I never said they were biased. I said there testing is faked and it is. Inkjet printers have not been around for 100 or 200 years. They haven't even been around 20 years (at least not for consumers).
Besides the long archival life spans for inkjet printers is not the first time long life spans have been promised. CDs for the longest time were touted by their manufacturers that they had a life span of 100 years or longer and these were based on faked tests as well. Now they freely admit that they have a life span much less than that. Basically less than 10 years if that. Cheaper media dies quicker but even the best brand names don't last.
Also, as I said if you read the fine print for their archival claims it is basically if the image is stored and/or displayed in museum conditions meaning, certain light conditions, temperature conditions, humidity and even sometimes in airless environments (vacuum vaults or frames). Any other display or storage conditions means a much shorter life span. Basically, you need storage conditions that no consumer could meet without spending 100,000 to redo their homes.
It is all marketing hype and since one can't prove them right or wrong since no one has a 100 year old inkjet print they can claim what they like and not have to worry about being taken to court.
They just want people to replace their as often as they can get people to. They want consumers to ignore the fact that the cost per print for today's printers have increased nearly 5000% over what they were 5 years ago because they are charging much more for these "special" inks and papers and giving less of them (they size of ink cartridges have shrunk considerably and not just because they are including more colors. My old Epson Stylus Pro has ink cartridges that would do 1000 full 8-1/2" x 11" prints. Today my Epson R200 I am very lucky if I can get 100, usually much less in the area of 50 to 60 full page prints.
For me I would be more concerned with the cost per print and what a set of ink cartridges will run me than how long they claim they will last. Cost per print is something that can be proven. Print life can't.
I would also shy away from Epson of the four major inkjet printer makers (HP, Epson, Canon and Lexmark) Epson's printers waste the most ink. Every time you turn the printer on it activates the print heads and uses a small amount of ink from each color to make sure the print heads are primed and their is no air in the system, this is why it takes so much time for it to come online and actually print. Also, on the Epson when the print heads clog and with the Epson's they do if you don't use them often enough you can waste as much as 30% of the ink in your cartridge doing a head cleaning. Epson seems to be the most greedy and the most willing to waste your expensive inks.
Read the fine print for the archival life ads. You will be surprised!
BTW 1: I have been testing and reviewing PC software and hardware since 1992 and have experience with thousands of software and hardware products.
BTW 2: Just to clarify. I am also not claiming that these new archival prints won't last longer than prints from dye based printers (new archival printers use pigment based ink, not dye based ink). I am sure they will last a few more years than the dye based prints. What I am saying is that the life span is un-provable and a bunch of marketing hype designed to get you to buy a new printer and one that costs more to use so the maker can make more money, they don't make money from the printers they make it from the ink and paper.
Robert