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Independent Consumer Guides to Document Imaging Equipment

www.betterbuys.com

THE COLOR LASER PRINTER & BUSINESS INK JET PRINTER GUIDES

• Color laser-class printers for the office from $499

• Color ink jet printers for the office from $99

• Updated for 2007

• Editor’s Choice Awards

x Phaser 7760

Xero

Guide Number

188

Page 2

The Color Laser Printer Guide

v Editor’s Choice Awards — page 2

The best values in each product category — as determined by our expert editorial staff

v Vendor & Product Profiles — pages 3–56

A comprehensive list of every model on the market, provided in alphabetical order by manufacturer

Brother — page 3 Lanier — page 24 Savin — page 44 Dell — page 5 Lexmark — page 25 Sharp — page 44 Gestetner — page 7 OKI — page 30 TallyGenicom — page 46 Hewlett-Packard — page 8 Panasonic — page 35 Toshiba — page 47 IBM — page 15 Ricoh — page 36 Unisys — page 48 Konica Minolta — page 16 RISO — page 41 Xanté — page 48 Kyocera — page 21 Samsung — page 42 Xerox — page 49

v Specification & Price Charts — pages 70–124

Easy-to-read, side-by-side specs and prices so you can compare all models covered in this guide

v Value-Added Content

Buying Tips — page 3 Industry Briefing — pages 57–65

A–Z Guide to Features and Technology — pages 66–69

The Business Ink Jet Printer Guide

TABLE OF CONTENTS appears on page 125

Guide Number: 188. Press Date: November 2006.

Replaces: The Color Laser Printer & Business Ink Jet Printer Guides — Guide Number 178

e Business Pub

ice:

iption pr

Subscr

Reproduction of any part of this guide by any means is expressly prohibited. Periodical postage is paid at Malvern, PA, and additional mailing offices.

POSTMASTER: Send address changes to

To order additional copies of this guide, call 800 247 2185. If calling from overseas, call 610 296 4031. Canadian orders, call 905 849 8972.

ressiv

Better Buys for Business, 370 Technology Drive, Malvern, PA 19355.

lications/Better Buys f

or Business.

Page 3

etter Buys for Business

EDITOR’S CHOICE AWARDS

From the nation’s leading independent authority on office equipment

About the Award

What is an Editor’s Choice Award?

This award signifies the best values in each product category, as determined independently by our expert editorial staff.

How often are awards given?

Our Editor’s Choice ratings are awarded once per year with each updated guide.

What are the selection criteria?

In each Better Buys guide, we evaluate models from all major manufacturers. Machines are rigorously analyzed to determine (1) the strength of their features and specifications and (2) how they stack up against competitors. Our independent Editor’s Choice Awards go to those models that we believe will deliver the highest levels of performance and offer the greatest value for consumers in a given price range.

What categories are judged?

There are four awards categories: economy models, workgroup models/letter-size (priced under $1,000), workgroup models/letter-size (priced over $1,000), and workgroup models/ledger-size.

Where can I find information about each

brand and model?

e references at the right show where to turn for

he pa

T write-ups in the Vendor & Product Profiles section and

or entries in the Specifica

f ple

“Ricoh

Aficio CL3500N — pages 36 & 106” means

tion & Price c

har

or exam-

that the product profile appears on page 36 and the spec-

he models in

tions and price a

ifica

entheses ar

par

e 106.

ppear on pa

e relabeled versions of the ones immediate-

ly above them and share our Editor’s Choice rating.

or the Editor’

Look f

lem inside the guide

emb

s Choice

Editor’s Choice Award Winners

COLOR LASER PRINTER

Economy Models/Letter-size ($499 and under)

Lexmark C530/C532 family — pages 26 and 94–96

OKI Printing Solutions C3400n — pages 31 and 100

Ricoh GX3000/GX3050N/GX5050N — pages 39 and 109

Samsung CLP-600N — pages 43 and 113

Workgroup Models/Letter-size ($500 to $999)

Lexmark C534 family — pages 26 and 94–96

OKI Printing Solutions C5500n/C5800Ldn — pages 31 and 100

Ricoh Aficio CL3500N — pages 37 and 106

(Gestetner C7521n — pages 7 and 72)

(Lanier LP222cn — pages 24 and 92)

(Savin CLP22 — pages 44 and 114)

Samsung CLP-650N — pages 43 and 113

Workgroup Models/Letter-size ($1,000 and over)

Hewlett-Packard Color LaserJet 4700 family —

pages 12 and 79–80

ocera FS-C5015N/FS-C5025N — pages 21 and 89–90

xmark C770/C772 famil

(IBM Infoprint Color 1654 family — pages 16 and 84)

(IBM Inf

oprint Color 1664 family — pages 16 and 84–85)

(Unisys UDS 579-DN1 — pa

Workgroup Models/Ledger-size

Hewlett-Pac

Lexmark C920 family — pages 29 and 98–99

(IBM Infoprint Color 1567 — pages 16 and 85)

oshiba e-STUDIO360 CP — pag

Konica Minolta magicolor 7450 — pages 19 and 88

Ricoh Aficio CL7200 — pages 39 and 107–108

(Gestetner C7528n/nD — pa

(Lanier LP332cdn/cdtn — pages 25 and 93)

Xerox Phaser 7760 family — pages 55 and 124

kard Color LaserJet 5550 family —

(Savin CLP128 — pages 44 and 114)

y — pag

es 14 and 81–82

es 27 and 96–97

es 48 and 118)

es 48 and 117)

es 7 and 72–73)

Page 4

The Color Laser Printer Guide: Vendor & Product Profiles

Vendor & Product Profiles

This section provides an overview on each vendor (complete with contact details) followed by

nalysis on each model offered for sale in the color laser printer market. General information about

a the market, including discussions of technology as well as advice on how to buy a color laser printer, follows this section.

Buying Tips

BROTHER

Color Laser Printers

Bridgewater, NJ

908 704 1700

4 Resolution is not an issue for the majority of offices; it

should not determine your choice.

4 Take monthly duty cycles with a grain of salt. Use them

for comparison purposes only, but don’t expect to get the full page count month in and month out.

4 The street price of a printer is usually in inverse pro-

portion to the price of toner. The cheaper the machine, the more expensive per page.

4 Cost per page is based on an industry standard cov-

erage of 5%. If you use lots of graphics, shaded boxes, and/or small type, your costs will be higher.

4 List prices are what the dealer starts negotiating with;

you should be able to settle for one-third off that price.

ou use Illustration or page lay-

ipt is a m

ostScr

4 P

out programs. For other office uses, PCL or hostbased pr

4 Extra memory is a big plus if you use PostScript; good

if y lation); it adds nothing to host-based printing.

4 Most users don’t need hard disks on their printers. An

xception is for high-secur

e forms, or truly enormous electronically collated jobs.

inting is fine

ou run multipage and multicopy jobs (electronic col-

ust if y

inting, often-used

ity pr

Brother International — the US subsidiary of Brother Industries, Ltd., of Nagoya, Japan — has created a reputation for v office-oriented equipment. A solid presence in the monochrome laser printer market, ing to mak

The company’s color models are respectable, but breakthrough of has to play catch-up to stay viable in this market.

Brother sells its color laser printers through the traditional tw distributors and value-added resellers (VARs). While

other makes its own engines for most of the laser prod-

Br ucts it sells — including monochrome printers, faxes, and multifunctional machines — it uses other companies’ engines in its two current color laser products.

Brother HL-2700CN

8ppm full color 31ppm black & white

alue by selling low-cost small- and home-

e its way into the color market.

ferings from other vendors mean that Brother

o-tiered computer equipment channel: national

www.brother.com

Vendor Profile

the company has been try-

Product Pr

ofiles

4 It’s great to have thousands of pages of input, but not

if you have only a 250-sheet exit tray.

oner sa

4 T

savers — but only if you get people to use them.

ver and automatic duplexing can be money

e Business Publications. Copying of Pages Prohibited.To Order: 800 247 2185 or www.betterbuys.com 3

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ood bar

Sum-up:

The HL-2700CN can print up to 8ppm in color and 31ppm in black-and-white. That’s acceptable for a printer that costs $500. It is notable that the HL-2700CN is Ether Netw

A g

ead

net-r

orked”) and offers PostScript 3 (as well as PCL 6)

gain with strong standard features.

y (the CN suf

fix stands f

or “Color,

Page 5

Better Buys for Business

standard. These features are sometimes costly add-ons to otherwise inexpensive color printers — in a few cases, t

hey are simply not available. Like many networkenabled printers these days, the HL-2700CN has an embedded Web server that allows for remote administration.

On the other hand, an automatic duplex unit is available as an option, but at $999 list, it is no bargain. Instead of a hard drive, you can use CompactFlash cards in a built-in slot, which gives you a little extra memory for handling some of the software extras outlined below. The HL-2700CN starts with 64MB of memory but can be extended to a quite good 576MB. The standard paper supply is based on a 250-sheet paper tray, and you can add another 530-sheet paper tray for $549, list.

Brother includes some nice software features, especially for an economy model. The machine has secure print capability, so that you can send jobs and have them held at the printer until you enter a password. This helps keep sensitive material away from prying eyes. It also allows you to r

eprint the last job without reprocessing the print data, a handy time-saver when there is a paper jam or the toner has run out in the middle of your job. You can store frequently run jobs (like forms) and print them directly

e’s also a stop job button on the

om the printer

. Ther

unit. Toner-saver mode is available as well.

The engine images at 600dpi resolution and supports up

to 2,400dpi thr

ough image enhancement,

a respectable number in the “highest-dpi” resolution game in which many vendors engage.

Costs per pa

ge (well above average) and 14.3¢ for color (also above

ge ar

ound 3.5¢ per black-and-white

e ar

average), but these are list prices. You can get a better deal on supplies if

you look.

The 8ppm color speed looks rather slow compared with the latest generation of single-pass printers that print at 16–28ppm. However, the black printing speed of 31ppm is excellent.

One big competitor of this printer is the Lexmark

hich also is Ethernet-ready and has PostScript

C532n,

standard.

ou might also w

ant to tak

e a look a

t the OKI Printing Solutions C5500n, which sells for $599, and is faster in color at 20ppm (24ppm in black-and-white). That printer

ostScript, which may or may not be important for

ks P

lac

our office.

If you were going to crank out color pages all day long, you probably wouldn’t consider this model. But for the small office or workgroup that has a mix of color pages and a steady stream of black-and-white work, this is a solid c

hoice.

Chart entry — page 70

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Brother HL-2700CN Consumables costs at-a-glance

Price

Black toner $173.99 10,000 $0.017 $0.017

Cyan toner $178.99 6,600 $0.027 N/A

Magenta toner $178.99 6,600 $0.027 N/A

Yellow toner $178.99 6,600 $0.027 N/A

OPC belt/black $503.99 60,000 N/A $0.008

OPC belt/4-color $503.99 15,000 $0.034 N/A

Waste toner bottle $12.99 12,000 $0.001 $0.001

Fuser unit $577.99 60,000 $0.010 $0.010

TOTAL PER-PAGE COSTS

Yield

Full-color cost per page

$0.1431 $0.0365

14.31 3.65

Black-and-white cost per page

Brother HL-4200CN

26ppm full color 26ppm black & white

Sum-up: Good features and speed, but the price is too high.

This color printer offers both 1,200dpi resolution and 26ppm speed in color and black-and-white. The model’s street price is $1,300.

Among the HL-4200CN’

s fea

tures ar

e 64MB of

stan dard memory (expandable to 320MB) and an optional 20GB hard drive — an important option for a color printer that may be called upon to handle complex files and make collated sets. Note that when you print in color at 1,200dpi, you take a speed hit down to 13ppm. However, 600dpi is suf

hat’s also noteworthy about this printer are the stan-

ficient f

or most color jobs

dard features that sometimes are extras on other models. Ethernet comes standard, a big plus, as does PostScript 3. Finally, automatic duplex is included in the basic package as well.

per capacity starts at 600 sheets, and

he standar

d pa the maximum capacity is 2,100 sheets. A 400MHz controller and up to 320MB memory capacity ensure consistent machine performance. Brother also touts its highly interactive control panel, with excellent animated help

es. The printer is rated for a solid monthly duty

tur

ycle of 60,000 pages.

Per-page operating costs are a mixed bag. A black-and-

h is no bar

hic

hite pa

e costs ar

ound 2.5¢ to print,

gain. The color page cost is around 10.4¢, near average.

Copying of Pages Prohibited.To Order: 800 247 2185 or www.betterbuys.com

Page 6

Brother HL-4200CN Consumables costs at-a-glance

Price

Black toner $62.99 9,000 $ 0.007 $ 0.007

Cyan toner $157.99 6,000 $ 0.026 N/A

Magenta toner $157.99 6,000 $ 0.026 N/A

ellow toner

rint head cartridge

Transfer Roller $57.99 25,000 $ 0.002 $ 0.002

Fuser unit $241.99 100,000 $ 0.002 $ 0.002

TOTAL PER-PAGE COSTS

$157.99 6,000 $ 0.026 N/A

419.99 30,000 $ 0.014 $ 0.014

Yield

Full-color cost per page

$ 0.1047 $ 0.0257

10.47 2.57

Black-and-white cost per page

While a few years ago the Brother HL-4200CN would be considered a competitive choice, it is now at the higher end (price-wise) of general color laser printers. Its features are respectable, but other models offer more for a lower price. Check out the Konica Minolta magicolor 5400 famil

y, which is considerably less expensive for roughly similar features. This Brother model needs an upgrade or a price reduction to compete.

y — page 70

t entr

Char

The Color Laser Printer Guide: Vendor & Product Profiles

easonable consumables costs. These are straightforward models, intended for small-office use. They are so low priced that they have set off a series of price reductions by rivals.

Note that Dell printers are set up to work with Windows PC computers only, natural enough in that Dell is primarily a computer maker supplying printers for its clients. Remember also that unlike most of its competitors, printers are a sideline for Dell. Furthermore, note that Dell’s support ratings have been slipping badly, something that should enter into your considerations. That may not make as much difference with printers, since they are far simpler than the combination of hardware and software that Dell must support in its personal computers.

Product Profiles

Dell Color Laser Printer 3010cn

5ppm color 25ppm black & white

Dell Color Laser Printer 3110cn

17ppm color 31ppm black & white

Sum-up: Low-cost color printers, yet with reasonable costs per page.

These new color laser machines (based on the discontinued Color Laser Printer 3000cn and Color Laser Printer

ble performance and

3100cn,

respectivel

y) ha

ve remar

DELL

Round Rock, TX

800 999 3355

www.dell.com

Vendor Profile

Dell Computer, the number one computer retailer in the US, is now putting its name on a growing set of printers.

go, it entered the color laser printer mar-

s a

ear

w y

ust a f

x engines.

y lo

eet prices and

w str

et with thr

ee models based on Fuji Xer

Dell sells its printers both online and through catalogs. The company, through its catalogs and Website, also sells printers under other vendors’ brands, but it is moving more and more toward selling its own brands.

e distinguished b

Dell printer

s ar

Dell Color Laser Printer 3010cn Consumables costs at-a-glance

Price

Black toner $40.00 2,000 $ 0.020 $ 0.020

an toner

enta toner

Yellow toner $70.00 2,000 $ 0.035 N/A

Drum/black $169.99 42,000 N/A $ 0.004

Drum/4-color $169.99 10,500 $ 0.016 N/A

OTAL PER-PAGE COSTS

$70.00 2,000 $ 0.035 N/A

Yield

Full-color cost per page

$ 0.1412 $ 0.0240

14.12 2.40

Black-and-white cost per page

e Business Publications. Copying of Pages Prohibited.To Order: 800 247 2185 or www.betterbuys.com 5

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Page 7

Better Buys for Business

features for the price. Even with many under-$500 color l

aser printers to choose from these days, the prices are

ye-opening: the Color Laser Printer 3010cn goes for $379, while the Color Laser Printer 3110cn, with better features, is selling for $499.

Despite their competitive pricing, these are not dumbed-down models. While the 3010cn prints at a pokey 5ppm in color, it runs at a decent 25ppm in black-andwhite. The 3110cn ups those figures to a respectable 17ppm in color and 31ppm in black-and-white. Both come with Ethernet standard, and they have adequate memory: 64MB on the 3010cn, upgradeable to 576MB; and 128MB on the 3110cn, upgradeable to 1,152MB. And they have reasonably powerful processors: 300MHz on the 3010cn, and 400MHz on the 3110cn.

The 3010cn does not have PostScript, while the 3110cn does. And while the 3010cn starts with a 150-sheet paper tray, the 3110cn supplements this with another 250-sheet

ay. You can add a third, 500-sheet paper tray to the

tr 3010cn for a total of 900 sheets, or add a 550-sheet tray to the 3110cn for a total of 950 sheets. Output is limited to 250 sheets on both models

Cost per color page is 14.1¢ in color (rather high) for the 3010cn, and 9.4¢ (not bad) f

or color for the 3110cn. The black-and-white per-page cost for both models is 2.4¢ (very reasonable for low-end color lasers). Output is limited to 250 sheets

ou would expect,

As y

, with no option for expansion.

these are pretty basic models

. But

the low prices make them very desirable small-

Dell Color Laser Printer 3110cn Consumables costs at-a-glance

office/home-office laser machines. The toner prices aren’t bad for the low end of the market. On the other h

and, you now have the option, for a little more money, to get machines that print far faster in color. Look at the $499 Lexmark C532n, which has PostScript, Ethernet, and 20ppm color printing. The $599 OKI Printing Solutions C5500n costs a bit more, but is similarly impressive. Also note the Hewlett-Packard Color LaserJet 3600n, which at $699 delivers 17ppm color.

Dell is the rock-bottom choice for price. But given the low prices of color laser printers in general, you might find a little bit more value without breaking the budget by looking elsewhere.

Chart entries — pages 70–71

Dell Color Laser Printer 5110cn

35ppm color 40ppm black & white

Sum-up: Excellent performance for the price.

Dell stole a march on other printer vendors by offering this impressive platform before anyone else and at a price that challenged big name competitors to reduce prices faster than they may have wanted to. At just under $1,000,

the 35ppm (color) and 40ppm (b

lack-and-white) Color Laser Printer 5110cn offers very good performance at a low price. That was amazing a year ago, though other vendors ha

ve managed to get back in the race more

recently.

Dell Color Laser Printer 5110cn Consumables costs at-a-glance

e g

k-and-white cost per pa

Price

k toner

Blac

Cyan toner $215.00 8,000 $ 0.027 N/A

Magenta toner $215.00 8,000 $ 0.027 N/A

Yellow toner $215.00 8,000 $ 0.027 N/A

TOTAL PER-PAGE COSTS

$110.00 8,000 $ 0.01

Yield

ressiv

Full-color cost per pa

$ 0.0944 $ 0.0138

9.44 1.38

e Business Pub

Blac

$ 0.01

lications

Price

Black toner $90.00 18,000 $ 0.005 $ 0.005

an toner

Magenta toner $230.00 12,000 $ 0.019 N/A

Yellow toner $230.00 12,000 $ 0.019 N/A

lac

Drum/b

Drum/4-color $169.99 35,000 $ 0.020 N/A

TOTAL PER-PAGE COSTS

Copying of Pages Prohibited.To Order: 800 247 2185 or www.betterbuys.com

$230.00 12,000 $ 0.019 N/A

$169.99 35,000 N/A $ 0.005

Yield

Full-color cost per page

$ 0.0825 $ 0.0099

8.25 0.99

Black-and-white cost per page

Page 8

The printer isn’t lacking in other features. Ethernet is standard as is automatic duplexing. The processor is a robust 400MHz, and PostScript and PCL are standard. The printer ships with 128MB of memory, and you can extend that to 1,152MB.

We estimate the cost per page as excellent: 8.7¢ in color and around 1.0¢ in black-and-white. These are well below average and match the costs of far more expensive models from other vendors. The black page price is particularly attention-grabbing.

Paper supplies consist of a 150-sheet bypass and a 500sheet paper tray. You can buy either a 500-sheet or a 1,000-sheet add-on as well. One limitation, and it is common in this market segment, is its small 250-sheet output tray.

But the low prices and good speed make this a very desirable small-office/home-office laser machine. Based on toner prices, it looks to be reasonable in terms of operating costs.

You should also look at the Lexmark C770n, which is slower in black-and-white and color, but comes with Lexmark’s more extensive software offerings.

This is a pretty basic workgroup printer, but its price and speed ar gain and has ignited a rush by other vendors to lower prices.

Chart entry — page 71

e real selling points. This machine is a bar-

The Color Laser Printer Guide: Vendor & Product Profiles

Product Profiles

Gestetner P7431cn

8ppm full color 31ppm black & white Same Machine as the Ricoh Aficio CL1000N

Chart entry — page 71

Gestetner C7521n

22ppm full color 22ppm black & white Same Machine as the Ricoh Aficio CL3500N

Chart entry — page 72

Gestetner C7526dn

26ppm full color 26ppm black & white Same Machine as the Ricoh Aficio SP C410DN

Chart entry — page 72

Gestetner C7528n Gestetner C7528nD

28ppm full color 32ppm black & white

y as the Ricoh Aficio CL7200

amil

Same f

Chart entries — pages 72–73

GESTETNER

Greenwich, CT

203 967 5000

www.gestetner.com

endor Profile

A while back, Gestetner was merged into Savin, which is a subsidiary of Ricoh. Gestetner was best known as a vendor of digital duplicators, especially in the school,

ch, and government markets. Nowadays it also sells

hur

elabeled Ricoh printers, copiers, and fax machines under

r the Gestetner brand through a network of dealers. It previously used a series of direct-sales branches as well, but these have been merged into Ricoh’s direct organization.

