Product guide

Zebra Desktop Series 2844-Z Product Guide
2844-Z product Guide Rev. 2
August 9, 2005
17
Competitive Analysis
The following pages were compiled from the latest manufacturer’s product information as of the date of this
document. In cases where conflicting product specification or functionality information was discovered
between a given manufacturer’s printed or on-line material, the manufacturer was contacted directly for
clarification.
Products were acquired for purposes of hands-on competitive analysis performed by engineering and
product management teams.
Performance testing was performed as follows:
Test Station
All products were tested from the same PC.
• Compaq DeskPro 166Mhz Pentium with MMX, 64Mb RAM and equipped with Microsoft Windows 95.
• All serial interface test-runs were performed using the same high-quality shielded RS-232 serial cable.
• All parallel interface test-runs were performed using the same high-quality fully-shielded IEEE 1284
parallel cable.
Test Labels:
All labels were created by hand-coding two real-world label formats with barcodes using the manufacturer’s
specific label programming language. These were produced as identically as possible across
manufacturers. This procedure isolated the performance characteristics of each tested unit to that of the
device’s controller electronics and motion dynamics; i.e., no driver overhead or variability.
• AIAG compliance label
• K-Mart compliance label
• For multi-label test runs, 50 unique sets of numeric data was modified in the label program, terminated
with a memory-flush statement in each, and concatenated into one file.
Methodology:
• The PC was booted in DOS mode for each test-run.
• Label programs were downloaded from the DOS prompt using proprietary parallel and serial file
downloading utilities.
• All parallel tests were performed in ECP mode as set in the PC’s BIOS.
• All serial tests were performed @38.4kbs as set by the serial downloading utility.
Timing:
• Timing was performed commencing the test from actuation of the PC’s [ENTER] key to start the
download, and concluding at the point in time when the trailing-edge of each label (in the case of first-
label-out tests), or when the last of 50 labels (in the case of multi-label tests), ceased forward
movement.
• Three (3) test-runs were performed for each of the two label designs (x) both PC interfaces (x) both
single and multi-label combinations, for a total of 24 independent tests for each product. (3 runs x 2
label types x 2 I/Fs x 2 label volumes.) An average time for each three-run test was then calculated for
every combination, resulting in eight (8) summary charts. A calibrated Fisher Scientific NIST-traceable
timing device was used to monitor each even.