
Colour printing
The number of pages the printer can proceed per minute in colour mode. As like b/w printing, the print speed is usually indicated in the worst quality (at maximum speed), in higher quality the print speed is lower. This setting is worth paying attention to if you need to print colour graphic materials frequently.
Black Ink Page Yield
Approximate number of pages that the MFP can print in black and white mode without replacing the cartridge. In fact, this greatly depends on the specs of the images to print, so the actual resource may greatly differ from the claimed one in one way or another. Nevertheless, according to this indicator, it is quite possible to evaluate the capabilities of the MFP and compare it with other models.
Ink Type
— Pigment. Ink based on pigments — solid dyes, which are diluted in the form of microparticles in a liquid filler to a state of suspension. Compared to more popular water-based inks, these inks are noticeably more expensive, and the finished image may turn out to be somewhat less bright (compared to printing with water-based dye on the same MFP). On the other hand, pigment ink gives higher detail, which is especially important for photo printing. In addition, finished images resist humidity better and do not fade as quickly in bright light — this resistance is not enough for outdoor use, but indoors such prints can be stored for a very long time.
— Water soluble. Inks based on water-soluble dyes allow achieving high realism of colour reproduction in colour printing, they are well absorbed into the deep layers of paper and are cheaper than pigment inks. Also, water-soluble ink does not dry as quickly in the cartridge or print head of the MFP. They are recommended for use with inkjet paper — ordinary thin paper strongly absorbs dropsy, which can cause ink to show through on the back of the sheet. At the same time, water-soluble ink is afraid of moisture and direct exposure to ultraviolet light — when water gets on, the paint on paper “floats”, and it fades under the sun light.
— Pigmented / water soluble. Some MFPs have a print head that allows you to print with two types of ink at once. A common case is when their black cartridge is filled with pigment...ink, and the colour one is filled with water-soluble ink.
Cloud printing
Cloud-enabled MFPs allow you to work directly with cloud services without connecting to a PC.
The general point of such printing is that the documents sent for printing (and in the case of MFPs, also scanned materials) are stored on a server on the Internet. Thus, the connectivity of the printer/scanner is not limited to the local network — you can send documents for printing and receive scan results from anywhere in the world where there is access to the World Wide Web. In addition, cloud services make it easy to share access to the MFP and other people.
Note that cloud printing can also be used with MFPs, that do not have such a function by themselves — for this, you need to connect the device to a PC with the appropriate software.