Note tha printer the GX3000, the GX3050N, and the GX5050N. These correspond to the similarly named Ricoh products on page 39.

t Gestetner announced the names of

s based on the Ricoh GelSprinter series. These are

its thr

Gestetner C7531dn

31ppm full color

k & white

31ppm b Same Machine as the Ricoh Aficio SP C411DN

Gestetner C7535n

35ppm full color 35ppm b Same Mac This model has been discontinued Chart entry — page 73

lac

Chart entry— page 73

hite

k & w

lac

hine as the Ricoh Aficio CL7300D

Get the latest information

on the World Wide Web:

www

l Update Inf

l Searchable Databases

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& Subscr

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Better Buys for Business

HEWLETT-

ACKARD

Santa Clara, CA

800 752 0900

www.hp.com

Vendor Profile

Hewlett-Packard (HP) needs little introduction in any discussion of printers, a market in which it exercises commanding leadership. Its current generation of color laser models is based on Canon engines, as are its mono-

ome laser printers. HP is offering a variety of separate

chr product families aimed at different segments of the market.

Up until recently, HP’s models were the undisputed industry standard simpl all the competition. But the competition, especially Lexmark, Dell, OKI, Konica Minolta, and Xerox, keeps forging ahead. HP has responded with lo higher speeds.

HP has become a leader in connectivity for its printers, offering a v options. In addition to a variety of servers, many that are Web-ready, HP is putting increasing emphasis on wireless connecti

i-Fi) and Bluetooth wir

(W company offers the widest variety of connectivity options in the business.

Image quality: When it comes to image quality, we

aren’t going to engage in specification-driven debates

bout w

ou should be swayed by these types of arguments either.

y Most of able image quality for mainstream documents — and if you’re interested in professional-level presentations or

phics printing, a good number of these models offer

g higher r

HP has implemented laser-modulation technology that it claims boosts the quality to 2,400dpi, even 3,200dpi levels. HP calls this “ImageREt 2400” and “ImageREt 3200” — the “REt” standing for “resolution enhancement tec referring to the dpi quality level to which this supposedly

ariety of

vity. Many of the models offer IEEE 802.11b

ho has the highest r

the printer

esolutions for that kind of work, too.

hnology” and the “2400” or “3200” loosely

y because the

internal and external connectivity

eless pr

esolution, and we don’t think

s in this guide deliver perfectly accept-

y sold far better than

wer prices and

otocols. In general, the

e Business Pub

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lications

equates. However, the number 2400 or 3200 is not a measure of dpi — instead of being a specification, it is merely a four-digit number selected by HP on account of the positive connotations it carries.

Either way, ImageREt is by no means the only HP technology at work under the hood to optimize image quality. HP also stresses its automatic color calibration process, which ensures consistent quality between machines and, over time, on the same machine under varying environmental conditions.

Hewlett-Packard has come up with a number of features that enhance the usability of its color printers. The newest models use a newly improved toner called ColorSphere. This product gives more accurate particle diffusion and better toner particle distribution, resulting in higher gloss and a wider color gamut. In other words, the color pages are much more vivid, which is especially useful for printing photographic images.

Second, tration utility, already the best-known in the industry.

sion 8.0 comes with excellent tools for color access

Ver control and color usage costs.

Finally, a recently introduced universal driver for HP printers means that you can have a single up-to-date driver for all your HP printers, rather than a tangle of different drivers. Aside from saving software clutter, this will mean that HP printer users will get the same basic dialog box no ma

Hewlett-Packard Color LaserJet 1600 Hewlett-Packard Color LaserJet 2600n

8ppm full color 8ppm black & white

Sum-up: Decent color speed for a low price, but black speed is slo

These new models appear to be HP’s entry into the ongoing race to put out the cheapest color printer on the market. The $299 (street) Color LaserJet 1600 and $399 (street) Color LaserJet 2600n are certainly inexpensive. And for those prices, their 8ppm color printing speed stacks up well against competing bargain-priced models

h as the 5ppm Xer

suc $299 Konica Minolta magicolor 2500W, and the 5ppm Konica Minolta magicolor 2530 DL ($399). But the HP printer could be a concern for potential users.

Aside from that issue, these machines hold up well as basic desktop color printer the base model, printing at 600dpi resolution. It comes

Copying of Pages Prohibited.To Order: 800 247 2185 or www.betterbuys.com

HP updated its Web Jetadmin remote adminis-

tter what model the

Product Profiles

x Phaser 6120N ($299),

s also print at 8ppm in black-and-white, and that

y print to

he Color LaserJ

the 5ppm

et 1600 is

Page 10

ith 16MB of nonexpandable memory and, as you’d expect, uses host-based printing instead of PostScript. It h

as a 250-sheet standard paper tray, and you can add another 250-sheet tray for a total of 500 sheets of input. Standard output is a modest 125 sheets with no options for expansion. This machine has a 20,000-page monthly duty cycle.

The Color LaserJet 2600n adds Ethernet and has a 35,000-page duty cycle. Otherwise, these machines are identical.

Consumable costs are high for these machines, with color toner running 15.4¢ a page and black-and-white costing 3.9¢ a page. That’s based on HP’s list prices; we expect moderate discounts from street prices for toner.

These printers have HP’s two-line LCD control panel which provides status info and alerts of printing problems.

These machines are pretty typical low-end color laser printers. Their color printing speed is decent, but the slow black printing concerns us, since typical business users would do most of their printing in black-and-white. In the $300 – $400 price range, they could get better black printing speed. But in terms of low-priced color printing, these are impr

essive. The Color LaserJet 2600n suffers, however, in comparison to OKI Printing Solutions C3400n ($399), which prints at 16ppm in color and 20ppm in black-and-w the same price

hite with comparable features for

Chart entries — page 74

Hewlett-Packard Color LaserJet 2605dn Hewlett-Packard Color LaserJet 2605dtn

10ppm full color 12ppm black & white

The Color Laser Printer Guide: Vendor & Product Profiles

et, there’s a drawback, even though it may be a minor one to some users: the 2605 family’s 12ppm black-andwhite speed is slower than the 2550 models’ 20ppm. Both have PostScript 3 and standard Ethernet.

On both models, the optional paper supply is limited to one 250-sheet tray. Both machines are well equipped with 300MHz processors and 64MB of standard memory.

Like other recent color laser printers from HP, these models utilize the company’s ColorSphere toner. They also have HP’s ImageREt 2400 color technology, which interpolates the printers’ maximum 600dpi color resolution to 2,400dpi print quality.

These are compact units designed to fit comfortably on desktops in busy, cramped workspaces.

Output is limited to a skimpy 125 sheets, which is standard for HP’s low-end color laser line.

The printers are designed with HP’s customary focus on ease of use. The front-panel two-line display enables users to monitor print job status and consumables supplies, and toner cartridges are accessible through a single

door

As one would expect, consumables prices run high for this family, with color toner running 15.4¢ a page and black-and-white costing 3.9¢ a page. That’s based on HP’s list prices; we expect moderate discounts from street prices for toner.

These models seem to be aimed at the user who wants a decent-quality desktop color laser printer and is not

Hewlett-Packard Color LaserJet 1600/2600n/2605 Consumables costs at-a-glance

Sum-up: Improved color speed at very reasonable price points.

If nothing else, Hewlett-Packard’s new Color LaserJet 2605 family indicates the company is listening to its cus-

tomer

he Color LaserJet 2605 models seem to be a response

to w

hat was most likely the major gripe about the Color LaserJet 2550 models: their slow 4ppm color printing speed.

he Color LaserJ

ough in ter

thr

ms of

et 2550 f

price: they were HP’s entry into the

amil

epresented a break-

y r

under-$500 color laser printer market.

Now come the $500 Color LaserJet 2605dn and $700 Color LaserJet 2605dtn, which more than double the Color LaserJet 2550’s 4ppm color speed, printing at

That’s remarkable performance at this

10ppm in color price le

vel.

e Business Publications. Copying of Pages Prohibited.To Order: 800 247 2185 or www.betterbuys.com 9

ressiv

e g

k-and-white cost per pa

Price

Black print cartridge $75.00 2,500 $ 0.030 $ 0.030

Cyan print cartridge $83.00 2,000 $ 0.042 N/A

Magenta print cartridge $83.00 2,000 $ 0.042 N/A

Yellow print cartridge $83.00 12,000 $ 0.007 N/A

Drum/black $173.99 20,000 N/A $ 0.009

Drum/4-color $173.99 5,000 $ 0.035 N/A

OTAL PER-PAGE COSTS

Yield

Full-color cost per pa

$ 0.1547 $ 0.0390

15.47 3.90

Blac

Page 11

Better Buys for Business

requiring top-notch black-and-white performance. For the money, they’re definitely excellent values, although t

heir limited features and high consumables costs may lead potential buyers to consider slightly more expensive models such as the OKI Printing Solutions C5800Ldn, which sells for $799 (street) and prints at 24ppm in color and 28 in black-and-white, or HP’s own Color LaserJet 3800, which also costs $799 (street) and prints at 22ppm in color and black-and-white.

Still, the Color LaserJet 2605dn and 2605dtn models represent a step in the right direction by HP of upping the quality of lower-level color laser printers while keeping costs low.

Chart entries — pages 74–75

Hewlett-Packard Color LaserJet 3600 Hewlett-Packard Color LaserJet 3600n Hewlett-Packard Color LaserJet 3600dn Hewlett-Packard Color LaserJet 3600dtn

17ppm full color 17ppm blac

k & white

Sum-up: This small-workgroup printer series offers hostbased printing only but good color speed.

The Color LaserJ

et 3600 models are HP’s lowest-cost printers that offer the same speed in black-and-white and color. They start at $599. At 17ppm, they replace the 16ppm Color LaserJet 3550 printers, and they add a little more in the way of standard pa

per input. The 360MHz processor is quite good for a desktop/small workgroup printer under the ma

. These printers are reasonably priced, starting well

gic $1,000 level.

, however, that unlike the slower Color LaserJet

Note 2550 models, these printers do not offer PostScript or PCL. If you want PostScript, you’ll want to look at other HP models.

e are four models in this family:

her

PostScript. HP calls its own printing language JetReady, and it works basically like GDI. These machines are also Mac- and Linux-compatible. HP rates them for a maximum monthly duty cycle of 50,000 pages, but recommends a much lower volume, of up to 3,000 pages.

The models have a sleek curved design, simple and elegant and suitable for desktop use. Connectivity is via USB and Ethernet (optional on the 3600). Wi-Fi is available as an option on all four models.

Paper supplies include a 100-sheet bypass (which can handle heavier stock, including envelopes and transparencies). All of the models have a 250-sheet standard paper tray. You can also add an optional 500-sheet paper tray, for a total of 850 sheets. (That 500-sheet tray is standard on the dtn model.) On the output side, there’s a 250sheet standard output tray.

Like other recently rolled-out HP printer series, this one comes with ColorSphere toner, which is designed to show very good color gloss and consistency (useful in printing photos or marketing materials). It also comes with preinstalled cartridges, so the printer is ready to go out of the box. These starter cartridges can print 5,000 black-and-white pages, 4,000 color pages. That’s a nice head start before you have to worry about installing supplies

Consumables costs are at 2.2 cents for black-and-white and 12 cents for color. These are moderate prices.

This is a formida

ble, speedy printer family at a low price. It has the HP administrative tools and a good-looking toner technology. The base model is far faster in color

Hewlett-Packard Color LaserJet 3600/3800 Consumab

les costs at-a-glance

l The base-level Color LaserJet 3600 ($599)

l The network-capable Color LaserJet 3600n ($699)

l The 3600dn, which has automatic duplexing ($999)

h adds more paper

hic

he Color LaserJ

l T

et 3600dtn,

capacity ($1,599)

he 3600 and 3600n mac

hile the 3600dn and 3600dtn come with 128MB. The

hines ha

ve 64MB of memory,

3600dtn also adds a 500-sheet tray. There is no option for memory expansion. That’s no big issue, given the lack of

e Business Pub

ressiv

lications

Price

Black print cartridge $132.99 6,000 $ 0.022 $ 0.022

Cyan print cartridge $129.99 4,000 $ 0.032 N/A

Magenta print cartridge $129.99 4,000 $ 0.032 N/A

Yellow print cartridge $129.99 4,000 $ 0.032 N/A

GE COSTS

AL PER-P

Copying of Pages Prohibited.To Order: 800 247 2185 or www.betterbuys.com

Yield

Full-color cost per page

$0.120 $0.022

11.97 2.22

Black-and-white cost per page

Page 12

han most other printers starting at under $700. But you should look at the OKI Printing Solutions 5500 and L

exmark C522 machines. They offer comparable color

speeds, and the Lexmark adds on PostScript as well.

If you want a solid HP model and a moderate sticker

price, this is the family to check out.

Chart entries — pages 76–77

Hewlett-Packard Color LaserJet 3000 Hewlett-Packard Color LaserJet 3000n Hewlett-Packard Color LaserJet 3000dn Hewlett-Packard Color LaserJet 3000dtn

15ppm full color 30ppm black & white

Sum-up: A workgroup printer series with superior black-andwhite speeds and the ability to control color use.

This printer family features fast speeds in black-andwhite and pretty g

ood speed in color. Unlike some other HP models, this one is more suited for an environment where standard black-and-white office printing is required and color printing is more occasional. That’s a description that fits many offices.

These printers come with a powerful 533MHz processor. The printer series supports both PCL and PostScript printing, whether from Windows PCs, Macs, or various flavors of UNIX systems. As with other newer HP printers, the color functions can be blocked for some users or for certain hours so you can have some control over the cost of color printing in a mixed-use environment. That

es especiall

mak

y good sense with this printer f

amily, which you can use as your standard office printer most of the time, with color as an added feature.

There are four configurations:

l The base model, the Color LaserJet 3000 ($999),

h features 64MB of memory and 350 sheets of

hic

w standard input.

l The Color LaserJet 3000n ($1,199), which features

128MB of memory plus a built-in Ethernet port.

hich adds stan-

he Color LaserJ

l T

et 3000dn ($1,499),

dard automatic duplexing.

he Color LaserJet 3000dtn (its price was not avail-

l T

able as we went to press), which adds an extra 500sheet tr

ay as a standard feature.

The Color Laser Printer Guide: Vendor & Product Profiles

Hewlett-Packard Color LaserJet 3000 Consumables costs at-a-glance

Price

Black print cartridge $134.99 6,500 $ 0.02 $ 0.02

Cyan print cartridge $127.99 3,500 $ 0.04 N/A

Magenta print cartridge $127.99 3,500 $ 0.04 N/A

Yellow print cartridge $127.99 3,500 $ 0.04 N/A

Drum/black $173.99 20,000 N/A $ 0.01

Drum/4-color $173.99 5,000 $ 0.03 N/A

TOTAL PER-PAGE COSTS

Yield

Full-color cost per page

$ 0.17 $ 0.03

16.53 2.95

Black-and-white cost per page

A 100-sheet multipurpose tray handles transparencies

and envelopes

. A 250-sheet tray is standard on all models, and a 500-sheet input drawer is optional. (It is standard on the 3000dtn.) HP recommends a volume of up to 5,000 pa

ges per month, but its maximum duty cycle is 50,000 on the 3000n and 3000dn, and a full 60,000 pages on the 3000 and 3000dtn.

Preinstalled toner cartridges have capacity for 6,500

k-and-white and 3,500 color pa

blac

ges

Consumables costs for this family come in at 16.5¢ per color page and 2.9¢ a page for black-and-white — both on the high side.

This is a very practical series for offices where color is a desired, but not constantly used, feature. The price is reasonable enough. What would make it more useful is more paper capacity: the 850-sheet total input limits the

e of the workgroup that can use it. There are other

siz models in this price range that offer more than twice the

y the Xerox Phaser 6300 family and

nota

pacity

per ca

pa the Panasonic WORKiO DP-CL22. But those models are similarly limited in output to a 250-sheet tray, so the

per capacity is less of an issue.

The Color LaserJet 3000 family offers good features for a fair price. It also offers the HP name and the upgraded

ved color toner that come

administr

e tools and impr

with the brand.

Chart entries — pages 75–76

All of the models have USB connectivity. Wi-Fi wire-

e also options.

bit Ether

less and gig

net connecti

e Business Publications. Copying of Pages Prohibited.To Order: 800 247 2185 or www.betterbuys.com 11

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www.BetterBuys.com

Page 13

Better Buys for Business

Hewlett-Packard Color LaserJet 3800 Hewlett-Packard Color LaserJet 3800n H

ewlett-Packard Color LaserJet 3800dn

Hewlett-Packard Color LaserJet 3800dtn

22ppm full color 22ppm black & white

Sum-up: Capable small-workgroup printers with good features.

The Color LaserJet 3800 family is a few steps above the Color LaserJet 3600 family in most features, including speed and, of course, price. But the most significant difference between the two families is that the 3800 models come with PCL and PostScript, which are lacking in the 3600 models. In addition, the 3800 family supports direct PDF printing.

The 3800 series replaces the discontinued Color LaserJet 3700, upgrading the speed from 16ppm to 22ppm in both color and black-and-white. These mac

hines ar

e aimed at small-to-mid-size offices.

There are four models in the Color LaserJet 3800 family. They are:

is a 250-sheet output tray. Heavy index stock can be run through the bypass.

These models come with ColorSphere toner, which is a nice improvement in color quality. It also comes with preinstalled cartridges, so the printer is ready to go out of the box. These starter cartridges can print 6,000 black-andwhite pages, 6,000 color pages. We like this trend, especially since the first set-up of a printer can be a real headache.

HP hadn’t determined all the consumables costs before we went to press. We have seen preliminary toner prices, and they are in line with those of similar models.

HP has flooded the small workgroup color printer market with well-featured, reasonably priced models that are all strong contenders in terms of price and features. The Color LaserJet 3800 family starts under the magical $1,000 point. Its features are straightforward but adequate for most offices. It stands up well with similarly priced printer families, such as the Lexmark C770 and OKI Printing Solutions C6100 models. Add to that the HP name and the excellent admin tools, and for many offices this might be the preferred color laser solution.

t entries — pa

Char

ges 78–79

l The Color LaserJet 3800 ($799), which is the base

model with 96MB of

memory and 350 sheets of paper

capacity standard.

l The Color LaserJet 3800n ($999), which is Ethernet-

ready and comes with 160MB of memory.

l The Color LaserJ

et 3800dn ($1,299), which adds

duplexing and comes with 288MB of memory.

l The Color LaserJet 3800dtn ($1,549), which adds a

500-sheet paper tray.

All of

these models ha

e a 350MHz pr

ocessor. They max out at 544MB of memory. A 20GB disk drive is available.

As noted already, PostScript and PCL are standard features, so the added memory and even the disk drive may be w

ms of

ter

elcome f

connecti

un long

or those w

ho r

vity, parallel, USB, and Ethernet

, complex jobs. In

(optional on the 3800) are available, and Wi-Fi connectivity is as well. These machines also offer gigabit Ethernet connectivity. Mac and a variety of UNIX (Linux, AIX, Citrix) drivers are included.

per supplies ar

he pa

et 3600 printers. They include a 100-sheet bypass

LaserJ

e the same as those for the Color

(multipurpose tray), a 250-sheet paper tray, and an optional 500-sheet tray (standard on the 3800dtn). There

e Business Pub

ressiv

lications

wlett-P

ackard Color LaserJ

et 4700 Hewlett-Packard Color LaserJet 4700n Hewlett-Packard Color LaserJet 4700dn

wlett-Packar

d Color LaserJet 4700dtn

Hewlett-Packard Color LaserJet 4700ph+

31ppm full color 31ppm b

lack & white

Sum-up: A departmental color printer series that is an

vely fast upgrade to an already good product line.

essi

impr

The Color LaserJet 4700 family offers few frills, but it is a reliable, fast color printer series at a moderate price. At 31ppm, it’s a major speed upgrade from the popular 22ppm Color LaserJet 4650 family, though it otherwise

tures and prices. The Color LaserJet 4700

has similar f

ea has a street price of $1,799 for the basic non-networked v

It is the least e

sion.

xpensi

e model in its c

lass (tha printers that print at about 30ppm in both color and black). The network version, the 4700n, has a street price of

$1,999.

A network version with duplexing, the 4700dn, goes for $2,499. The 4700dtn adds two extra standard paper trays and goes for $3,399, while the 4700ph+ ($4,999) adds a finisher, even more paper capacity, more memory, and a hard disk.

The Color LaserJet 4700 series is based on a Canon

engine tha

t produces both full-color and black-and-white

pages at 31ppm. That makes it considerably faster in

kard print-

wlett-P

color than ear

Copying of Pages Prohibited.To Order: 800 247 2185 or www.betterbuys.com

lier g

tions of

ener

t is

Page 14

Hewlett-Packard Color LaserJet 4700 Consumables costs at-a-glance

Price

Black print cartridge $178.99 11,000 $ 0.016 $ 0.016

Cyan print cartridge $253.99 10,000 $ 0.025 N/A

Magenta print cartridge $253.99 10,000 $ 0.025 N/A

Yellow print cartridge $253.99 10,000 $ 0.025 N/A

TOTAL PER-PAGE COSTS

Yield

Full-color cost per page

$ 0.0925 $ 0.0163

$ 9.25 $ 1.63

Black-and-white cost per page

ers and among the faster color laser printers on the

ket.

mar

The Color LaserJet 4700, 4700n, and 4700dn come standard with a 100-sheet multipurpose tray and a 500sheet paper tray capacity. The 4700dtn comes with three 500-sheet trays standar

d, for a standar

d capacity of 1,600 sheets. The 4700ph+ comes with a total of 2,600 sheets of input standard.

Output capacity is 500 sheets

, whic

h is better than some, but still low for heavy-duty workgroup use. The finisher on the 4700ph+ has single-position stapling of up to 30 sheets at a time, and its output tray holds up to 750

. That’s more limited than more robust multiposi-

sheets tion sta

pling solutions found on other machines in this guide, but is suitable for simple office work. The finisher is available as an option for the other models in the family.

e a variety of features that enhance the 4700

e ar

her

y’s attractiveness. The printers are powered by a

amil

f 533MHz processor; that is quite competitive. Processing power has become more important as the files that users print have grown in complexity.

y has outstanding base memor

amil

he f

T the 4700 and 4700n, and 544MB f

or the 4700ph+. This memory can be

288MB f

or the 4700dn and 4700dtn,

y of 160MB for

expanded to 544MB, which is excellent.

A 40GB hard drive (along with the added memory) allows the machine to process multipage, multi-set jobs in

ther than processing each set separately. This

one shot r is kno

wn as multiple original printing, and its presence

makes the printer a credible choice for handling a work-

e Business Publications. Copying of Pages Prohibited.To Order: 800 247 2185 or www.betterbuys.com 13

ressiv

The Color Laser Printer Guide: Vendor & Product Profiles

roup’s printing needs. (The hard drive is optional on all

4700 models except the 4700ph+, where it is standard.)

There is an embedded Web server through which an IT manager or other user can oversee the printer remotely using a standard browser. These models also have job retention features. These include proof and hold (which allows you to send a job to the printer, print only the first copy for proofing, and then either release the job from the printer control panel or delete it if you find mistakes in the proof) and private (or secure) printing (which allows you to send a confidential job to the printer and hold it for release at the control panel to avoid it being seen by prying eyes). HP has been gradually introducing these features to all its laser printers, after first introducing them on its upscale monochrome models. (To activate these features, you need the hard drive.)

In terms of connectivity, aside from USB and Ethernet, there is optional IEEE 802.11b or g connectivity that allows you to print to the machine from a PC over a wireless (Wi-Fi) network. Gigabit Ethernet is supported as well. Mac and a variety of UNIX drivers are available as well.

As with other newer HP models, these printers feature HP’s ColorSphere toner for superior color, especially for photographic images.

The consumables costs for the Color LaserJet 4700, at around 9.2¢ in color and about 1.6¢ in black and white,

etty much in line with industry averages. The high-

are pr capacity cartridges, though very convenient in the long run, will involve a major initial cash outlay once the starter cartridges run out, however the color cartridges have a street cost of over $250!

The Color LaserJet 4700 is a capable printer family. If you need a color printer that will serve a department, then the e is definitel

a $1,000 y

xtr

th the price. Similarly priced models with

y w

ou’ll spend over the slower models

somewhat slower speeds include the OKI Printing Solutions C7550 family and the Kyocera FS-C5030N.

The Color LaserJet 4700 series offers a menu of useful features and is solid in the areas where a color printer should be though some

what limited in capacity, is a real rarity in

ge quality and speed. The finisher,

e ima

lik

the color laser printer world, especially at this segment of the market. It’s rare that HP needs to be the price/performance leader in any segment, given its brand name

. But, at least for now, it has set a standard in its

anta

gment with the Color LaserJet 4700 family.

et se

mar

HP’s other newer color laser printers (the LaserJet 3600 and 3800) are quite well done and you can’t go wrong buying them. The 4700 family is, however, a real standout that gets our Editor’s Choice Award.

es 79–80

t entries — pa

Char

www.betterbuys.com

Page 15

Better Buys for Business

Hewlett-Packard Color LaserJet 5550n Hewlett-Packard Color LaserJet 5550dn H

ewlett-Packard Color LaserJet 5550dtn

Hewlett-Packard Color LaserJet 5550hdn

27ppm full color 27ppm black & white

Sum-up: Affordable ledger-size printers with good speed.

The ledger-size Color LaserJet 5550 family runs at 27ppm in both black-and-white and color. These powerful machines are suited for large departments that need color printing.

There are four members in this family:

l The Color LaserJet 5550n ($3,549) comes with

ostScript and PCL, along with Ethernet connectivi-

P ty. It starts with 160MB of memory, a 100-sheet bypass unit, and a 500-sheet paper tray.

l The Color LaserJet 5550dn ($3,749) adds automatic

duplexing.

l The Color LaserJet 5550dtn ($4,999) adds more mem-

ay.

ory (288MB) and a second 500-sheet pa

l The Color LaserJet 5550hdn ($6,299) adds a 20GB

per tr

hard disk (optional on the other models). It also comes with four 500-sheet pa

per trays

, for a total of 2,100 sheets of input. While the printer series can handle paper stocks up to 53lbs., it cannot handle

which might be a concern for some

110lb. card stoc

users.

Hewlett-Packard Color LaserJet 5550 Consumables costs at-a-glance

e g

k-and-white cost per pa

Price

k print cartridge

Blac

Cyan print cartridge $315.99 12,000 $ 0.026 N/A

Magenta print cartridge $315.99 12,000 $ 0.026 N/A

Yellow print cartridge $315.99 12,000 $ 0.026 N/A

er kit

e transf

Ima

TOTAL PER-PAGE COSTS

$225.99 13,000 $ 0.017 $ 0.017

$200.00 120,000 $ 0.002 $ 0.002

Yield

ressiv

Full-color cost per pa

$ 0.0980 $ 0.0194

9.80 1.94

e Business Pub

Blac

lications

All of these models are driven by a 533MHz processor, and they can be expanded to a maximum of 544MB of memory. All of the models can be upgraded to the full 2,100 sheets of input that comes standard with the 5550hdn. HP claims that its ImageREt 3600 image enhancement is even better than the ImageREt 2400 software available on most of its other color printers.

Like other HP printer products, this series has nice management features, including an embedded Web server that works with HP’s Web Jetadmin program. There’s a four-line interactive display that allows you to check supply levels and diagnose and fix problems. The supplies consist of four all-in-one cartridges that are easy to replace through a front door. Consumables costs of 1.9¢ in black and 9.8¢ in color are moderate.

This is a strong ledger printer family. It does, however, lack finishing equipment, even as an option. If you want finishing, you should look at the Ricoh Aficio CL7200, a less expensive ledger printer with both a finisher and a booklet maker as options. Another strong competitor is the Lexmark C920 family, which also has a finisher. Or you can look at HP’s own Color LaserJet 9500hdn. If you don’t need finishing but do need ledger-size printing, the Color LaserJet 5550 series looks like a solid buy. It’s

ned our Editor’

ear

s Choice Award.

Chart entries — pages 81–82

wlett-Packar

d Color LaserJet 9500n

Hewlett-Packard Color LaserJet 9500hdn

24ppm full color 24ppm b

lack & white

Sum-up: Ledger-size printers with good finishing options (9500hdn onl

y).

The Hewlett-Packard Color LaserJet 9500 is a family of ledger-size color printers. They are durable machines with solid f

eatures and, at least on the high-end model,

excellent output capabilities. Note that this is no desktop

eet tall.

our f

hines r

it is f

t 24ppm both in color and

un a

model.

Full

hese laser mac

y equipped,

black-and-white. That speed is supported by a fast 500MHz processor. Note that they are bested in speed by HP’s newer 27ppm Color LaserJet 5550 family. Both are rated by HP for an impressive 200,000 pages a month.

ostScript is a standar

d f

e, as is Ethernet support

tur

ea through an internal server. These models do not, however, offer a USB interface, though parallel connectivity is standard.

In other ways, the two members of the family, the 9500n and 9500hdn, are quite distinct. As you might suspect fr

om the hdn suf

the 9500hdn of

fix,

fers a standard

hard disk and automatic duplexing. While the 9500n

Copying of Pages Prohibited.To Order: 800 247 2185 or www.betterbuys.com

Page 16

tarts with 160MB of memory, the 9500hdn comes with 288MB. Both printers can be upgraded to 384MB. These p

rinters have good color tools, including automatic color

calibration as well as color-matching software.

It is on paper handling that the two machines really differ from each other. The less expensive 9500n starts with a 100-sheet multipurpose tray, along with two 500-sheet paper trays. That’s a total of 1,100 sheets, and there are no options. On the output side, there is a 100-sheet faceup (bypass) tray and a 500-sheet face-down tray. Duplexing is optional.

The 9500hdn, on the other hand, has far more capacity. In addition to the basic 1,100 sheets, you get a 2,000sheet high-capacity feeder (not available even as an option for the 9500n). That’s a total of 3,100 sheets. Duplexing, as we have noted, is standard.

It’s on the output side, however, that it gets even more interesting for the 9500hdn. In addition to the basic 600sheet output capacity, there are three strong upgrades. One is a 3,000-sheet offset catch tray. The second is a 3,000-sheet finisher with 50-sheet stapling. The third option is a booklet maker with saddlestitcher, one of the few models with booklet makers in this guide. That’s an impressi

ve trio, making the 9500hdn the only model in this guide that can hold its own in a corporate repro and publishing center alongside more expensive color copiers.

Cost per page is moder

ate, at 9.0¢ in color, 1.8¢ in

black-and-white.

As far as competition goes, we have to differentiate

between the tw

Hewlett-Packard Color LaserJet 9500 Consumables costs at-a-glance

o models. The Color LaserJet 9500n has a

The Color Laser Printer Guide: Vendor & Product Profiles

igher price and inferior features compared to excellent machines from Lexmark, Ricoh, Xerox, and others. It is not competitive mostly because of its high price. At a street price of $6,799, we have the same concerns regarding the Color LaserJet 9500hdn, except that its booklet maker and 3,000-sheet offset catch tray are options that give you capabilities you can’t get from many other printers in this guide.

The bottom line is the models have excellent image quality and an impressive duty cycle, but the price you pay for these seems out of line with the current market.

Chart entries — page 82

IBM

Boulder

800 358 6661

www.printers.ibm.com

Vendor Profile

IBM isn’t a major player in the desktop color laser printer market, although it’s worth saying that Big Blue does sell large, expensive production color machines that we don’t cover in this guide.

Several years ago, IBM upgraded its monochrome laser printer line by adopting machines made by Lexmark. It has also adopted a n

s. Unlike Lexmark, IBM does not sell each variation in

umber of ne

the family as a separate product. Instead, it normally sells a base model and treats the variations as options. IBM sells its versions at a small premium over the Lexmark originals

There is usually a time lag between Lexmark releases and those of IBM.

, CO

wer Le

k color print-

xmar

Black print cartridge $152.99 25,000 $ 0.006 $ 0.006

Cyan print cartridge $309.99 25,000 $ 0.012 N/A

Magenta print cartridge $309.99 25,000 $ 0.012 N/A

lac

er kit

tridge

w print car

ello

Drum/b

Drum/c

Drum/magenta $463.99 40,000 $ 0.012 N/A

Drum/yellow $463.99 40,000 $ 0.012 N/A

Cleaning kit $48.99 50,000 $ 0.001 $ 0.001

Fuser kit $279.99 200,000 $ 0.001 $ 0.001

ransf

TOTAL PER-PAGE COSTS

Price

$309.99 25,000 $ 0.012 N/A

$297.99 40,000 $ 0.007 $ 0.007

$463.99 40,000 $ 0.012 N/A

$378.99 200,000 $ 0.002 $ 0.002

ressiv

Yield

e Business Publications. Copying of Pages Prohibited.To Order: 800 247 2185 or www.betterbuys.com 15

Full-color cost per page

$ 0.0898 $ 0.0178

8.98 1.78

Black-and-white cost per page

Product Profiles

IBM Infoprint Color 1334

8ppm full color 30ppm b

lac

hite

k & w

Note: Same Machine as the Lexmark C510n, which is now discontinued. This machine prints at 8ppm color,

k-and-white. It comes with PostScript

and 30ppm b

lac and Ethernet standard. There are 250 sheets of standard paper input, with a 530-sheet drawer available. The street price is $813.

www

.betterbuys.com

Page 17

Better Buys for Business

We expect that IBM will come out with its own versions of the Lexmark C622/C624 families in the near future to r

eplace this model.

Chart entry — page 83

IBM Infoprint Color 1534n IBM Infoprint Color 1534dn

20ppm full color 20ppm black & white Same Machines as the discontinued Lexmark C524 family

Chart entries — page 83

IBM Infoprint Color 1654n Express IBM Infoprint Color 1654dn Express

25ppm full color 25ppm black & white Same Machines as the Lexmark C770 family

Chart entries — page 84

IBM Infoprint Color 1664n IBM Infoprint Color 1664dn

25ppm full color

k & white

25ppm b Same Machines as the Lexmark C772 family

Char

lac

t entries — pa

ges 84–85

Konica Minolta is the company that resulted from the merger of two Japanese imaging companies, Konica and Minolta. The main thrust of the company is copiers and cameras, but the company does sell office laser printers, both black-and-white and color. These printers were developed by the Minolta division known until recently as Minolta QMS, a business that was formed in 1999 when Minolta acquired Alabama-based QMS, an American vendor of laser printers.

Konica Minolta’s printer group is housed at the former QMS headquarters in Alabama. The company is starting to distribute printers through Konica Minolta office equipment dealers, where they also sell copiers, faxes, and multifunctional machines. For at least some of their models, the company has also started to move into catalog sales and Internet retailing. Konica Minolta sells its printers through computer-industry channels. In the US market for color laser printers, Konica Minolta is now a presence to be reckoned with.

Note that, in an unusual move, Konica Minolta’s main copier division has also released a copier-based printer, the C250P, which is sold through a different part of the company.

Product Profiles

IBM Infoprint Color 1567

32ppm full color 36ppm black & white Same Machine as the Lexmark C920

t entry — pa

Char

ge 85

KONICA

MINOLTA

Mobile, AL

800 523 2696

www.printer.konicaminolta.net

Vendor Profile

Konica Minolta’s printer division has made its mark by selling affordable color printers to small businesses and home users through major retail chains.

e Business Pub

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Konica Minolta magicolor 2500W Konica Minolta magicolor 2530 DL Konica Minolta magicolor 2550 EN Konica Minolta magicolor 2550 DN

5ppm full color 20ppm black & white

Sum-up:

The new magicolor 2500 printers are replacements for the discontinued magicolor 2400 models. They print at the same speeds as their pr and-white and 5ppm in color. In fact, they are very similar to the 2400 mac pricing $100 cheaper than the printers they replaced.

Blazing speed is not what these machines are about. However, they do offer black-and-white printing with a little bit of color for an affordable price.

T add features progressively, justifying the differences in price. All have an estimated monthly duty cycle of 35,000 pages. They all use the same consumables, with black pages costing about 2.3¢, color pages 12.3¢. These are not cheap, but they aren’t bad at the low end of the market.

T has 200 sheets of input only and 200 sheets of output,

Copying of Pages Prohibited.To Order: 800 247 2185 or www.betterbuys.com

Low-cost printers with basic functions.

edecessors — 20ppm in black-

the major dif

hines

h in the cases of

hic

hough essentiall

he $299 ma

gicolor 2500W is a v

y the same printer

the 2500W and 2530 DL is

ence being their

these thr

y basic printer. It

ee models

Page 18

Konica Minolta magicolor 2500 series Consumables costs at-a-glance

Price

Black toner $84.99 4,500 $ 0.019 $ 0.019

Cyan toner $129.99 4,500 $ 0.029 N/A

Magenta toner $129.99 4,500 $ 0.029 N/A

Yellow toner $129.99 4,500 $ 0.029 N/A

PC drum/color

OPC drum/black $149.00 45,000 N/A $ 0.003

Waste toner box $19.00 25,000 $ 0.119 $ 0.001

TOTAL PER-PAGE COSTS

149.00 11,250 $ 0.013 N/A

Yield

Full-color cost per page

$ 0.0189 $ 0.0230

1.89 2.30

Black-and-white cost per page

and that’s it. USB connectivity is standard, while

net is an option. Print resolution is 2,400 x 600dpi

Ether interpolated. A 130MHz processor is supported with 32MB of memory. You cannot add extra memory. This printer is Windows only, and uses host-based GDI printing.

The $399 magicolor 2530 DL gives you a little more than the minimum. It offers an optional 500-sheet tray for added input.

It has Ether

net standard.

Output resolution is 2,400dpi interpolated. It too has a 130MHz processor, and while it starts with a better 64MB of memory, you can increase that to an expansive 576MB. A duplex unit is a $229 option. While it supports only host-based printing, it does have drivers for Macintosh and Linux

hines

mac

he magicolor 2550 machines add even more. The $499

T magicolor 2550 EN has 128MB of memory and optional ($229) duplexing. The $699 magicolor 2550 DN doubles the memory to 256MB and has standard duplexing. Memory can be upgraded to 640MB on both machines.

ted up to 9,600 x 600dpi.

Print quality can be inter

pola

Most important, they are PostScript printers. That gives them more f

lexibility in use, especially in a page layout

environment.

Ethernet and USB are standard on these models, which

ven with a 300MHz processor. There’s also an

e dri

ar optional ($349) 40GB hard disk. Like the magicolor 2530 DL, they have options for another paper tray (500 sheets).

In the growing number of inexpensive color laser print-

The Color Laser Printer Guide: Vendor & Product Profiles

rs, these are solid competitors. But they’ve been eclipsed by low-end models from manufacturers like Lexmark and OKI Printing Solutions in terms of color speed.

Chart entries — pages 85–86

Konica Minolta magicolor 5430 DL

21ppm full color 21ppm black & white

Konica Minolta magicolor 5440 DL

27ppm full color 27ppm black & white

Sum-up: A friendly design and a good price make these models appealing choices.

The two-toned design sets off the Konica Minolta magicolor 5430 DL and 5440 DL from most other desktop models. But that’s not the only selling point: the 5430 DL is one of the fastest color lasers in the $600 range, while the 5440 DL (at $999) of

fers outstanding performance for

such a low price.

The 5430 DL prints at 21ppm in both color and black-

hite. The 5440 DL prints at the very solid speed of

and-w

k and color pages. That

27ppm,

again with both b

lac means you sacrifice nothing in color speed, while getting a fast enough small-workgroup black-and-white printer.

Konica Minolta is aiming this product a

t small businesses that want a single printer for both color and blackand-white printing. Coming at such affordable prices

ood speed and easy use makes it a tempting offer-

with g ing for those who are tired of ink jet printers or who have never used color at all. It’s also an upgrade for those who

ed of very slow color laser printer speeds of four to

e tir

ar six pages a minute.

Both printers have solid but basic features for low-cost machines. They have a 200MHz processor and start with 64MB of memory (expandable to 576MB). They print at up to 2,400 x 600dpi interpolated resolution.

they come network-ready. They also

On the plus side

e rated by Konica Minolta for a reasonably robust

ar 60,000 pa

ges per month.

But the limitations are there as well. These are among the most expensive printers in this guide that offer neither

en as options. They support host-

PCL nor P

ostScript,

based printing both in

Windows (GDI) and Macintosh environments. Konica Minolta believes that these are not critical for business users, explaining that the vast majority of users originate jobs from Microsoft Office, emails, or Internet Explorer rather than Adobe Illustrator or

ess.

k XPr

Quar

The magicolor 5430 DL starts off with a scanty 250-

sheet pa

per tr

hile the ma

gicolor 5440 DL has a bet

e Business Publications. Copying of Pages Prohibited.To Order: 800 247 2185 or www.betterbuys.com 17

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Page 19

Better Buys for Business

Konica Minolta magicolor 5400 series Consumables costs at-a-glance

Price

Black toner - high capacity $149.99 12,000 $ 0.012 $ 0.012

Cyan toner - high capacity $339.99 12,000 $ 0.028 N/A

enta toner - high capacity

ellow toner - high capacity

Transfer belt/black $299.00 120,000 $ 0.002 $ 0.002

2nd transfer roller $39.00 120,000 $ 0.000 $ 0.000

TOTAL PER-PAGE COSTS

$339.99 12,000 $ 0.028 N/A

Yield

Full-color cost per page

$ 0.100 $ 0.015

10.03 1.50

Black-and-white cost per page

ter 500-sheet standard supply. You can, however, add up to two mor

e 500-sheet paper trays for both, for a morethan-respectable total of 1,250 or 1,600 sheets, respectively. The output tray holds the usual 250 sheets. The basic tray is letter-size only, but the add-on trays support legal-

e paper. Automatic duple

siz

xing is an option. These printers support 110lb. index stock, and you can print on a variety of specialty stocks (transparencies, labels, and envelopes).

Konica Minolta is proud of the ergonomic design of these printers. The series has easy-to-replace toner cartridges, and the starter cartridges (half the capacity of the normal ones) come pre-installed. It has nice controls for checking toner and paper levels from the front panel.

they have a Web-based administrative

e most printer

Lik

ver, in this case called PageScope. They also come

ser

with several color-matching and management systems.

Per-page costs are acceptable for low-cost printers. Color pages cost about 10¢, and black-and-white pages around 1.5¢. Those aren’t great bargains. Our prices are based on the “toner v

alue kit”

option,

which reduces

prices if you buy all three color cartridges at once.

ou should c

k out competitor

hec

s lik

e the Le

xmar C770n, Xerox Phaser 6300 family, Hewlett-Packard Color LaserJet 3800 family, and the OKI Printing

fer comparable

Solutions C5500n to see models tha

t of

speeds plus a few more features.

This is an elegant design for Konica Minolta, and a

ood deal in price

he question is w

hether user

s will be

willing to forego PostScript in a high-capacity, high-speed

workgroup office printer. Certainly this will not suit graphics and page-layout users, but it makes sense for the business market.

Chart entries — page 87

Konica Minolta magicolor 5450

27ppm full color 27ppm black & white

Sum-up: Expanded features built on a fast and reliable platform.

While similar to the magicolor 5430 DL and 5440 DL (documented above), this model, the magicolor 5450, is more capable. The speed of the machine (27ppm) is the same as that of the 5440 DL, but this $1,499 printer comes fully equipped for serious work.

First of all, it adds PostScript to the mix. That was the one notable lacking feature with the other models, at least for some users. To handle more complex jobs, such as

ostScript-generating programs like Quark

those fr

om P XPress, this model has a much more powerful processor, at 667MHz. In ad

dition, memory is much more robust, at 256MB to begin with and expandable to a full gigabyte (1,024MB). Furthermore, there is a 40GB hard drive available as an option.

Connectivity, as with the other models in this series, consists of both USB and Ethernet ports. PCL and PostScript are included.

Paper handling is mor

e extensive than with the 5430 DL and 5440 DL models. There is a 100-sheet bypass tray and a 500-sheet standard tray to start with. Then you can ad

d one or two optional trays for a total of up to 1,600 sheets. Unfortunately, there is only a 250-sheet output tray, somewhat limiting the usefulness of all this input capacity. Heavy-duty card stock can be handled by the printer.

age costs are the same as the other 5400 series printers.

P That is, color pages run at about 10¢ and black printing costs ar

ound 1.5¢.

and this e

xpensi

s quite high f

t’

or printer

s this fast

While this is a fine printer, we think that there are others than can compete with it at a significantly lower price. You might want to consider, for example, the Xerox Phaser 6300N or Lexmark C770n, which offer similar

es a

tur

t a lo

wer cost.

Chart entry — page 87

Got a suggestion, comment, or (gulp!)

a correction? Send them via e-mail

to info@betterbuys.com. We love to

hear from our readers.

e Business Pub

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lications

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Page 20

onica Minolta magicolor 7450

24.5ppm full color 2

4.5ppm black & white

Sum-up: A ledger model with high-resolution imaging.

The new Konica Minolta magicolor 7450 ($2,999) is an Ethernet-ready ledger-size machine with solid 24.5ppm speed in both color and black-and-white.

The model features software called ProArt that helps the printer obtain high (interpolated) resolution, which makes it usable for photo-quality printing. It also has built-in automatic calibration that is used to keep color quality consistent.

The printer can produce a full-bleed ledger image, extending to 12.25" x 18". That makes it suitable for page proofs for jobs going on press, among other things. You can also manually feed pages up to 11" x 35" through a single-sheet feed tray that comes with the duplexer.

Based on a Fuji Xerox engine

, the 7450 comes with 256MB of RAM and can be upgraded to 1,024MB. That’s not bad, but you might consider upgrading the memory from the start, because ledger page size and PostScript support eat up memory fast.

The printer can directly handle PDF files, though you need to buy the optional 40GB hard disk to enable this feature.

There’s a 250-sheet multi-purpose tray and a 100-sheet standard paper tr

ay that come with the mac

hine. You can

add three additional 500-sheet paper trays, for a total of

Konica Minolta magicolor 7450 Consumables costs at-a-glance

e g

k-and-white cost per pa

Price

Black toner $169.00 15,000 $ 0.011 $ 0.011

Cyan toner $219.00 12,000 $ 0.018 N/A

genta toner

Yellow toner $219.00 12,000 $ 0.018 N/A

k drum

Blac

Cyan drum $189.00 30,000 $ 0.006 N/A

enta drum

Yellow drum $189.00 30,000 $ 0.006 N/A

Waste toner box $29.00 18,000 $ 0.002 $ 0.002

AGE COSTS

AL PER-P

$219.00 12,000 $ 0.018 N/A

$199.00 50,000 $ 0.004 $ 0.004

$189.00 30,000 $ 0.006 N/A

Yield

Full-color cost per pa

$ 0.0905 $ 0.0170

9.05 1.70

Blac

The Color Laser Printer Guide: Vendor & Product Profiles

,850 sheets. Output, however, is only 350 sheets. An

optional duplexer is available.

Cost per page (letter-size) is not very exciting, but it’s not far out of line from competitors. Our estimated blackand-white page cost is around 1.7¢, while color pages, using standard yields for comparison, run at 9.0¢.

Other ledger printers in this price range include Xerox’s Phaser 7400 family (36ppm in color), which offers much faster speed and optional finishing. The Ricoh Aficio CL7200 family also deserves a close look.

This is a reasonably priced ledger machine with decent speed and passable features. Many other machines that boast high-end color quality cost far more. On the whole this is a decent buy, but note that it is not the least expensive ledger model in the color laser market and that there is no finishing available and only a very small output tray. Still, for its many benefits, it gets our Editor’s Choice Award.

Chart entry — page 88

Konica Minolta bizhub C250P

25ppm full color 25ppm black & white

Sum-up: A copier-deri paper-handling ca

ved ledger-size printer with good

pacity.

Unlike other Konica Minolta printer models, the $7,200 bizhub C250P is based on a copier original, namely the bizhub C250.

As a printer, this model has quite good basic features, including its ability to print ledger-size pages. The 466MHz pr

ocessor is ma

tched with standard PostScript, PCL, and Ethernet connectivity. Both USB and parallel connectivity are optional features. It also comes with an expansive 512MB of memory, but that is also the maximum available. An optional 40GB hard disk is available. The model has a 75,000 page-per-month duty cycle.

per handling

In pa sequence of suppl

y is 850 sheets, including a 100-sheet bypass and a

, however, this machine shines, a con-

its copier background. The standard paper

multipurpose 250-sheet paper tray for special stock and a regular 500-sheet tray. There’s also a 2,500-sheet large-

vailable as an option. That’s a maximum

y a

pacity tr

ca input ca

pacity of 3,350 pages. Duplexing is optional. The bizhub C250P can handle a wide variety of media, including heavy stock (up to 140lb. card stock) and transparencies.

Output options include:

l A multi-position stapling finisher ($1,580) with sort,

group, and corner staple functions

e Business Publications. Copying of Pages Prohibited.To Order: 800 247 2185 or www.betterbuys.com 19

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Page 21

Better Buys for Business

l A booklet finisher ($3,000) with sorting, stapling, and

saddlestitching of booklets up to 60 sheets.

l A punch kit ($525) with 2-/3-hole punching that can

be added to the booklet finisher

Konica Minolta includes its PageScope utilities for managing the printer from an administrator’s PC, both in terms of administration and workflow.

As a copier, the bizhub C250P holds up well. Its optional job separator tray enables users to separate individual copies like copier trays do. With its optional duplex unit, the machine can produce two-sided copies. And its substantial paper supply supports big copy runs.

The bizhub C250P isn’t cheap, but that’s not surprising considering its copying capability and impressive performance levels. It’s a hybrid of a strong copier and a

st-rate laser printer. It stacks up well against its more

fir powerful sibling, the bizhub C352P (see below), offering similar features for nearly $3,000 less, with the major concession being slower (b

ut still decent) print speed. If that extra 10ppm the bizhub C352P offers isn’t essential, the bizhub C250P is an impressive value for those look-

or color printing and copying in one package.

ing f

Chart entry — page 88

Konica Minolta bizhub C352P

35ppm full color

k & white

35ppm b

lac

Sum-up: Innovative color model offering solid value and performance.

This new product strengthens Konica Minolta’s position as a key player in the fast-growing high-end color laser

he $10,150 bizhub C352P outputs at

printer field.

T 35ppm in color and black-and-white. It prints at 600dpi resolution. It’s based on the company’s popular bizhub color copier line — hence the “P” to indicate it’s a printfocused machine.

he bizhub C352P is intended to be a workhorse. It has

T an impressive monthly duty cycle of 100,000 pages. It has 512MB of built-in memory, which, rather surprisingly, isn’t expandable.

Like its slower sibling, the bizhub C250P (see above), the bizhub C352P can also be used as a copier and scan ner. Its standard duplexing unit (optional on the C250P) supports double-sided copying, and with the optional 40GB hard drive, it can store scanned jobs for printing at a later point.

he mac

oller, which features the company’s OP architecture.

hine has K

onica Minolta’s Emperon con-

(The OP stands for Open Platform.) This controller runs the print, copy, and scan functionality of the printer using a common operating system.

The bizhub OP architecture also makes possible the company’s bizhub Open API capability, which allows third-party software vendors to develop software for use with bizhub machines. Examples of such software include PageScope Data Administrator, which manages device user lists, enables account tracking, and manages password and security functions; and Web Connection, which establishes an online status monitoring site.

This printer runs PostScript and PCL printer languages. Finishing options include:

l A multi-position stapling finisher ($1,580) with sort,

group, and corner staple functions

l A booklet finisher ($3,000) with sorting, stapling, and

saddlestitching of booklets up to 60 sheets

l A punch kit ($525) with 2/3-hole punching that can

be added to the booklet finisher

The bizhub C352P has standard duplexing and can handle up to 140lb. inde

x paper. It can also print on envelopes or coated paper, and print 11" x 17" images on up to 12" x 18" paper to preserve crop marks, color bars, and mar

gins.

The machine has a dual-tray 750-sheet standard paper supply and 100-sheet bypass. It offers users the choice of adding a 2,500-sheet tr

ay, resulting in a maximum paper

capacity of 3,350 sheets.

Konica Minolta doesn’t publish consumables costs for this printer, but we estimate they’re very reasonable.

Security functions include job encryption, hard drive locking, secure printing, address filtering, user authentication, and scan encryption. Those features will go a long way toward protecting sensitive information.

his is a solid mac

y, good features, and reasonable pricing. Its limit on

hine that offers innovative technolo-

memory expansion is a little troubling, since a workhorse

especiall

e this could use all the memor

lik

y it can g

et, it’s used to run high-volume multiple-user jobs. But it still rates highly based on its abundant strengths.

t entry — page 88

Char

Log on to www.betterbuys.com

for update information and more.

y if

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Page 22

KYOCERA

Fairfield, NJ

800 222 6482

www.kyoceramita.com

Vendor Profile

Kyocera Mita America, which now brands its printers under the Kyocera name, has built a reputation in the market as a manufacturer of rugged high-volume departmental printers with low operating costs. These are sturdy units with excellent features, but they tend to cost a little more than the competition. In a tough market, Kyocera is holding its own, but it is under the gun to keep improving its models and lowering its prices to keep up with the competition.

Kyocera models offer excellent value when it comes to

y costs

suppl The reason for this is the durability of the drums offered with the printers, drums that are built to last three or four times longer than those of rivals. That durability translates into lower operating costs.

Kyocera products are sold through the company’s copi-

er dealer network as well as through value-added resellers

ARs).

Kyocera FS-C5015N

17ppm full color 17ppm black & white

Kyocera FS-C5020N

17ppm full color 17ppm b

ocera FS-C5025N

22ppm full color 22ppm black & white

Kyocera FS-C5030N

26ppm full color 26ppm b

Sum-up: for busy offices that output lots of pages.

e w

As w discontin

These models are Kyocera’s second-generation entries

, an important advantage for heavy users.

Product Profiles

hite

k & w

lac

k & white

lac

hoice

t c

Outstanding per

e costs mak

-pa

e this a g

ere going to press, we learned the FS-C5020N was being

ued.

The Color Laser Printer Guide: Vendor & Product Profiles

nto the LED color printer arena, replacing the FSC5016N. The $1,759 (estimated street price) FS-C5020N runs at 17ppm in both black-and-white and color and is powered by a 400MHz processor, while the $2,099 FSC5030N runs at 26ppm in both modes and has a 600MHz processor. Prices were not available at press time for the new FS-C5015N (which appears to be an enhanced version of the FS-C5020N, and like that model runs at 17ppm in color and black-and-white) or the FSC5025N (which runs at 22ppm in color and black-andwhite). We estimate street prices for the FS-C5015N and FS-C5025N to be around $1,400 and $1,600, respectively.

Otherwise these models are identical. They all come Ethernet-ready, and PostScript and PCL are standard as well. That makes them both serious workgroup machines. Memory starts at a very generous 128MB, and it can be increased to a total of 1GB (640MB on the FSC5015N and FS-C5025N), making these units capable of the most complex, multi-copy print jobs we can imagine.

These models have quite respectable paper-handling

bilities. The

capa

y support letter- and legal-size output and come with a 500-sheet paper tray and a 100-sheet multipurpose tray, suitable for printing on transparencies and heavier stock.

You can add up to three 500-sheet trays for a total of 2,100 sheets (except on the FSC5015N, which only allows for one additional 500-sheet tray). Kyocera also offers an optional envelope feeder with a capacity of 70 envelopes for the C5015, C5025,

e are few other models with dedicated

and C5030N

. Ther

envelope feeders in the color printer market, though they

Kyocera FS-C5030N Consumables costs at-a-glance

Price

Black toner $72.00 8,000 $ 0.009 $ 0.009

Cyan toner $109.00 8,000 $ 0.014 N/A

Magenta toner $109.00 8,000 $ 0.014 N/A

w toner

ello

Maintenance kit (includes drums, developers, rollers)

GE COSTS

AL PER-P

$109.00 8,000 $ 0.014 N/A

$618.00 200,000 $ 0.003 $ 0.003

Yield

Full-color cost per page

$ 0.0530 $ 0.012

5.30 1.21

Black-and-white cost per page

e Business Publications. Copying of Pages Prohibited.To Order: 800 247 2185 or www.betterbuys.com 21

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Page 23

Better Buys for Business

are not unusual in the black-and-white market.

On the output side, There is a 100-sheet and a 500-sheet

ray. You can also add a 250-sheet face-up tray. Like many other color printers, there’s an imbalance between a fairly large maximum input capacity and a much smaller output capacity, though these Kyocera models do better than most. Two-sided output (duplexing) is an option as well. No finishing is offered, but that is expected at this price level.

Kyocera products typically feature impressive consumables costs, and these machines are no exceptions. The black-and-white cost per page is very good for a color printer, at 1.2¢ a page. That’s not nearly as good as with some black-and-white-only printers, but among color printers, it’s very good indeed. The color per-page costs are even better, at 5.3¢ a page (around 8¢ on the FSC2015). At almost half the industry average for color printing cost, that alone makes this printer a standout.

There are considerably faster printers in the price range of the Kyocera FS-C5020N, but none with as good paper

-handling f

eatures. Above all, no other color printers (other than other Kyocera models) can match its price per page.

Likewise, the FS-C5030N is not the fastest at its price vel (that honor might go to the 31ppm HP Color

le LaserJet 4700n), but it still has stronger paper handling than some rivals and a lower cost per page.

you plan to use the printer extensi

vely, and if you plan to produce lots of color pages, this is by far the most cost-effective letter/legal-size printer on the market. While the FS-C5020N is a fine machine

, we think the faster FS-C5030N is a true standout. The new FSC5015N and FS-C5025N appear to be fine additions to

y that gets our Editor’s Choice Award.

amil

this f

Chart entries — pages 89–90

Kyocera FS-C8008N Kyocera FS-C8008DN

8ppm full color

k & white

31ppm b

Sum-up:

lac

A fine ledg

e color laser series with outstanding

-siz

operating costs.

l The FS-C8008N ($5,525 list), which offers Ethernet

connectivity standard

l The FS-C8008DN ($5,795 list), which adds standard

automatic duplex and a standard hard disk

In most other ways, the two models are identical in features. The FS-C8008 family’s basic specs are pretty strong. The processor runs at 400MHz, which is a respectable speed. The 128MB standard memory, which can be expanded to 640MB, is quite good as well. PostScript is standard, and wireless Ethernet is available as an option, in addition to the standard 10/100BaseT.

Speed and resolution: As noted earlier, the FS-C8008

models print at a rate of 8ppm in color and 31ppm in black-and-white. The color speed is below average in the current market, but not painfully so. On the other hand, the monochrome speed is outstanding. That and the low consumables costs make this series an interesting candidate for a mixed-use departmental printer. If you need a laser printer that will do color pages occasionally, and black-and-white frequently, this can be a good choice.

One slight disadvantage — the FS-C8008 models print at 600dpi, while some rivals print at 1,200dpi. On the other hand, it must be said that 1,200dpi resolution, while a nice feature, is not an absolute requirement. In spite of the jump in resolution, the difference in appearance between color documents printed at these resolutions can be har

d to detect.

(You might, however, look at some test pages and compare them with output from one or two competitors.)

Paper handling: The FS-C8008 family, like other

Kyocera products, offers excellent paper-handling options. The FS-C8008N supports 1,150 sheets of paper capacity standard, an above-average total. This figure can be increased to 3,150 sheets by adding four optional

ers. Note that the duplexing unit fits into one

per dr

pa of the standard drawer spaces, so the FS-C8008DN offers only 650 sheets out of the box, with a total capacity of 2,650 sheets.

The output side gets even more interesting. The default

650-sheet output ca

erent options:

dif

pacity can be supplemented using tw

The FS-C8008 family offers low-cost ledger-size color laser printing

he speed in color is belo

w a

age

v (8ppm), but the speed in black-and-white is excellent (31ppm). The FS-C8008 printers also shine in two areas

t Kyocera printers generally do well in: operating costs

tha and paper handling. These features make them a viable choice in what is an increasingly competitive market.

ersions:

he FS-C8008 f

y comes in tw

amil

o v

e Business Pub

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l A 3,000-sheet offset catch tray, or

l A 2,000-sheet finisher with 20-sheet stapling and three

output bins

ou’ll need to buy

der to use the finisher

Note tha

t in or

both optional 500-sheet pa

per dr

ers.

Traditionally, color printers have offered very little in

terms of output options. Clearly, manufacturers like

Copying of Pages Prohibited.To Order: 800 247 2185 or www.betterbuys.com

Page 24

yocera believe that color printers should come with the same kinds of options as you would expect from monoc

hrome departmental printers or, for that matter, color copiers. The FS-C8008 printers have some of the most extensive paper-handling capacities in the color laser printer market.

Cost of consumables: This is an area where the

Kyocera models really shine. Black-and-white pages cost around 0.8¢ per page, a remarkably low figure, even for a dedicated black-and-white machine. For many other color printers, the per-page cost for black-and-white output is around 2¢. This truly makes the FS-C8008-series printers candidates for everyday departmental printing.

But the FS-C8008’s color per-page cost is even more exciting. At around 4.5¢ a page, it’s far lower than most competitors’. Color printing doesn’t get more affordable than this, and it makes the FS-C8008 series very attractive. The payback over the life of a heavily used printer can be considerable.

Kyocera explains that one of the main reasons behind its low consumables costs is the company’s long-life amorphous silicon drum technology, which makes the intervals between drum replacements exceptionally long. In addition,

Kyocer

a’s toner costs are very reasonable.

We think this is a strong printer series. It does have a higher sticker price than some of the competition (calculating from its list price). printing speed.

On the other hand, it offers excellent out-

It also has a relatively slow color

put options. But the main feature is that it’s economical to run.

Kyocera FS-C8008 Consumables costs at-a-glance

Price

k toner

Blac

Cyan toner $90.00 10,000 $ 0.009 N/A

enta toner

Yellow toner $90.00 10,000 $ 0.009 N/A

Drum/black $1,093.00 600,000 N/A $ 0.002

Drum/4-color $1,093.00 150,000 $ 0.007 N/A

lack

veloper/b

Developer/3-color $476.00 300,000 $ 0.005 N/A

TOTAL PER-PAGE COSTS

$99.00 25,000 $ 0.004 $ 0.004

$90.00 10,000 $ 0.009 N/A

$674.00 300,000 $ 0.002 $ 0.002

Yield

Full-color cost per page

$ 0.0453 $ 0.0080

4.53 0.80

Black-and-white cost per page

The Color Laser Printer Guide: Vendor & Product Profiles

t should be said, however, that price levels in the ledger-size category of the color printer market continue to erode, and the speed of color printing is increasing. Therefore, Kyocera is facing ever-stiffer price competition. The cost-per-page advantage that makes it less expensive in the long run might be obscured by its higher sticker price. In other words, this printer series can still hold its own against such rivals as the Ricoh Aficio CL7200 and the Lexmark C920, but you have to look at total cost of ownership.

If you believe that price per page is the most critical issue, more than color printing speed, and anticipate running high volumes, the Kyocera FS-C8008 family is an excellent choice.

Chart entries — page 90

Kyocera FS-C8026N-A Kyocera FS-C8026N-B

26ppm full color 26ppm black & white

Sum-up: Lots of

paper capacity and e

these deluxe models

xcellent finishing mark

This Kyocera model, the FS-C8026N, comes in two different configurations, denoted by the suffixes A and B. The difference between the tw

o is in terms of paper handling only. Even the prices are the same, at $9,498 list. That’s a major league price, but these machines come with a fuller configur

ation out of the bo

x than other

printers in this sector.

These ledger-size printers handle letter-size pages at a

ate of 26ppm, both in black-and-white and color. The

r estimated monthly duty cycle is 100,000 pages. A 600MHz processor is supported by 512MB of memory (also the maximum memory). There’s also a 20GB hard disk standard.

PostScript and PCL are standard. Connectivity is

ough a standar

thr no USB por mac

hine is really intended for a workgroup. Wireless

d Ethernet interface. Unusually, there is

t, but that’s probably no big deal as this

Ethernet is also an option.

As noted above, paper capacity is where these machines

The FS-C8026N-A comes with a 150-sheet bypass

v and pa

per input units of 500, 1,000, and 1,500 sheets each. That makes for a total input capacity out of the box of 3,150 sheets. The FS-C8026N-B comes with the same 150-sheet bypass and three 500-sheet paper trays only, for a total of 1,650 sheets of input. Both models support automa

tic duple

xing as a standard feature.

On the output side, the differences are similar. Standard

500,

output f

or the FS-C8026N-A comes in units of

150,

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Better Buys for Business

Kyocera FS-C8026N Consumables costs at-a-glance

Black toner $99.00 25,000 $ 0.004 $ 0.004

Price

Cyan toner $90.00 10,000 $ 0.009 N/A

Magenta toner $90.00 10,000 $ 0.009 N/A

Yellow toner $90.00 10,000 $ 0.009 N/A

Drum/black $1,093.00 600,000 N/A $ 0.002

Drum/4-color $1,093.00 150,000 $ 0.007 N/A

Developer/black $288.00 300,000 $ 0.001 $ 0.001

Developer/3-color $1,020.00 300,000 $ 0.010 N/A

Charger unit $20.00 100,000 $ 0.000 $ 0.000

Oil kit $49.00 25,000 $ 0.002 $ 0.002

TOTAL PER-PAGE COSTS

Yield

Full-color cost per page

$ 0.0516 $ 0.0089

5.16 0.89

Black-and-white cost per page

1,000, and 1,500 sheets. The FS-C8026N-B has a 150sheet bypass tray and three 500-sheet paper trays. Despite the f

act tha

t these machines ha

ve quite different paper

handling, they still have the same list price.

In addition, both machines have a variety of optional output devices. There’s a five-bin mailbox unit with room for 150 sheets in each bin. There’s a 3,000-sheet finisher with m

ultiposition stapling of up to 50 sheets

. This printer family also features a saddle- stitched unit for making booklets. You can supplement that with a punch unit, which can support 2/3-hole punching. There’s also a folder available for the booklet maker.

Costs per page are extremely low, especially for color.

Our reckoning gives us a price of 5.2¢ for color, around

or black. These are outstanding, making these print-

1.0¢ f ers very competitive in the market.

On the other hand, these are among the most expensive color laser printers in this guide. That’s partly because Kyocera bundles so much in terms of paper handling

ou subtract the value of these options, you

with them.

get prices closer to those of other high-end color lasers.

The FS-C8026N models are somewhat slower than some of their top competitors, including the Ricoh CL7200 and CL7300 models and the OKI Printing Solutions C9600/C9800 printers.

you’re certain you’ll run lots of pages and wince at

If the thought of paying 8¢ or more per page, these models

you are spend-

e an e

cellent b

On the other hand,

if ing this much money, you might want to look at some of the fine multifunctional copiers documented in our

Color

Copier Guide

, machines that have similar features and add

copying and scanning to the printing capability.

Chart entries — page 91

LANIER

Atlanta, GA

800 708 7088

www.lanier.com

Vendor Profile

Lanier, a major office equipment distributor, was acquired by Ricoh in early 2001. Ricoh had already acquired Savin and Gestetner, and Lanier was an obvious

get since it rela

tar

beled a n machines under the Lanier name. So far, the company operates independently from the other Ricoh divisions, but that ma

y change.

Lanier mostly sells direct and concentrates on larger buyers through its direct-sales force; however, it also has some dealer

s. Lanier is a service-intensi prices include delivery, installation, training, and initial supplies.

Note tha

t Lanier announced the names of its three

printers based on the Ricoh GelSprinter series. These

e the GX3000,

the GX3050N These correspond to the similarly named Ricoh products on page 39.

Product Profiles

Lanier LP031c

8ppm full color 31ppm black & white Same Machine as the Ricoh Aficio CL1000N

Chart entry — page 91

Lanier LP222cn

22ppm full color 22ppm black & white Same Machine as the Ricoh Aficio CL3500N

Chart entry — page 92

Lanier LP226cn

26ppm full color 26ppm black & white Same Machine as the Ricoh Aficio SP C410DN

Chart entry — page 92

umber of different Ricoh

ve supplier. Its

, and the GX5050N

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Page 26

anier LP231cn

31ppm full color 31ppm black & white Same Machine as the Ricoh Aficio SP C411DN

Chart entry — page 92

Lanier LP332cdn Lanier LP332cdtn

28ppm full color 32ppm black & white Same Machines as the Ricoh Aficio CL7200 family

Chart entries — page 93

Lanier LP335cdn Lanier LP335cdtn

35ppm full color 35ppm black & white Same Machines as the Ricoh Aficio CL7300 family This model has been discontinued.

Chart entries — pages 93–94

LEXMARK

xington, KY

800 358 5835

.lexmark.com/us_home

www

Vendor Profile

Lexmark was formed when IBM spun off its typewriter and mainstream printer business back in 1991. The noncompete agreement between IBM and Lexmark expired in 1996. IBM, at that point, built up a full line of desktop printers in competition with Lexmark but a few years ago announced tha

hite and color models

t it w

. Now Lexmark also provides

elabel Lexmark’s black-and-

ould r

printers to a number of companies: Toshiba, Unisys, RISO, and (in some categories) Dell.

Lexmark is a power in monochrome laser printers, where it stands (by some measures) second behind He

wlett-P

ackard in terms of market share. The company

also sells an extensive line of color ink jet printers and has

esence ther

et pr

consider

le mar

k printer market, however, Lexmark is only slowly growing bigger.

k printers benefit from a variety of external

All Le

xmar and internal network servers and connectivity options. They also offer a sophisticated range of optional software

tion,

for handling security

administr

.html

In the color laser

and file conversion.

The Color Laser Printer Guide: Vendor & Product Profiles

hese tools include ones that support printing from a number of formats (including PDF and TIFF), allow for form generation and printing, print barcodes, secure print, and allow for significant job management. Lexmark also contends that it has superior color management tools for all its color laser models.

Lexmark’s current products are quite good. In speed, price, and features, they contend with everything else on the market. But the opposition isn’t standing still, and Lexmark needs to keep on developing new printers to stay near the top of the pack.

Product Profiles

Lexmark C500n

8ppm full color 31ppm black & white

Sum-up:

Bargain-basement price, but color is slow.

The new C500n is Lexmark’s entry into the under-$400 color laser printer realm. And like other color machines in this price r 8ppm.

It prints in black-and-w

ange, its color printing speed is slow —

t a speedy 31ppm,

hite a

however.

Many lower-priced color laser printers share this machine’s printing 8ppm/31ppm speeds

, including the Brother HL-2700CN ($850), Ricoh Aficio CL1000N ($899), and TallyGenicom 8008 ($775). The main advan-

ge the C500n has over these machines is its $399 list

ta price, less than half of some of the competing products.

Lexmark C500N Consumables costs at-a-glance

Price

Black print cartridge $133.00 3,000 $ 0.030 $ 0.030

an print car

Magenta print cartridge $149.00 5,000 $ 0.044 N/A

ello

TOTAL PER-PAGE COSTS

tridg

w print cartridge

$149.00 5,000 $ 0.044 N/A

Yield

Full-color cost per page

$ 0.1628 $ 0.0298

16.30 3.00

Black-and-white cost per page

e Business Publications. Copying of Pages Prohibited.To Order: 800 247 2185 or www.betterbuys.com 25

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Better Buys for Business

But as you would expect, the C500n is light on features, and users will have to accept some compromises in terms o

f performance.

The C500n has relatively slow first-page-out times: 13 seconds for black-and-white and 19 seconds for color. It prints at 1,200 x 600dpi standard and has a 35,000-page monthly duty cycle. It comes with 64MB of (nonexpandable) memory standard, and has a decent 200MHz processor. It doesn’t run PostScript, instead utilizing Lexmark’s host-based system.

On the plus side, the C500n comes with standard Ethernet, a nice feature for this price range. It also has a wireless option.

The printer has a standard 250-sheet paper supply, which can be expanded to 780 sheets. Its maximum output is 250 sheets. No optional output devices are available for this machine.

Not surprisingly, consumables costs are high. Even using Lexmark’s high-yield toner cartridges will cost 3.0¢ a page for black-and-white and 16.3¢ a page for color.

s pretty steep, but typical for printers in this price

t’

Tha range.

The C500n is simply a basic printer that seems to be designed for the casual office user who needs occasional color printing f

or a special pr

oject but doesn’t want to spend a lot. For this type of a customer, it’s an appealing bargain, offering performance comparable to far more expensive models

Chart entry — page 94

xmark C530dn

xmark C532n

Le Lexmark C532dn

k C534n

xmar

Le Lexmark C534dn Lexmark C534dtn

22ppm full color 24ppm black & white

each from their C524 predecessors), these machines achieve even more remarkable speed, while many of their rivals run at speeds of 4 to 8ppm in color. They also have some superior features that make them more than just minimal printers.

The six new models in the family are:

l The C532n, the base-level machine with a 250-sheet

paper capacity and Ethernet, along with 128MB of memory. ($499)

l The C530dn, a retail-channel version of the C532n,

also $499, and almost, but not quite, identical. The major differences: the C530dn adds duplexing but has a 65,000-page duty cycle, while the C532n has a 75,000-page duty cycle but no duplexing. The C532n also has higher supply yields than the C530dn.

l The C532dn ($699), which is identical to the C532n

except it adds standard duplexing.

l The C534n, whic

h adds a faster pr

ocessor and an optional hard disk, as well as networking and also has 128MB of standard memory ($699).

l The C534dn, which adds standar

d automatic duplex-

ing to the C534n. ($999)

l The C534dtn, which adds an extra 500-sheet tray

($1,299).

Lexmark C530/C532/C534 Consumables costs at-a-glance

Sum-up:

Another Le

xmark breakthrough in speed and price

for color laser printing.

ee years ago, Lexmark came out with the C510 series,

T a very good economy model priced at $599 and up. Two years ago, the company topped itself with the C520/C522/C524 f

amil

h printed a

hic

t 20ppm in color and black-and-white, a strong performance level for such economical machines. Now these models have

gone another evolution, re-emerging as the

under C530/C532/C534 family, which prints at 22ppm in color and 24ppm in black-and-white. Although Lexmark hasn’t

aised the prices fr

om the pr

vious g

eneration (in fact,

Lexmark dropped the price on the C534 models by $200

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Price

Black print cartridge $95.00 1,500 $ 0.026 $ 0.026

Cyan print cartridge $95.00 1,500 $ 0.040 N/A

Magenta print cartridge $95.00 1,500 $ 0.040 N/A

Yellow print cartridge $95.00 1,500 $ 0.040 N/A

4-color drum $35.50 20,000 $ 0.002 $ 0.002

GE COSTS

AL PER-P

Copying of Pages Prohibited.To Order: 800 247 2185 or www.betterbuys.com

Yield

Full-color cost per page

$ 0.1470 $ 0.0280

14.70 2.80

Black-and-white cost per page

Page 28

The Le

xmark C532n prints color a

t 22ppm speed a

t 1,200dpi

resolution.

The C530dn/C532n engine comes with a 375MHz processor, while the C534 models have a 625MHz processor made sur

. Along with a few other v

e that getting into color printing at the entry

endors, Lexmark has

level no longer means making big sacrifices in speed. PostScript is a standard feature through the whole line, which is not always the case with low-priced color laser printers.

These models have decent memory capacity. They start with 128MB, upgradeable to 640MB. That much memory may be helpful, because unlike some of their low-cost

, these are Postscript-based machines, making

competitor them useful f

or a wide v

ariety of

graphics applications. The models print at a resolution of 1,200dpi. A 40GB hard disk is an option on the C534 models.

Paper capacity is limited, based on the standard 250sheet paper tray, a 100-sheet MPF feeder (except for the C534n, which has a manual MPF feeder), and an optional 550-sheet pa

per tr

y (standar

d on the C534dtn).

There is a 250-sheet output tray. Duplexing is standard on all of these models except for the C532n and C534n.

USB is standard, as is Ethernet. Wireless 802.11b

Ethernet is an option as well.

xmar

models y

lished suppl

t pub

k hasn

et,

’

ut we anticipate they’ll be on the high end:

y costs f

or these new

around 2.8¢ for black pages and 14.7¢ for color. The good thing about these machines’ consumables is their higher capacity: black cartridges print 5,000 pages, while the three color cartridges last for 3,000 pages.

hat sets its machines off from com-

es w

k belie

xmar

is a more extensive set of color-printing controls,

s’

petitor

The Color Laser Printer Guide: Vendor & Product Profiles

uch like those found on higher-cost printers. This series also allows the administrator to lock out some users from use of color, a good feature for a workgroup in which only some users really need color and where you want to keep costs down. Like other Lexmark models, there is an extensive suite of software available, with support for barcodes, and for forms creation and printing.

But where these machines have everyone else beat is in sheer speed for the price. Other low-cost models print at a relatively slow speed in color, from 4ppm to 8ppm in color. At 22ppm color printing, this family has remarkable speed, setting a new standard for low-cost color lasers. Plus it has standard PostScript, a unique feature in this price class.

As such, it competes very well with a slew of low-cost printers from Dell and others. The C532n is particularly a standout, while the C534 models are quite solid as well, if a little less unique.

Making a workgroup color printer for under $1,000 that has decent color control software is a nice plus. What’s remarkable is that its 22ppm color speed makes it a creditable workg

roup printer on its own. This family gets our

Editor’s Choice Award.

Chart entries — pages 94–96

Lexmark C770n Lexmark C770dn Lexmar

k C770dtn

25ppm full color 25ppm b

lack & white

Sum-up: A strong small-workgroup printer family, but with tough rivals.

The new C770 family is one of two similar color laser printer families. At 25ppm in both color and black-andwhite, these models are very affordable mid-range color lasers. The printers have relatively modest paper han-

but they otherwise have a solid but standard set of

dling

eatures.

he three models in this family are:

l The C770n is the base model, with 600 sheets of stan-

along with stan

d input and 256MB of

dar

memor

dard Ethernet connectivity ($999).

l The C770dn adds automatic duplexing ($1,299).

l T

he C770dtn adds another 500 sheets of input stan-

d and holds up to 256MB of memory ($1,549).

dar

Based on an 800MHz pr

ocessor

these mac

hines ar

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Better Buys for Business

Lexmark C770 Consumables costs at-a-glance

Price

Black print cartridge $111.00 6,000 $ 0.019 $ 0.019

Cyan print cartridge $203.00 6,000 $ 0.034 N/A

Magenta print cartridge $203.00 6,000 $ 0.034 N/A

Yellow print cartridge $203.00 6,000 $ 0.034 N/A

Waste toner bottle/black $13.00 150,000 $ 0.000 $ 0.000

Waste toner bottle/3-color

Maintenance kit $582.00 120,000 $ 0.005 $ 0.005

Fuser kit $343.00 150,000 $ 0.002 $ 0.002

TOTAL PER-PAGE COSTS

e than adequatel

mor

$13.00 50,000 $ 0.000 N/A

y powered. Memory starts at 256MB

and can be augmented to 768MB

Yield

Full-color cost per page

$ 0.1275 $ 0.0257

12.75 2.57

. A 40GB hard disk is an

Black-and-white cost per page

(expensive) option. PostScript 3 also comes standard.

Connectivity is thr

ough USB and Ethernet. A Wi-Fi

interface (IEEE 802.11b) is also available.

The paper supplies, as we have stated, are limited. These models come with a 500-sheet paper tray and a 100-sheet b

ypass. Ther

e’s an extr

a 500-sheet tray, optional on all but the C770dtn model. Output is limited to only 250 sheets. The printer can, however, handle card stock. Lexmark rates the duty cycle at 100,000 pages a month.

Consumables are on the high side. You’ll spend 2.6¢ per black-and-white page and 12.8¢ for color. Such prices are, unfortunately, increasingly typical even for midrange color printers. They offset the low prices of the machines themselves.

he HP Color LaserJ

T (22ppm) a

t a similar price

y has a slo

et 3800 f

amil

. The Lexmark C770 family has

wer speed

a little advantage in the way of paper supply (1,100 versus 850 sheets), but it’s very hard to choose between the two. It comes down to which of the two vendors you prefer and which of the extra features they supply you pre-

Both are very good choices.

The C770 family offers good features at a moderate price. It has strong competition from a number of other color printers in its speed and price range. Still, this family is deserving of our Editor’s Choice Award.

es 96–97

t entries — pa

Char

www.betterbuys.com

Lexmark C772n Lexmark C772dn Lexmark C772dtn

25ppm full color 25ppm black & white

Sum-up: Capable color printers that offer serious production capacity at a moderate price.

The new C772 series is similar in many ways to the C770 series. The engines, speeds, and most of the configurations are exactly the same as that model family. So what is the difference?

The family members are:

l The C772n is the base model, with 600 sheets of stan-

dard input, 256MB of memory, and standard Ethernet ($1,499).

l The C772dn adds automatic duplexing ($1,799).

l The C772dtn adds another 500 sheets of input

($2,099).

In fact, these machines have exactly the same standard features as the C770 models: 800MHz processor, 768MB maxim

um memor

y, PostScript 3, optional wireless. What

they do have that’s different is potential to expand.

You have a wide variety of input options. On all the models, you can ha

ve up to two 500-sheet paper trays in total, or you can add a 2,000-sheet high-capacity feeder. There’s also an optional 40-envelope feeder.

hese models ha

ve two unique features as well. There’s an outdoor media tray that handles special media, which can be used to cr

te signa

ge that can withstand direct sunlight and other unusual environmental conditions. Lexmark developed this capacity based on user requests from companies like retailers that wanted colorful signs they could place at the front door. There is also a banner tr ha

y tha

e r

ou to f

ws y

t allo

ust paper-feed roller technology that can feed

eed 8.5" x 36" pa

per. These trays

thicker-than-usual media.

On the output side

, there’s a similar choice of devices. In addition to the standard 250-sheet output tray, there’s an optional 500-sheet output tray. You can also get a fivebin mailbo

x unit,

with a total ca

pacity of

500 sheets Finally, there’s a 2,000-sheet finisher that can staple up to 30 sheets, and that also comes with a 3-hole punch.

These models also have the ability to be upgraded to a multifunctional with the X4500 copy/scan unit, the same scanner option tha

e is less than tha

Cost per pa

as used with its pr

t w

edecessor

the closely related

t of

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The Color Laser Printer Guide: Vendor & Product Profiles

Lexmark C772 Consumables costs at-a-glance

Price

Black print cartridge $170.00 15,000 $ 0.011 $ 0.011

Cyan print cartridge $374.00 15,000 $ 0.025 N/A

Magenta print cartridge $374.00 15,000 $ 0.025 N/A

Yellow print cartridge $374.00 15,000 $ 0.025 N/A

Waste toner bottle/black $13.00 150,000 $ 0.000 $ 0.000

aste toner bottle/3-color

Maintenance kit $582.00 120,000 $ 0.005 $ 0.005

Fuser kit $343.00 150,000 $ 0.002 $ 0.002

TOTAL PER-PAGE COSTS

We calculate it as around 1.9¢ per black-and-white

C770.

$13.00 50,000 $ 0.000 N/A

Yield

Full-color cost per page

$ 0.0936 $ 0.0186

9.36 1.86

Black-and-white cost per page

page, 9.4¢ for color. These prices are much more reasonable than those of the C770 and are pretty good in terms of the market.

Unlike the C770, the C772 series is in a specialized category — there are a limited number of color laser printers with extended options for output and input. In fact, this color laser printer famil

y is one of

the few tha

t prints at letter/legal size that has an extended range of options, including an envelope feeder, high-capacity feeder, finish-

, adequate output capacity, and a mailbox option. Most

er competiti sheets of

ve models offer, for example, only 250 or 500

hereas the C772 models allow you to

output,

stack thousands of sheets.

In spite of added capacity (and the otherwise solid features it shares with the C770), the C772 family is quite affordable. There are, of course, very good ledger-format machines with excellent finishing options (for example, K

ocer

s FS-C8008 f

a’

amily), but few letter or legal size

ones.

xmark has long been clever about getting an extra

Le bang from its development dollars. Here we have a printer family that is the higher-performance version of its vir-

y identical sib

tuall

e quite distinct.

ling

et the mar

ket niches and prices

Chart entries — pages 97–98

Update information and more

www.betterbuys.com

exmark C920 Lexmark C920n Lexmark C920dn Lexmark C920dtn

32ppm full color 36ppm black & white

Sum-up: Lexmark’s powerful high-speed entry in the color ledger-size printer market.

Lexmark touts the ledger-size C920’s “dynamic” LED technology, claiming that it cures some of the registration problems that previous generations of LED printers encountered. In any case, we think it is a very good color printer. It’s a faster version of the 28ppm C912, now discontinued.

The C920 series has speeds of 32ppm in color and 36ppm in black-and-white, and achieves this speed at an interpolated resolution of 2,400dpi. We’ve come a long way from just a few years ago, when 8ppm in color was considered fast.

The C920 comes in four different flavors:

l The C920 is the base version ($3,299).

l The C920n adds networking ($3,549).

l The C920dn adds duplexing ($3,749).

l The C920dtn inc

ay, and netw

per tr

ludes automatic duplex,

orking ($4,999).

a second

All models in this family start with 256MB of memory,

h can be upg

hic

raded to 1GB. They use an extraordinarily powerful 1GHz processor and feature USB connectivity and PostScript 3 support as standard. All but the base model support standard Ethernet. An optional 40GB hard drive is also available.

The C920 family comes with a standard paper capacity

of 650 sheets in the base model, made up of a 100-sheet

ultipur

pose tray and a 550-sheet tray. The C920dtn, as we have stated, comes with a second standard tray. Paper capacity can be expanded to a whopping 5,300 sheets

On the output

thr

ough v

arious combina

tions of

options

. side, 650 sheets come standard with all models, though Lexmark also offers a 1,000-sheet-capacity finisher. The finisher performs single-position stapling of up to 30 sheets and has optional 3/4-hole punch.

e sheets

siz

One nice touc he 100-sheet m

h is the a

ultipur

pose f

bility to print o

eeder can hold sheets tha

are up to 12.5" x 36".

An optional feature you may want to add is Lexmark’s

. t

e Business Publications. Copying of Pages Prohibited.To Order: 800 247 2185 or www.betterbuys.com 29

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Page 31

Better Buys for Business

Lexmark C920 Consumables costs at-a-glance

OKI

Mount Laurel, NJ

856 235 2600

www.okidata.com

Vendor Profile

Price

Black print cartridge $220.00 15,000 $ 0.015 $ 0.015

Cyan print cartridge $302.00 14,000 $ 0.022 N/A

Magenta print cartridge $302.00 14,000 $ 0.022 N/A

Yellow print cartridge $302.00 14,000 $ 0.022 N/A

Developer/black $54.00 28,000 $ 0.002 $ 0.002

Developer/color $181.00 28,000 $ 0.006 N/A

TOTAL PER-PAGE COSTS

ImageQuick card. ImageQuick is on-demand software

ou to store forms or critical documents on an

that allo Internet server and lets users drag-and-drop to print the most up-to-date version. ImageQuick can handle a number of document formats, including PDF, HTML, GIF, PCL, PostScript, TIFF, and others. The software allows you to always print the latest documents, either from within your company or from outside. All end users need is a browser and access to a Lexmark printer.

Consumables costs r

color and a reasonable 1.7¢ in black-and-white.

Lexmark has a growing reputation for quality and great features, and we’re pretty enthusiastic about the C920 family. The price points are also especially attractive, and these models are worthy competitors to machines from OKI, Ricoh, and Xerox. The OKI Printing Solutions 9600 has very similar features. We particularly like some of the automatic conversion of PDF files and the added paper capacity. These printers get our Editor’s Choice Award.

Chart entries — pages 98–99

ws y

the special f

un at a moderate 8.7¢ per page in

es on the Lexmark models, such as

tur

Yield

Full-color cost per page

$ 0.0878 $ 0.0166

8.78 1.66

Black-and-white cost per page

The Printer Multifunctional Guide

Small-office multifunctionals and multifunctional

office printers that print up to 50ppm. These also

, scan, and f

cop

laser machines that oper

ax, and include both ink jet and

ate in

black-and-white and color.

Oki Data America, selling under the OKI Printing Solutions name, is a Japanese-based company that makes faxes, printers, and small-office multifunctional machines. Oki Data manufactures both monochrome and color models and is now in its third generation of laser-class color printers.

OKI uses a different imaging technology than most of

ers in this market —

aditional laser manuf

the mor it’s called LED, or light-emitting diode. However, because the technology is somewhat similar to laser, we consider it laser the past few years, several of the other key printer vendors have introduced models using LED technology, making it a little less e

which its color printers lay down the four colors that are used to mak first to use the single-pass printing method, in which ther same time versal. Some of the less expensive, slower printers in this guide use four-pass technology, in which a single drum lays down each of the four colors on the paper with a separate rotation.

tandem technology, is that it allows color printers to produce color pa used to be that there was a speed downside to producing black-and-white pages on a single-pass engine — the black pages were produced at the same speed as color ones, which was often slower than competing mono-

c ho which is very fast for color, and black-and-white pages at 40ppm, which stacks up extremely well against the speeds of typical monochrome printers.

alue-ad

e tr

-class f

OKI’s innovative approach also extended to the way in

e up a full-color page. OKI was one of the

parate black and color drums operating at the

e se

e ar

. That technique has now become almost uni-

The benefit of single-pass technology, also known as

es m

ded r

hines

eseller

.betterbuys.com

ome mac

ever, manage to produce color pages at 36ppm,

OKI Printing Solutions sells its machines through

www

or the pur

xotic than it once was.

aster than four-pass machines. It

h f

s higher-end single-pass printers,

OKI’

s and the mass discount mar

actur

poses of this guide. In

ket as

e Business Pub

ressiv

lications

Copying of Pages Prohibited.To Order: 800 247 2185 or www.betterbuys.com

Page 32

ell as over the Internet. OKI also sells its printers in special product bundles directly to specific niche markets, i

ncluding marketing departments, real estate offices,

insurance companies, and so on.

Product Profiles

OKI Printing Solutions C3400n

16ppm full color 20ppm black & white

Sum-up: Extraordinarily low price, but features are predictably limited.

The new C3400n breaks a new price barrier for OKI Printing Solutions, as it’s the company’s first under-$400 color printer offering. As expected for such a price, this LED printer is a no-frills model that offers good performance but has very limited features.

The $399 C3400n prints at 16ppm in color and 20ppm in black-and-white. Those are very impressive speeds for a color laser-quality machine in this price range.

The C3400n prints at 1,200 x 600dpi resolution. It has a 200MHz processor and comes with 32MB of memory, expandable to 288MB. It has a monthly duty cycle of 35,000 pages.

Those are all very respectable ratings for this machine’s price level.

But beyond basic functionality

, this machine is limited,

as you might expect. It has no built-in hard drive, and no

OKI C3400n Consumables costs at-a-glance

Price

k toner

Blac

an toner

enta toner

Yellow toner $100.00 2,000 $ 0.050 N/A

AGE COSTS

AL PER-P

$70.00 2,500 $ 0.028 $ 0.028

$100.00 2,000 $ 0.050 N/A

Yield

Full-color cost per page

$ 0.1780 $ 0.0280

17.80 2.80

Black-and-white cost per page

The Color Laser Printer Guide: Vendor & Product Profiles

ption for adding one. It runs on OKI’s host-based architecture, not PostScript, although that shouldn’t be a problem. As implied by the “n” in the product’s name, it is Ethernet-ready.

The C3400n is also limited in terms of paper handling. It has a 250-sheet paper supply but no options for adding to it. It has no duplexing option. It does, however, handle 110lb. index stock.

As you’d expect, consumables costs for this machine are high. We calculate that using OKI’s high-yield toner cartridges, color pages will run 17.8¢ apiece, while black pages will cost 2.8¢ each.

The C3400n is, by nature, a low-end color printer. But it offers great performance for a low cost. For users who want solid color printing in small quantities, this could be a welcome bargain, one that has earned our Editor’s Choice Award.

Chart entry — page 100

OKI Printing Solutions C5500n

20ppm full color 24ppm blac

k & white

OKI Printing Solutions C5800Ldn

24ppm full color 28ppm black & white

Sum-up: Solid performance for impressively low prices.

These new machines are steps up to OKI Printing Solutions’

C3400n (see above). Like that machine, they are laser-quality LED color printers that print at 1,200 x 600dpi. At $599 for the C5500n and $799 for the

y are still reasonable. But they offer more

C5800Ldn,

the advanced features and better options than their bargainpriced sibling.

The C5500n prints at 20ppm in color and 24ppm in black-and-white, while the C5800Ldn ups those figures to 24ppm in color and 28ppm in black-and-white. Both

e 60,000 monthly duty cycles. One clear improvement

ver the C3400n is the printers’ built-in memory: the

o C5500n comes with 64MB and the C5800Ldn has 128MB. Memory in both is expandable to 320MB.

Like the C3400n, neither of these units has built-in

k with OKI’s host-based architec-

ostScript.

tur

Both w

Ethernet is standard on both, and the machines have USB interfaces. Neither has a wireless option.

Where these printers truly surpass the C3400n is in their paper-handling capabilities. They have a 400-sheet

per suppl

y, which can be expanded with the addition of a 530-sheet additional tray. Neither has a bypass tray or an

ditional output options

y ad

e Business Publications. Copying of Pages Prohibited.To Order: 800 247 2185 or www.betterbuys.com 31

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Page 33

Better Buys for Business

OKI C5500/C5800 Consumables costs at-a-glance

Price

Black toner $108.00 5,000 $ 0.022 $ 0.022

Cyan toner $165.00 5,000 $ 0.033 N/A

Magenta toner $165.00 5,000 $ 0.033 N/A

Yellow toner $165.00 5,000 $ 0.033 N/A

lack

Drum/b

rums (3)/3-color

ransfer belt

Fuser kit $200.00 100,000 $ 0.002 $ 0.002

TOTAL PER-PAGE COSTS

$68.00 15,000 $ 0.005 $ 0.005

222.00 15,000 $ 0.015 N/A

$145.00 100,000 $ 0.001 $ 0.001

Yield

Full-color cost per page

$ 0.1434 $ 0.0296

14.34 2.96

Black-and-white cost per page

Duplexing is optional on the C5500n (for $179) and comes standard on the C5800Ldn. Both printers can work with 110lb. index.

Another impressive feature about these printers is their warranty:

as with all OKI models, the LED printhead is

covered for five years.

Consumables costs are on the high end — 14.3¢ per page for color and about 3¢ a page for black-and-white — but in terms of color printing improve upon the C3400n’s high cost.

e the C3400n, these are strong new entries in the

Lik realm of low-cost laser-quality color printing. They, too, have some limitations, which is to be expected in this price range. But they aren’t as basic as the C3400n. With their memory, paper handling, and duplexing, the C5500n and C5800Ldn are bargains worth considering

ve earned our Editor’s Choice Award.

t ha

tha

t entries — page 100

Char

technology. The models are priced as a relatively inexpensive alternative for those midrange users who don’t quite require the performance (or ledger page size) of the C9600/C9800 series.

The engine that powers these machines runs at 26ppm in black — a speed that rivals many monochrome workgroup printers — and at 24ppm in color.

An important factor influencing printer performance is the power of the processor that converts the files from your computer into images that can be printed. These models use a fast 500MHz chip. That’s acceptable speed for this family’s $1,500–$2,000 price range, and it should keep the C7350 and C7550 series’ engines humming.

These models have reasonable paper-handling capacity. The product family has a maximum paper capacity of 1,690 sheets, which is decent for this level of the market. In a nice touch, the models come with the same size paper trays that OKI supplies its monochrome printers — they hold 530 sheets instead of the usual 500. This means that you can drop in a full ream of paper before the drawer is empty, avoiding the waste that takes place when open partial reams are left lying around. Output is handled by a 100-sheet and a 500-sheet tray (both of which come standard) and is limited to 600 sheets. No finishing options ar

e available for those models.

Configurations: The C7350 family consists of two

models. The C7350n ($1,699 street), with 192MB of memor

y, is a par

allel-port or USB printer (both interfaces are standard) offering standard Ethernet. It comes with one 530-sheet tray plus a 100-sheet bypass. Standard resolution is 1,200 x 600dpi.

A 20GB hard disk is optional

as well.

OKI C7350/C7550 Consumables costs at-a-glance

OKI Printing Solutions C7350n OKI Printing Solutions C7350hdn OKI Printing Solutions C7550n OKI Printing Solutions C7550hdn

24ppm full color 26ppm b

lac

hite

k & w

Sum-up: Impressive speed and moderate prices make these models good buys.

The OKI Printing Solutions C7350 and C7550 models use an enhanced version of its LED-based single-pass

e Business Pub

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lications

Price

Black toner $108.00 10,000 $ 0.011 $ 0.011

Cyan toner $184.75 10,000 $ 0.018 N/A

Magenta toner $184.75 10,000 $ 0.018 N/A

Yellow toner $184.75 10,000 $ 0.018 N/A

lack

Drum/b

Drums (3)/3-color $465.00 30,000 $ 0.016 N/A

Transfer belt $273.00 60,000 $ 0.005 $ 0.005

Fuser kit $224.00 60,000 $ 0.004 $ 0.004

AL PER-PAGE COSTS

Copying of Pages Prohibited.To Order: 800 247 2185 or www.betterbuys.com

$144.00 30,000 $ 0.005 $ 0.005

Yield

Full-color cost per page

$ 0.0948 $ 0.0239

9.48 2.39

Black-and-white cost per page

Page 34

he OKI C7350hdn ($1,669) is the next step up in the line. It starts with 320MB of memory, and the hard disk i

s standard equipment. Automatic duplexing is standard,

as is PostScript.

The C7550 models print at a somewhat higher resolution than the C7350s, namely 1,200dpi versus 1,200 x 600dpi. PCL and PostScript are standard features.

The C7550n ($1,516) comes with 192MB of memory and an optional hard drive. The C7550hdn ($2,029) is similar, but it has standard duplexing and a standard hard drive.

The memory on all models can be expanded to 1,024MB (1GB), though we doubt there’s much advantage to going over 512MB. It’s hard to imagine anyone needing that much memory, even with complex color print jobs, but it’s there if you want it.

OKI has a lot of competition in the under-$2,000 category from printers that are at similar speeds in color. Check out Ricoh’s SP C410DN, Konica Minolta’s magicolor 5450, and Xerox’s Phaser 6300, for example. The OKI C7350 does hold its own in terms of paper handling, especially in output, where it offers more than the minimal 250-sheet output trays of its competitors.

In terms of

consumables costs

, the C7350 does pretty well, at around 9.5¢ in color. It is not so good in blackand-white (2.4¢).

OKI now has some strong competition,

but it’s a strong workgroup printer family and, thanks to an increase in speed, still competitive.

Chart entries — pa

ges 101–102

OKI Printing Solutions C6100n OKI Printing Solutions C6100dn OKI Printing Solutions C6100dtn OKI Printing Solutions C6100hdn

26ppm full color

hite

k & w

32ppm b

lac

The Color Laser Printer Guide: Vendor & Product Profiles

OKI C6100 Consumables costs at-a-glance

Price

Black toner $75.00 6,000 $ 0.013 $ 0.013

Cyan toner $130.00 5,000 $ 0.026 N/A

Magenta toner $130.00 5,000 $ 0.026 N/A

Yellow toner $130.00 5,000 $ 0.026 N/A

rum, black

rum, cyan

Drum, magenta $73.00 15,000 $ 0.005 N/A

Drum, yellow $73.00 15,000 $ 0.005 N/A

TOTAL PER-PAGE COSTS

l The C6100n, which has a 500MHz processor, 256MB

of memor

y, a 400-sheet paper supply, an optional

70.00 15,000 $ 0.005 $ 0.005

73.00 15,000 $ 0.005 N/A

Yield

Full-color cost per page

$ 0.1098 $ 0.0172

10.98 1.72

Black-and-white cost per page

hard drive, standard PostScript, and comes Ethernetready ($899).

l The C6100dn, which adds automatic duplexing

($1,049).

l The C6100dtn, which adds a standard 530-sheet input

tray and also has automatic duple

xing standard

($1,249).

he C6100hdn, the same as the 6100dtn (except for

l T

the 530-sheet tray), and with a built-in 40GB hard drive.

Sum-up: Speedy yet economical color laser family.

er far better speed than most econ-

hese ne

T om 32ppm in b

w models of

y models, with a very strong 26ppm in color and

lack-and-white.

The basic technology on the series is similar to that of

other OKI Printing Solutions models. These models are

oups doing low-volume color print-

ideal f

ing

or small w

Aside fr

om their affordable speed, they have a solid

set of features.

The family members now being sold are:

www.betterbuys.com

e Business Publications. Copying of Pages Prohibited.To Order: 800 247 2185 or www.betterbuys.com 33

ressiv

At 26ppm color, 36ppm black-and-white, these printers

offer speeds that would have been quite amazing a few

o. That OKI can offer such speeds starting under

s a

ear

y $900 shows how far the industry has come.

Paper supplies consist of a standard 400-sheet tray but no bypass tray. You can also add a 530-sheet paper tray, which comes standard with the C6100dtn, to the n, dn, and hdn models

bility f

handling ca

OKI hasn

or these models.

eleased the output pa

t r

’

per

By our calculations, the cost of operation is above average. Black-and-white pages cost around 1.72¢, and the color cost is 11¢, also a bit higher than the 10.0¢ per page cost we think of as moderate.

he C6100 models compete w

gment,

and if you need PostScript, they work with it as

ell in the lo

w-end mar

ket

Page 35

Better Buys for Business

well as with PCL.

Overall, this product family offers good value that

atches or exceeds that of most other printers in its league. It’s remarkable that unlike a few years ago, we can choose between a wealth of reasonably high-performance printers with decent features at such moderate prices. In that group, these OKI models stand out.

Chart entries — pages 102–103

OKI Printing Solutions C9600n OKI Printing Solutions C9600hdn OKI Printing Solutions C9800hn OKI Printing Solutions C9800hdn

36ppm full color 40ppm black & white

Sum-up: A ledger-size color printer series with superior speed and good features.

These ledger-size printers are the successors to OKI Printing Solutions’

excellent C9300 and C9500 printers, which had a strong track record. The models are faster, among the fastest printers we cover in this guide. In addition, they have a number of productivity-enhancing features that make them useful in office environments.

ve discussed (abo

We’

ve) in some detail the single-pass LED technology that OKI uses on its machines. OKI Printing Solutions has managed to take that technology and speed it up considerably with this product family.

Above all,

it is speed that makes this series stand out. was considered a breakthrough not long ago to print color pa And y

ges at anything faster than 6 pages per minute.

ou had to pay a big premium for that speed. The few really fast machines were derived from copiers and cost over four times as much as regular color printers.

Now OKI Printing Solutions offers a family of color

printers that print at 36ppm in color and 40ppm in black-

. With street prices in the $3,400–$7,200 range,

hite

and-w these models aren’t the cheapest, but they are priced competitively for what you get.

The C9600/C9800 series is made up of four models.

They are:

l The C9600n ($3,399 street), which is the base model.

It has 256MB of memory, a 720MHz processor, and standard networking.

l The C9600hdn ($4,009), which starts with 324MB of

memory and a hard disk and duplexing.

hich comes with 1GB of

he C9800hn ($6,889),

l T

memor

y and a har

d disk b

ut no automa

e Business Pub

ressiv

tic duplexing.

lications

OKI C9600/C9800 Consumables costs at-a-glance

Price

Black toner $110.00 15,000 $ 0.007 $ 0.007

Cyan toner $380.00 15,000 $ 0.025 N/A

Magenta toner $380.00 15,000 $ 0.025 N/A

Yellow toner $380.00 15,000 $ 0.025 N/A

Drum/black $145.00 42,000 $ 0.003 $ 0.003

Drums (3)/3-color $597.00 32,000 $ 0.019 N/A

Transfer belt $220.00 100,000 $ 0.002 $ 0.002

Fuser kit $179.00 100,000 $ 0.002 $ 0.002

TOTAL PER-PAGE COSTS

l The C9800hdn ($7,189), which adds duplexing.

Yield

Full-color cost per page

$ 0.1094 $ 0.0148

10.94 1.48

All of the models come standard with parallel, USB, and Ethernet interfaces, and they all offer Wi-Fi connectivity as well. They all support PCL 5e and PostScript 3 printing. Like many current printers, they can be managed remotely over the Internet.

The one-year on-site warranty is typical, and the LED printhead is guaranteed for five years. All four models output print at 1,200 x 600dpi resolution. They all have a monthly duty cycle of 150,000 pages.

he tw

o hdn models come standar

d with a 20GB har disk. While they can be used to store frequently run images or jobs, they are most useful for electronic collation of

very long jobs, especially when the full job can’t be maintained in memory. A 20GB hard disk is more than enough capacity.

per handling:

per handling is quite g

ood on this family, especially on the input side. First, the printers can handle ledg

er- and tabloid-size paper along with legaland letter-size pages. The base model has a 650-sheet standard paper capacity, which is based on a 550-sheet

hat’s convenient because you can put in a

per tr

ven when there are a few

full 500-sheet r

eam with ease

, sheets remaining in the drawer. It also has a 100-sheet multipurpose tray (which handles letter-size sheets only but can be used for transparencies and other nonstandard materials). You can add two 550-sheet trays or one 1,590sheet tr

y to all f

our models;

the C9600hdn offers the

additional option of a 1,650-sheet tray. There are other

Copying of Pages Prohibited.To Order: 800 247 2185 or www.betterbuys.com

Black-and-white cost per page

Page 36

rinters with more capacity, but we think that this is more

than adequate for most offices.

he drawers have built-in sensors that identify the size of paper loaded in them, a nice plus for busy offices. You can also feed 12" x 36" paper into this machine through the 100-sheet tray, so you can make signage or small posters, another nice plus.

Output capacity is decent. These models have 600 sheets of standard output, but they also offer an optional finisher with stapling and hole punching. Some other competitors have more elaborate output options for their ledger-size color printers, but OKI Printing Solutions does pretty well in this regard.

Consumables costs for black are very good (1.5¢ a page) and about average in color.

These OKI machines are excellent business machines. They make the most sense in office environments where you need both monochrome and color capability, as well as lots of speed and ledger-size paper. The image quality is more than good enough for office users.

The biggest competition comes from Ricoh’s comparably priced CL7300 family. The Ricoh model has somewhat more sophisticated finishing and output options, including higher bit slower, especially in black. Ricoh’s color operating costs are considerably lower as well. The Xerox Phaser 7400 series also offer those of

But that takes nothing away from the C9600/C9800 famil of memory. These are among the cream of the crop in the color laser-quality printer market.

Char

this OKI family for similar pricing.

y. It still has adequate finishing, good input, and lots

t entries — pages 103–104

-capacity stapling and a mailbo

s speed and features comparable to

x. It is a

PANASONIC

Secaucus, NJ 800 742 8086

www.panasonic.com

Vendor Pr

anasonic sells color printer

P engines made by its parent company, Matsushita. The company also sells black-and-white printers, fax

, copiers, and scanners.

hines

mac

Panasonic sells its color laser printers through both traditional office equipment dealers — Panasonic copier

ticular — and w

in par

dealer

ofile

s under its o

holesale printer c

wn name using

hannels.

The Color Laser Printer Guide: Vendor & Product Profiles

anasonic came back into the color laser market with some impressive machines a few years ago. Since then, they’ve upgraded those printer lines several times.

Product Profiles

Panasonic WORKiO KX-CL400 Panasonic WORKiO DP-CL18

18ppm full color 18ppm black & white

Sum-up: Solid low-cost workgroup printer series with good features and moderate operating costs.

These models mark the latest generation of Panasonic’s color laser printers. With 18ppm speed in both color and black-and-white, they replace the WORKiO KX-CL500 and DP-CL21 series. The KX-CL400 is intended for retail sales, while the DP-CL18 is sold by dealers. They have similar but not identical features.

The base price for this line is $899, as Panasonic tries to stay competitive in a market that keeps lowering prices for color laser output. At 18ppm in color, this is a pretty

y platfor

speed in Ethernet compatibility, making it an even better value.

Both models have some quite good standard features. USB and parallel ports complement the Ether (Wireless Ethernet is a third-party option.) They have embedded Web servers with remote administration and maintenance tools feature (PostScript is an option). And they offer an optional 40GB internal hard drive.

aper capacity is pretty good. You start with a 100-

P sheet multipurpose bypass tray and 530-sheet paper tray. You can add one or two additional 530-sheet trays. That’s a total of 1,690 sheets of paper capacity, quite good in this price range. Output capacity is the usual 250 sheets. The bypass tray can handle up to 110lb. card stock.

hese printer

x jobs and/or duplex printing more easily. Memory

ple can be e printer.

Consumables costs for the KX-CL400 are reasonable, especiall

lack cost per page as around 2.1¢ and the color cost as

10.0¢, quite decent. You’ll have to negotiate with your dealer about consumables costs if you buy the DP-CL18.

The other major difference between the models is that duplexing is standard on the DP-CL18, optional on the KX-CL400.

These printers are good bargains, but they exist in a

et with a r

mar

m for a sub-$1,000 printer. It also has built-

net port.

y also have PCL 5c as a standard

. The

s start with 128MB, so they handle com-

xpanded to 512MB, appropriate for this class of

We calculate the

or the sub-$1,000 printer

y f

ace to the bottom in ter

ms of

price

e Business Publications. Copying of Pages Prohibited.To Order: 800 247 2185 or www.betterbuys.com 35

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Page 37

Better Buys for Business

Panasonic WORKiO KX-CL400/DP-CL18/DP-CL22 Consumables costs at-a-glance

Black toner $42.00 6,000 $ 0.007 $ 0.007

Cyan toner $109.00 6,000 $ 0.018 N/A

Magenta toner $109.00 6,000 $ 0.018 N/A

Yellow toner $109.00 6,000 $ 0.018 N/A

Print cartridge/black $145.00 15,000 $ 0.010 $ 0.010

Print cartridges (3)/3-color

Waste toner/black $25.00 56,000 $ 0.000 $ 0.000

aste toner (3)/3-color

Accumulator unit $129.00 100,000 $ 0.001 $ 0.001

ransfer roller

Fuser kit $209.00 100,000 $ 0.002 $ 0.002

TOTAL PER-PAGE COSTS

Price

$349.00 15,000 $ 0.023 N/A

$25.00 14,000 $ 0.002 N/A

$19.00 100,000 $ 0.000 $ 0.000

Yield

Full-color cost per page

$ 0.1002 $ 0.0207

10.02 2.07

Black-and-white cost per page

sets them apart is good speed in color and black and the extensive (for this end of the market) paper input options. These Panasonic models have quite good consumables costs.

Once again, Panasonic has come up with a color print-

er with reasona

ble consumables costs

, a fairly low sticker

price, and good features.

Chart entries — page 105

Panasonic WORKiO DP-CL22

22ppm full color

k & white

22ppm b

lac

Sum-up: Same basic engine as the other Panasonic models,

ut a little f

aster

RICOH

West Caldwell, NJ

800 955 3453

www.ricoh-usa.com

Vendor Profile

Ricoh is at heart a copier and fax company, albeit a diversified one. Up until a few years ago, its forays into the monochrome printer market had been inconsistent, although it has for some time offered decent printing capabilities on its copier-based multifunctional machines. But the company now sells a number of high-performance color laser printer models, which we cover in this

. Ricoh sells these color laser printers thr

guide network of dealers, as well as direct on the Internet through its Ricoh Online Store. It also relabels them

ough Gestetner, Lanier

thr

, and Savin,

which are Ricoh

subsidiaries.

In 2004, Ricoh bought out Hitachi’s laser engine divi-

While Hitachi did not sell color lasers dir

sion. US, it has a number of resellers, including Ricoh itself.

Ricoh has an initiative it calls B2C, meaning black to

. The idea is that most offices need just an occasion-

color al color capacity mixed in with black-and-white capabili-

ar faster speed in black than

. Some Ricoh models of

ty in color

. It is as if the color printing is an extra add-on,

fer f

like networking or duplexing, that is thrown in with an otherwise good black-and-white printer.

Ricoh also recently rolled out a new line of laser-quality ink jet printers using its GelSprint technology that we’re covering with its laser machines.

ough its

ectly in the

The WORKiO DP-CL22 is a somewhat faster version of the DP-CL18 (above). It runs at 22ppm in color and black-and-white. It also has a faster processor, at 600MHz,

and a slightl

price is also a little higher

aster fir

y f

at $1,199 estimated street; oth-

st-page-out time. The

erwise, its features are exactly the same. Paper capacity tops out at 1,690 sheets if you add the two optional 530sheet trays, and duplexing is standard. Ethernet and USB are standard, wireless Ethernet optional. PostScript is an option.

he consumables are the same as the DP-CL18 as well.

T Like that model, it’s competitive and has a reasonable price. It also has a good total paper input capacity and very strong features.

e 105

e Business Pub

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lications

Char

t entr

y — pa

Product Pr

ofiles

Ricoh Aficio CL1000N

8ppm full color

k & white

31ppm b Note: T

lac

his model has been discontin

ued.

Sum-up: Ricoh’s low-end color printer is remarkably speedy in black-and-white.

he CL1000N is Ricoh’s entry-level color laser printer. It

T has a list price of $899 and comes standard with Ethernet. What’s remarkable is its 31ppm black-andwhite speed. A black-and-white-only printer running at

le speeds w

compar

Copying of Pages Prohibited.To Order: 800 247 2185 or www.betterbuys.com

ould be only a little less expensive.

Page 38

hen you add the reasonable 8ppm color speed and you’ve got a very affordable mixed-use, network-ready m

achine.

Other features are pretty good. First, the resolution is a good 1,200 x 600dpi. PostScript is a standard feature. Memory starts at 128MB and can be expanded to 384MB. An optional hard disk is available. A 300MHz processor offers decent performance.

Duplexing is another option. Wireless Ethernet (Wi-Fi) is optional as well. You can also upgrade this unit to a multifunctional, with the IS100E option (outlined in the text below).

This unit comes with a 250-sheet paper supply standard, and you can add an optional 530-sheet paper tray. Output is limited to 250 sheets.

The printer has an optional scanner/copier unit, called the Ricoh IS100E Flatbed Color Scanner. This CCD unit scans at 9ppm at 600dpi and has a 25-sheet, legal-size document feeder, along with a flatbed platen. The list price is $1,499. This unit supports scan-to-email (it can hold 2,000 email addresses) and scan-to-PDF, and it’s connected to the printer through a parallel port or Ethernet interface.

The big

gest drawback is the cost per page. The 13.9¢ cost per color page and 3.1¢ for black-and-white are high. That’s particularly striking given the black-and-white printing speed. Of cour should be a

ble to negotiate a much better price with your

se, these are list prices, and you

dealer — before you buy the machine.

The CL1000N is based on w

hat was originally an

Hitachi engine. (Ricoh bought out Hitachi’s printer oper-

Ricoh Aficio CL1000N Consumables costs at-a-glance

k toner

Blac

Cyan toner $181.00 6,500 $ 0.028 N/A

enta toner

Yellow toner $181.00 6,500 $ 0.028 N/A

Waste toner bottle $13.00 11,000 $ 0.001 $ 0.001

Drum/black $495.00 60,000 N/A $ 0.008

Drum/4-color $495.00 15,000 $ 0.033 N/A

Fuser unit $247.50 100,000 $ 0.002 $ 0.002

TOTAL PER-PAGE COSTS

Price

$185.00 9,800 $ 0.019 $ 0.019

$181.00 6,500 $ 0.028 N/A

Yield

Full-color cost per page

$ 0.1391 $ 0.0308

13.91 3.08

Black-and-white cost per page

The Color Laser Printer Guide: Vendor & Product Profiles

tions.) It’s essentially the same machine as the Brother HL-2700CN. While prices are hard to compare (Ricoh shows list price only), they seem to be in the same general ballpark. The Ricoh model comes with more memory. The consumables costs appear to be somewhat higher on the Ricoh machines. Otherwise, the models are pretty similar.

All in all, this is a very strong small workgroup printer. It’s relatively inexpensive, but it has some strong features. You should be able to drive a better deal with your Ricoh dealer than the list price on this machine.

Chart entry — page 106

Ricoh Aficio CL3500N

22ppm full color 22ppm black & white

Sum-up: Respectable color performance at a low price point.

The ne

w Aficio CL3500N ($999) is a strong new model in Ricoh’s color laser printer line. It follows a current trend being followed by printer manufacturers of rolling out desktop color mac for both color and black-and-w

hines with consistent speed ratings

w-end color laser

. Lo

hite machines released over the last few years frequently had wide gaps between color and black-and-white speeds, such as the CL1000N (abo

ve).

The CL3500N prints at 22ppm in both color and blackand-white. It’s a solid performer suitable for a small workgroup. And since color printing would most likely be the main need of its users, that’s a welcome improvement.

he CL3500N prints a

t 1,200dpi native resolution. It has a speedy 533MHz processor, and 128MB of standard memory, expandable to 512MB. An optional 20GB hard drive is available.

The printer has standard PostScript and Ethernet, as

well as a USB interface. Wireless and Bluetooth connec-

vity ar

100-sheet m

e available as options.

he machine has a 530-sheet paper tray as well as a

ultipurpose bypass tray. Up to two 530-sheet trays of paper supply can be added for a maximum paper capacity of 1,690 sheets. Duplexing is available as an option.

Output is limited to 250 sheets

Ricoh also of

fers a multifunction option, in which an

image scanner can be added to the unit.

Consumables for this unit are reasonably priced, running 8.7¢ a page for color and 1.7¢ a page for black-andwhite. Those are respectable prices for an under-$1,000 color laser printer

This is a solid workhorse ideal for small offices and

www.betterbuys.com

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Page 39

Better Buys for Business

Ricoh CL3500N Consumables costs at-a-glance

Black toner $31.75 5,000 $ 0.006 $ 0.006

Cyan toner $85.75 5,000 $ 0.017 N/A

Magenta toner $85.75 5,000 $ 0.017 N/A

Yellow toner $85.75 5,000 $ 0.017 N/A

Drum/black $83.25 13,000 N/A $ 0.006

Drum/4-color $320.25 13,000 $ 0.025 N/A

ransfer unit

Waste toner bottle $22.00 36,000 $ 0.001 $ 0.001

Fuser unit $247.00 100,000 $ 0.002 $ 0.002

TOTAL PER-PAGE COSTS

Price

$106.00 83,000 $ 0.001 $ 0.001

Yield

Full-color cost per page

$ 0.0868 $ 0.0171

8.68 1.71

Black-and-white cost per page

workgroups. It compares well to similar offerings from Ricoh’s competitors, including the Hewlett-Packard Color LaserJ

et 3800, the Panasonic

WORKiO DP-CL22, and the Kyocera FS-C5025N. It has good paper handling for a desktop model, and the 22ppm color speed is a commendable impr

ovement over past Ricoh color models in this price range. This printer gets our Editor’s Choice Award.

t entry — page 106

Char

Connectivity includes, besides standard USB and Ethernet, optional Wi-Fi or Bluetooth wireless systems. M

ac and UNIX systems are supported as well as

Windows PCs.

Paper handling starts with a 100-sheet multipurpose tray and a 550-page standard tray. All trays can handle heavy card stock up to 110 lb index. You can add one or two more 550-sheet trays for a maximum paper capacity of 1,750 sheets. Output is limited to a 500-sheet tray.

In this speed range, you should also look at the Kyocera FS-C5030N and Brother HL-4200CN, which can match the SP C410DN’s speed. The main competition to the SP C411DN is Hewlett-Packard’s Color LaserJet 4700 family, which also runs at 31ppm.

Printing costs are excellent. Black pages cost around

1.3¢; color costs are even better at 6.3¢. That’s one of the best cost structures in the business, especially for a midrange printer.

Ricoh offers an upgrade to these printers that adds scanning functionality, including scan-to-email, scan-to-folder, scan-to-FTP

, and scan-to-print.

These are fast workgroup-ready machines, and we assume y

ou can buy them for a f

than their $1,199 and $1,599 r

ew hundred dollars less

especti

ve list prices. With their built-in duplex and low cost of operation, the SP C410DN and SP C411DN are definitely models tha deserve a close look for busy workgroups.

Chart entries — pages 106–107

Ricoh Aficio SP C410DN

26ppm color 26ppm black & white

Ricoh Aficio SP C411DN

31ppm full color 31ppm b

lac

hite

k & w

Sum-up: Two new standout models in terms of cost per page.

Aficio SP C410DN and

Aficio SP C411DN are new printers in the Ricoh line. The SP C410DN, which runs a

t 26ppm in color and b

lack-and-white, has a $1,199 list price. Besides their speed ratings, these models are identical.

lude automatic duplexing and an

hese printer

net port. They are powered by a robust 600MHz

Ether

s inc

processor. Ricoh rates them for up to 150,000 pages per month, making them solid workhorses for large workgroups.

PostScript and PCL are supported, as you would

xpect.

These machines come with 256MB of memory, which you can upgrade to 512MB. A 40GB hard disk is an option f

or both.

e Business Pub

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lications

Ricoh AficioSP C410DN/C411DN Consumables costs at-a-glance

Price

k toner

Blac

Cyan toner $215.00 15,000 $ 0.014 N/A

Magenta toner $215.00 15,000 $ 0.014 N/A

w toner

ello

Drum/b

lack

Drum/3-color $490.00 50,000 $ 0.010 N/A

er unit

ransf

Waste toner bottle $45.00 125,000 $ 0.000 $ 0.000

Fuser unit $195.00 100,000 $ 0.002 $ 0.002

TOTAL PER-PAGE COSTS

Copying of Pages Prohibited.To Order: 800 247 2185 or www.betterbuys.com

$90.00 15,000 $ 0.006 $ 0.006

$215.00 15,000 $ 0.014 N/A

$165.00 50,000 $ 0.003 $ 0.003

$140.00 100,000 $ 0.001 $ 0.001

Yield

Full-color cost per page

$ 0.0658 $ 0.0130

6.58 1.30

Black-and-white cost per page

Page 40

The Color Laser Printer Guide: Vendor & Product Profiles

Ricoh Aficio CL7200 Ricoh Aficio CL7200D R

icoh Aficio CL7200DT1 Ricoh Aficio CL7200DT2 Ricoh Aficio CL7200DL

28ppm color 32ppm black & white

Sum-up: Speedy, feature-rich ledger-size printer family with low operating costs.

The Ricoh Aficio CL7200 family offers high speed and excellent features, including the capability to print at ledger size and produce folded booklets. Running at 28ppm in color and 32ppm in black-and-white, it offers excellent paper handling at reasonable prices (starting at $3,495) for the base model.

The CL7200 family has five configurations. They are:

l The base model CL7200 ($3,495 list), which starts

with 1,100 sheets of input.

Ricoh Aficio CL7200/CL7300D Consumables costs at-a-glance

Price

lack toner

Cyan toner $134.00 10,000 $ 0.013 N/A

Magenta toner $134.00 10,000 $ 0.013 N/A

Yellow toner $134.00 10,000 $ 0.013 N/A

Drum/black $115.00 40,000 $ 0.003 $ 0.003

Drums (3)/3-color $365.00 40,000 $ 0.009 N/A

Developer/black $97.00 80,000 $ 0.001 $ 0.001

Developer/3-color $330.00 80,000 $ 0.004 N/A

Fuser $460.00 80,000 $ 0.006 $ 0.006

TOTAL PER-PAGE COSTS

60.00 20,000 $ 0.003 $ 0.003

Yield

Full-color cost per page

$ 0.0663 $ 0.0128

6.63 1.28

Black-and-white cost per page

l The CL7200D ($3,795), whic

l The CL7200DT1 ($4,995), which adds a third 500-

h adds a duplex unit.

sheet drawer for a total of 1,600 sheets.

l The CL7200DT2 ($5,695), which adds a fourth 500-

sheet dr

l The CL7200DL (also $5,695), which adds a 2,000-

awer for a total of 2,100 sheets.

sheet stacker (replacing two of the 500-sheet drawers) for a total of

All of

the units ar

3,100 sheets.

wered by a 733MHz processor.

e po They start with 256MB of memory, expandable to 512MB. A 40GB hard disk is available. The estimated monthly duty cycle is a maximum of 200,000 pages.

Ethernet and USB connectivity are standard for all

i-Fi, Bluetooth, gigabit

models

net,

Ether

Among the options ar

ven a parallel connection.

and e

Input starts with a 100-sheet multipurpose tray and two 500-sheet trays. You can add up to two more 500-sheet trays, or a 2,000-sheet large-capacity tray. The bypass will handle up to 90lb. bond, while the standard drawers are limited to up to 28lb

per can be handled.

bond.

As noted a

bove, 11" x 17"

Output is where this model gets exciting. The standard output is a 100-sheet bypass tray and a 500-sheet standard tray. The options include a multiposition finisher

t can handle up to 2,000 sheets and sta

tha

. Alternatively, there’s a 1,000-sheet booklet maker

sheets

ple up to 50

www.betterbuys.com

e Business Publications. Copying of Pages Prohibited.To Order: 800 247 2185 or www.betterbuys.com 39

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that can create saddlestitched booklets of up to 50 sheets. You can add a 2/3-hole punc

h to either unit.

As with other Ricoh printers, the costs per page are

quite low: around 1.3¢ in black and 6.6¢ in color. These

e excellent costs, with few rivals in the printing segment

ar doing better.

Ricoh has had a good track record in producing affordable, feature-laden ledger color laser printers. The CL7200 models combine very good speed, strong paper

, excellent finishing options, and a heavy-duty

inputs cycle. In addition, the price is very reasonable compared to far less able ledger printers. The CL7200 is a very good buy that is deserving of our Editor’s Choice Award.

Chart entries — pages 107–108

Ricoh Ricoh

Aficio GX3000 Aficio GX3050N

29ppm color 29ppm b

lac

hite

k & w

Ricoh Aficio GX5050N

30ppm color 30ppm b

lack & white

Sum-up: New laser-quality GelSprint machines are outstanding bargains.

With Ricoh’s rollout of three new color printers using its

olutionar

en a major lea

tak

y GelSprint tec

p in the industr

hnology, the company has

y-wide quest to de

velop inexpensive laser-quality color machines with the low purchase price of a low-end ink jet printer.

Page 41

Better Buys for Business

How did Ricoh do it? GelSprint is an ink jet-based technology, but with its advanced permanent print head (

guaranteed to last for the life of the unit), these machines can be competitive with today’s cutting-edge desktop color machines in terms of performance, quality, durability, and perhaps most importantly, consumables costs.

Just look at the specs: the $199 Aficio GX3000 and $279 Aficio GX3050N print at 29ppm in color and blackand-white, while the $369 Aficio GX5050N prints at 30ppm in color and black-and-white. The difference between print speeds of these models is minimal. Our assumption is they’re about equal in terms of speed, and the GX5050N was rated 1ppm faster to differentiate it as a superior machine for marketing purposes.

Note, however, that as with conventional ink jet printers, these ratings are for draft quality (about 300 x 150dpi quality). Still, the speeds for higher quality levels are good: at 600 x 300dpi quality, the GX3000 and GX3050N print in color at 8.5ppm and the GX5050N

ves 15.5ppm speed; in high quality mode (1,800 x

achie 600dpi quality), the GX3000 and GX3050N print color at 4.5ppm and the GX5050N prints color at 7.5ppm.

That’s not all. All three machines print at native 1,200dpi r

esolution,

which can be inter

polated up to 3,600 x 1,200dpi. First print speed is under 9 seconds for the GX3000 and GX3050N, and 6 seconds for the GX5050N

. Those ar

e exceptional ratings, especially when compared to standard ink jet color machines, which are typically notoriously slow in getting out a first

ge.

This family begins with the base model, the GX3000, which has a 200MHz processor and 32MB of memory. It uses host-based printing

. The GX3050N is virtually the same machine, except it has a 400MHz processor, 64MB of memory, and PCL compatibility. The GX3050N, as the “N” at the end of its name implies, also adds standard networking, which is available as an option on the GX3000. The top of this line, the GX5050N, doubles the GX3000’

s and GX3050N’

s 250-sheet paper supply to 500

sheets. All three machines have an optional 100-sheet

ypass tr

y tha

t can handle v

arious pa

per stoc

ks and siz

es including envelopes, postcards, transparencies, glossy paper, and banners, and up to 68lb. stock. This tray can handle sheets up to 51" in length f

d maximum paper size is 8-1/2" x 14".

dar

or banner

s. The stan-

Ricoh will distribute these machines through its regular dealer network, but also will increase its market penetration by selling them (and their supplies) through retailer CDW (www.cdw.com). That’s a significant change for Ricoh,

which typically has only sold its consumables through Ricoh dealers. Time will tell if this outreach effort impr

esence in the r

es Ricoh’

s pr

ressiv

etail market.

e Business Pub

lications

As the “GelSprinter” name implies, these machines use a thicker, gelatin-like ink that is conveyed by the machines’ printhead as droplets via two rows of nozzles. Since the droplets are larger than those of a conventional ink jet machine, they fill in images better. Since these machines don’t need to heat up the gel to convey it to the paper and therefore run “cold,” their print quality isn’t compromised by the wet prints, smudging, or paper misfeeds that can result from the heating process associated with many ink jet machines.

The company is trumpeting the machines’ permanent printhead as an innovation that will contribute to their long life and minimal maintenance. Ricoh claims these printheads will never need replacing, and due to the durability of their nozzles, their quality won’t decline over time.

Ricoh hasn’t announced consumables prices, but we estimate black pages will run around 2.1¢ apiece, while color pages will cost about 15¢ each. Those aren’t the lowest consumables prices you’ll find in this guide, but they compare favorably with those of color laser desktop machines in this family’s price range.

In fact, these GelSprinter machines stack up very well against similarly priced competing color laser printers,

h as the $399 OKI C3400n,

suc

which prints a

t 16ppm in color with consumables costs of nearly 18¢ a page, or the $299 Hewlett-Packard Color LaserJet 1600, which prints at 8ppm in color and costs 15.5¢ per color page for consumables.

The ink is noteworthy for being a step above much of

the con

ventional ink used b

y ink jet printer

s. The GelSprinter viscous ink dries fast, doesn’t smudge, blur, or bleed, and is waterproof.

ved something truly special with this

Ricoh has ac

hie family of printers. They offer outstanding value for the money, with excellent speed, crisp quality, and consumables that are at least in line with similarly priced, slower color laser models. They get our Editor’s Choice Award.

Chart entries — page 109

Ricoh Aficio CL7300D Ricoh

Aficio CL7300DT1 Ricoh Aficio CL7300DT2 Ricoh Aficio CL7300DL

35ppm color 35ppm black & white

Note: These models have been discontinued.

Sum-up: One of the fastest and feature-rich color laser print-

amilies.

er f

e Ricoh Aficio CL7300 printers are similar

-siz

he ledg

in many ways to the Ricoh Aficio CL7200 documented

Copying of Pages Prohibited.To Order: 800 247 2185 or www.betterbuys.com

Page 42

bove, though they are (of course) faster. What is outstanding is the strong paper-handling capability, includi

ng paper weights up to 90lb. index. These models handle 12" x 18" paper, so that you can print two pages at a time, with room for trim marks and bleeds. All models have a monthly duty cycle of up to 200,000 pages.

The CL7300 family has four variations and all units

come with automatic duplexing:

l The base model CL7300D ($5,095 list), which starts

with 1,100 sheets of input

l The CL7300DT1 ($5,995), which adds a third 500-

sheet drawer for a total of 1,600 sheets

l The CL7300DT2 ($6,740), which adds a fourth 500-

sheet drawer for a total of 2,100 sheets

The Color Laser Printer Guide: Vendor & Product Profiles

odels in this guide.

While this is an excellent family, you should look closely at Ricoh’s CL7200 printer. Those printers are a little slower and have no standard hard disk, but otherwise are pretty much the same machines. You may find that added speed is not worth the extra money. If it’s raw speed that you want, the OKI Printing Solutions C9800 models are even a bit faster, with more memory. They don’t have the booklet maker option, however, and cost more than the CL7300 models.

This is an outstanding printer family with top-of-theline features. If you need a combination of top speed and a booklet maker, it is the best choice on the market.

Chart entries — pages 110–111

l The CL7300DL (also $6,740), which adds a 2,000-

sheet stacker

As with the 7200 family, all of the 7300 printers are powered by a 733MHz processor. They start with 256MB of memory, expandable to 512MB. One unusual feature

t allows

is a 40GB hard disk standard on all models you to run very complex jobs.

These machines come with Ethernet and USB connec-

vity standard. You can get a parallel port as an option.

ti Wireless options are Wi-Fi and Bluetooth. There’s also a Gigabit Ethernet option. In addition, there’s a PictBridge option f PostScript and PCL printing are supported, as is direct PDF printing

Eac two 500-sheet trays to start with. All handle ledger-size paper. There are four 500-sheet trays available, or a combination of two 500-sheet trays and a 2,000-sheet feeder. That adds up to a maximum of 4,100 sheets of input.

The options for output are better than those for many color printer a 500-sheet standard tray. You can then add a finisher with a capacity of 2,000 sheets. It can staple up to 50 sheets at a time in several positions. Another option is a 1,000-sheet saddlestitcher/booklet maker. It can produce booklets up to 50 sheets eac

pable of making two or three holes is another option,

ca but only if you have one of the finishers.

There is a scanner unit available, the SI3000, that lets you upgrade this printer to a multifunctional.

As with the CL7200, color pages run at about 6.6¢,

hile black pages cost around 1.3¢. These are among the

w best costs-per-page in the industry. If cost-per-page is the most critical issue

or dir

h machine has a 100-sheet multipurpose tray and

ect connection to digital cameras

You start with a 100-sheet bypass tray and

A hole-punching unit,

ou should also look a

e Business Publications. Copying of Pages Prohibited.To Order: 800 247 2185 or www.betterbuys.com 41

ressiv

. Tha

t the K

ocer

RISO

Danvers, MA 978 777 7377

www.riso.com

Vendor Profile

RISO is a leader in the specialized w cators, but it has extended its product line to printers. The company is a subsidiary of RISO Kagaku Corporation of Japan. RISO was the original inventor of the digital

ocess some

duplica ing and of

Digital Duplicator Guides

RISO’s other products.)

al printer of Lexmark products. Among their many features, they offer a way to share a single controller between a printer and a duplicator. Print jobs processed by the controller that are within the duplicator’s cost-saving run-length range are sent to the duplicator, while short-run jobs are sent to the printer or multifunctional.

based netw

ting process

fset printing. (See our

In the past few years, RISO has been selling convention-

s and m

RISO distributes its digital duplicators through a broad-

, a pr

for more on this process and

ultifunctional machines that are versions

s and dir

dealer

k of

Discontinued Models?

We don't cover these “end of life” models in this volume,

but they usually have been covered in previous issues.

Call us at 800 247 2185 if you are interested in back

issues.

orld of digital dupli-

e betw

wher

High-V

ect-sales br

een copy-

olume Printer &

hes

anc

Page 43

Better Buys for Business

Product Profiles

RISO G752

20ppm full color 20ppm black & white Same Machine as the now-discontinued Lexmark C752dtn

Note: That model is the predecessor to the current C762 family, and is slower and less powerful but has similar paper-handling features.

Chart entry — page 111

RISO G912

28ppm full color 28ppm black & white Same Machine as the discontinued Lexmark C912dn

Note: That machine was the predecessor to the current C920 family, and is slower and less powerful but has similar paper-handling features.

Chart entry — page 111

SAMSUNG

Rancho Dominguez, CA

310 900 5270

www.samsungusa.com

Vendor Profile

Samsung has made its mar printer market, becoming one of the dominant companies in tha the Korean company moved into color laser printing.

Samsung’s printer division is growing in importance.

mer

F telecom operation, the printer division has moved to Southern California and now has the stature of a fullfledged Samsung subsidiary — a move that has facilitated its sales, marketing, and branding efforts.

Samsung has betw

eseller

r challenging HP in the small-office/home-office area with strong sub-$1,000 offerings.

t area over the past few years. More recently,

y a sub

unit of

een 200 and 300 na

And it’s been having success at retail stores,

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s and

Product Profiles

Samsung CLP-510 Samsung CLP-510N

5ppm full color 25ppm black & white

Samsung CLP-550 Samsung CLP-550N

5ppm full color 21ppm black & white

Sum-up: Personal and small workgroup printers that face stiff competition.

These Samsung models are similar in most respects. Note that the lower-numbered models (the CLP-510 and CLP510N) are actually a little faster than the higher-numbered ones (the CLP-550 and CLP-550N). That’s because the CLP-510’s engine was upgraded from the CLP-500, while the CLP-550 models ar ers offer 5ppm color printing and 21ppm black-and-white printing. The CLP-510 printers are rated at 5ppm in color, 25ppm in black. Like many of Samsung’s products, this series is directed at the personal or small workgroup user.

There are four printers in this series, namely:

l The CLP-510, which is a GDI-only printer ($400)

l The CLP-510N, which adds an Ethernet card ($500)

l The CLP-550, which offers PCL 6 and PostScript 3

but no standard Ethernet ($575)

l The CLP-550N, which offers PCL 6, PostScript 3, and

standar

All four models have 266MHz processors. The CLP510, CLP-510N, and CLP-550 start with 64MB of memory, while the CLP-550N comes with 128MB. The CLP510 models max out at 192MB, while the CLP-550 mac 550N) 384MB CLP-550 machines are PostScript-capable.

These printers are capable of running at up to an interpolated resolution of 1,200dpi. The maximum paper size is 8.5" x 14". USB, parallel, and (on the “N” models) 100BaseT Ether solution is available.

These printers are both Mac OS X- and Linux-compatible. These also have a feature Samsung calls “NO-

d Ether

hines can be e

net ($671)

xpanded to 320MB and (f

. This extra memory may be helpful, as the

net are included. A wireless Ethernet

e older. The CLP-550 print-

or the CLP-

e Business Pub

ressiv

lications

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Page 44

The Color Laser Printer Guide: Vendor & Product Profiles

Samsung CLP-510 Consumables costs at-a-glance

Black toner $81.99 7,000 $ 0.012 $ 0.012

Cyan toner $66.99 2,000 $ 0.033 N/A

Magenta toner $66.99 2,000 $ 0.033 N/A

Yellow toner $66.99 2,000 $ 0.033 N/A

Drum/black $149.99 12,500 N/A $ 0.012

Drum/4-color $149.99 3,125 $ 0.048 N/A

Image transfer unit/black

mage transfer unit/4-color

Waste toner bottle/black $19.99 12,000 N/A $ 0.002

Waste toner bottle/4-color

TOTAL PER-PAGE COSTS

Price

$149.99 50,000 N/A $ 0.003

$149.99 12,500 $ 0.012 N/A

$19.99 3,000 $ 0.007 N/A

Yield

Full-color cost per page

$ 0.1789 $ 0.0284

17.89 2.84

Black-and-white cost per page

NOIS,” which means, as the name implies, lowered operating noise. They also offer easy toner installation and what they call “4-click” installation for software drivers.

Paper supplies start with a 100-sheet bypass and a 250sheet paper tray. You can add a 500-sheet tray, for a total capacity of 850 sheets. All of these models offer automatic duple

xing as a standard feature, a nice plus.

The CLP-510 uses different toner cartridges from those in the CLP-550, but the other supplies are the same. For both printers, however, the cost per page is quite high. We calculate it o

ver 17¢ for a color pa

ge, over 3.0¢ for black-

and-white.

These machines are fine basic color machines, but

xmark and OKI Printing Solutions offer lower-priced

Le models with significant speed advantages, and in the case of Lexmark, PostScript printing. A few years ago, these would have been very competitive models, but they’ve

ertaken by some key competitors.

been o

These models are, nevertheless, solid performers. Samsung, with its strong position in black-and-white lasers in the retail channel, will sell plenty of them.

Chart entries — pages 112–113

Samsung CLP-600N Samsung CLP-650N

21ppm full color 21ppm black & whi

Sum-up:

Shar

p print quality and decent speed make this low-

cost family a decent buy.

ith the rollout of its new CLP-600N and CLP-650N,

W Samsung has become a true player in the increasingly

e Business Publications. Copying of Pages Prohibited.To Order: 800 247 2185 or www.betterbuys.com 43

ressiv

ompetitive low-end color laser printer market. Like most printer vendors, Samsung doesn’t publish list prices, but with street prices of $499 for the CLP-600N and $699 for the CLP-650N, these machines are sure to hold appeal for today’s buyers.

The CLP-600N and CLP-650N represent a vast improvement over the CLP-510 and CLP-550 models in terms of color speed, since both of the new machines print at 21ppm in both color and black-and-white. With interpolation, they can print at up to 2400dpi resolution. This combination of decent speed and sharp printing is a main asset of this family.

These machines have a 600MHz processor, commendable for this price range. The CLP-600’s 32MB of built-in memory is nothing special, especially considering that it’s not expandable. Memory is far better on the CLP-650N, which has 256MB of built-in memory, expandable to 512MB.

The printers’ 45,000 monthly duty cycle is decent for printers in this price range. This rating implies Samsung believes they’re equipped to handle a heavier load than some other comparable machines

, such as the Konica Minolta magicolor 2530 DL or Hewlett-Packard Color LaserJet 2605dn, both of which have a 35,000 page rated cycle.

Like some other machines in this price range such as the OKI Printing Solutions C5500n and C5800Ldn, these units lack a built-in hard drive. That could be a serious drawback for users who want to archive print jobs.

Samsung CLP-550/CLP-600N/CLP-650N Consumables costs at-a-glance

Price

Black toner $99.99 7,000 $ 0.014 $ 0.014

an toner

enta toner

Yellow toner $119.99 5,000 $ 0.024 N/A

Drum/black $149.99 12,500 N/A $ 0.012

Drum/4-color $149.99 3,125 $ 0.048 N/A

Image transfer unit/black

Image transfer unit/4-color

Waste toner bottle/black $19.99 12,000 N/A $ 0.002

aste toner bottle/4-color

AL PER-PAGE COSTS

$119.99 5,000 $ 0.024 N/A

$149.99 50,000 N/A $ 0.003

$149.99 12,500 $ 0.012 N/A

$19.99 3,000 $ 0.007 N/A

Yield

Full-color cost per page

$ 0.1529 $ 0.0309

15.29 3.09

Black-and-white cost per page

Page 45

Better Buys for Business

The CLP-600N also lacks PostScript support, which comes standard on the CLP-650N. Both do, however, h

ave standard Ethernet and USB interfaces, and wireless

functionality is available as an option.

Paper supply for these machines is acceptable for their price range. They have a 250-sheet tray standard and a 100-sheet bypass tray. An optional 500-sheet tray is available. Duplex isn’t available, even as an option, for either machine.

Predictably, consumables costs are on the high end:

15.3¢ per color page and 3.09¢ per black page.

Still, these are respectable machines for their cost. We’re concerned about the CLP-600N’s modest (and limited) memory and lack of PostScript support. For these reasons, we’d go with the CLP-650N, which comes with far more memory and PostScript for only $200 more. Both machines, however, get our Editor’s Choice Award.

Chart entries — page 113

Savin CLP831

8ppm full color 31ppm black & white Same Machine as the Ricoh Aficio CL1000N

Chart entry — page 114

Savin CLP128

28ppm full color 32ppm black & white Same Machine as the Ricoh Aficio CL7200

Chart entry — page 114

Savin CLP135 D

35ppm full color 35ppm black & white Same Machine as the Ricoh Aficio CL7300D This model has been discontinued.

Chart entry — page 115

SAVIN

ord, CT

Stamf

203 967 5000

.savin.com

www

Vendor Profile

Savin, a subsidiary of Ricoh, sells relabeled Ricoh print-

s, copiers, faxes, and digital duplicators under the Savin

er brand through a strong network of dealers and directsales br respective Ricoh counterparts.

Note that Savin announced the names of its three printer GX3000, the GX3050N, and the GX5050N. These correspond to the similarly named Ricoh products on page 39.

22ppm full color 22ppm b Same Mac

Chart entry — page 114

anches. Savin machines are identical to their

s based on the Ricoh GelSprinter series

Product Profiles

vin CLP22

hite

k & w

lac

hine as the Ricoh

Aficio CL3500N

Update information and more

www.betterbuys.com

hese ar

e the

SHARP

Mahwah, NJ 800 237 4277

www.sharpusa.com

Vendor Profile

p is a large Japanese manufacturer that has built a

Shar solid reputation in the office equipment industry. It sells a full range of printers, copiers, and fax machines, along with several small-office and workgroup multifunctionals.

Sharp’s desktop printers are based on its copiers and

printer-based multifunctionals. We’ve included the print-

sions in this v

y v

-onl

er multifunctional models, while similar to the machines we document here, have no corresponding printer unit. They can be found in our details).

p distrib

Shar

, distributors, and retail stores.

Black-and-white laser printers that run at up

to 49ppm.

personal, workgroup, or departmental models.

utes its printer

The Office Laser Printer Guide

These machines can be either

olume. Some of Sharp’s newer

Color Copier Guide (see back cover for

k of deal-

ough a netw

s thr

e Business Pub

ressiv

lications

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Page 46

The Color Laser Printer Guide: Vendor & Product Profiles

harp AR-C240P

24ppm color 26ppm black & white

Sharp AR-C260P

26ppm color 32ppm black & white

Sharp AR-C265P

26ppm color 32ppm black & white

Sharp AR-C360P

36ppm color 40ppm black & white

Sum-up: Deluxe models for professional color work.

These models bring Sharp back into the color printing market in a big way. These are ledger-size models, ones that support banner paper up to 47 inches in length. They are impressive models, loaded with solid features geared to the most demanding professional use.

The models in this family include:

Sharp AR-C240P/AR-C260P/AR-C265P Consumables costs at-a-glance

Black toner $130.00 15,000 $ 0.009 $ 0.009

Price

Cyan toner $395.00 15,000 $ 0.026 N/A

Magenta toner $395.00 15,000 $ 0.026 N/A

Yellow toner $395.00 15,000 $ 0.026 N/A

Drum/black $155.00 42,000 $ 0.004 $ 0.004

Drum/cyan $215.00 42,000 $ 0.005 N/A

Drum/magenta $215.00 42,000 $ 0.005 N/A

Drum/yellow $215.00 42,000 $ 0.005 N/A

Fuser $190.00 100,000 $ 0.002 $ 0.002

Transfer belt $250.00 100,000 $ 0.003 $ 0.003

Waste toner bottle $15.00 30,000 $ 0.001 $ 0.001

TOTAL PER-PAGE COSTS

Yield

Full-color cost per page

$ 0.1116 $ 0.0173

11.16 1.73

Black-and-white cost per page

l The AR-C240P ($2,999), which has 192MB of mem-

ory (expandable to 1GB), a 20GB hard drive, and prints at 24ppm in color and 26ppm in b

white

l The AR-C260P ($5,795), which has 128MB of mem-

y (expandable to 640MB), a 40GB hard drive, and

or prints at 26ppm in color and 32ppm in b

lack-and-

k-and-

lac

white.

l The new AR-C265P (price to be determined), which

has 1GB of memory, a 20GB hard drive, and also prints at 26ppm in color and 32ppm in black-andwhite.

l The top-of-the-line AR-C360P ($13,995), which has

256MB of memory expandable to 768MB, a 40GB hard drive, and prints at 36ppm in color and 40ppm in black-and-white.

The AR-C240P, AR-C260P and AR-C265P come with a 500MHz processor, while the AR-C360P has a powerful 1GHz processor. Their generous hard drives indicate these machines are ready to handle the most challenging

le a

vy-duty pr

hea

e print function.

secur

oduction jobs

he disks also ena

Most notable is their processor, an EFI Fiery RIP. While EFI processors are common enough for copiers, they are rare for dedicated printers.

EFI processors are noted for their excellent ColorWise

calibration and color-matching tools. Properly used, these tools ensure that the color output you produce can

per you use (whether

be adjusted to suit the kind of

pa high-gloss, recycled, or newsprint) and that you can create accurate proofs based on industry standards for printing on commer

cial presses.

The other advantage of these tools is to hold high-color

quality and to maintain it hour to hour and da

y to day. That makes this an excellent printer for those who are printing personalized marketing materials in color, especially brochures with photo images.

These are single-pass printers. Standard output is at

1,200dpi on all mac

which prints at 600dpi. These printers can handle

C260P

hines in this family except the AR-

card stock up to 110lb. They can handle paper even bigger than standard ledger or tabloid size, at up to 12" x 18". That means you can print pages with “full bleed,” that is, with color running to the edges. The extra inch is also useful f

or inser

main printed ar

ting crop and fold marks outside the

ea. That’s in addition to handling banner-

size paper.

As you might expect, these machines come with both

PCL and PostScript printing included. PDF printing is

ut only from a Windows PC. The printers

ed,

also allo do

, however, also have a Macintosh driver.

The printers come with USB, and Ethernet connectivity built-in. The network card comes with a built-in server for remote administration.

fers a variety of options in terms of paper

y of

amil

his f

. The AR-C240P has a 530-sheet standard paper

suppl

e Business Publications. Copying of Pages Prohibited.To Order: 800 247 2185 or www.betterbuys.com 45

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Page 47

Better Buys for Business

supply as well as a 100-sheet bypass. You can add one 530-sheet tray for a total of 1,160 sheets. The AR-C260P h

as a 500-sheet standard paper supply and 250-sheet bypass, with options to add one-to-three 500-sheet trays, or one 3,000-sheet tray for a total paper capacity of 6,750 sheets. The AR-C265P has a 300-sheet standard supply and 100-sheet bypass with an option to add a 530-sheet tray.

Paper capacity is a strong point of the AR-C360P, which starts with a 230-sheet bypass tray. There’s a 300sheet tray as well. Automatic duplexing is also a standard feature on the AR-C360P, and optional on the ARC240P, AR-C260P, and AR-C265P.

Basic output for the AR-C360P is a 500-sheet exit tray. This unit also comes with an optional finisher with saddle stitching ($3,095) and a 2/3-hole punch ($695 list). The finisher can staple up to 50 sheets at a time and holds up to 1,000 sheets in total. A saddle-stitching finisher with three-position stapling, as well as a hole-punch unit, is available for the AR-C260P. The more basic ARC240P and AR-C265P don

’t offer finishing options.

You can certainly buy a color printer for less. But you will find few printers that can offer such professional quality and flexibility.

t entries — pa

Char

ges 115–116

TALLYGENICOM

Product Profiles

TallyGenicom 8008

8ppm full color 31ppm black & white

Sum-up: Good black printing speed but otherwise basic features.

This model is TallyGenicom’s attempt to get into the lowcost color laser market. And it’s a pretty good machine. Its list price is $775, so we assume that you may be able to buy it for somewhere around $600 or $650.

The printing speed is pretty good: 8ppm in color and 31ppm in black. Until just recently that would have been an excellent color speed for the low-cost color laser market. Unfortunately for TallyGenicom, companies like Lexmark, HP, and OKI Printing Solutions have come into the market with higher color speeds. Nevertheless, the black printing speed is quite impressive and the color

w, especially for companies that need

speed is not tha

t slo

only occasional use of color prints.

The processor r

uns at 170MHz, slower than most other color printers on the market. Memory is limited to 64MB, not as big a deal since PostScript is not offered.

net is standard.

Ether

In terms of paper supply, the 8008 starts with 250 sheets. That can be upgraded with a 500-sheet drawer. Duplexing is an option. The output is limited to 250 sheets.

Chantilly, VA

800 436 4266

.tallygenicom.com

www

Vendor Profile

A few years ago, printer manufacturer Genicom merged with Tally Corporation, another printer maker. The new

yGenicom, and the printer sales

all

compan

y is called

operations have been combined.

The company also offers electronic forms software, which merges data with pre-designed forms to make report generation faster and easier.

y heavy-duty and

yGenicom sells a v

all

T specializ

ed printer

ariety of

s using se

mostl

veral different technologies,

including dot matrix, ink jet, and laser.

TallyGenicom sells direct and through dealers. It tends to target vertical markets such as government, banking, and engineering. It also sells internationally.

www.betterbuys.com

TallyGenicom T80O8 Consumables costs at-a-glance

e g

k-and-white cost per pa

Price

Black toner $95.00 10,000 $ 0.010 $ 0.010

an toner

genta toner

Yellow toner $165.00 6,600 $ 0.025 N/A

Drum/4-color $240.00 60,000 $ 0.004 $ 0.004

Waste toner bottle $4.20 12,000 $ 0.000 $ 0.000

GE COSTS

AL PER-P

$165.00 6,600 $ 0.025 N/A

Yield

Full-color cost per pa

$ 0.0889 $ 0.0139

8.89 1.39

Blac

e Business Pub

ressiv

lications

Copying of Pages Prohibited.To Order: 800 247 2185 or www.betterbuys.com

Page 48

osts per page are quite good: 8.9¢ for a color page and

1.4¢ for black. Those costs are very impressive for a lowc

ost printer and makes this machine worthy of a second

look.

This is a decent printer, but while it would have been a strong competitor a year ago, it has now been outgunned by newer introductions. The consumables costs alone might make this a very good buy if you are interested in a small workgroup printer.

Chart entry — page 116

TallyGenicom 8026

26ppm full color 36ppm black & white

The Color Laser Printer Guide: Vendor & Product Profiles

rice per page is 10¢ for color and around 2.3¢ for black-and-white. Those are quite good prices, so you may want to figure out if you run high-enough volumes to overcome the high sticker price for the printer itself.

This is a good enough model, but it has a lot of competition in its range, most notably Xerox Phaser 7300, based on a newer and faster version of the same engine. The 8026 deserves a look, and should do well in TallyGenicom’s government-oriented channels.

Chart entry — page 117

Sum-up: Very good speed on a proven platform.

The TallyGenicom 8026 is a fast color laser printer that offers 26ppm speed in color and 36ppm speed in blackand-white. It has a street price of $999. It is based on the same Fuji Xerox engine as the Konica Minolta magicolor 3300 family, which sells for considerably less.

The unit comes with 128MB of memory and you can

upgrade it to 256MB. It is powered by a 533MHz proces-

. PostScript is a standard feature. Ethernet and USB

sor connectivity are standard.

Like many other color printers, this one has a 150-sheet bypass and a 500-sheet paper tray. You can add up to two more 550-sheet paper tr

ays or a 1,500-sheet tray. The bypass handles heavy stock paper. Output consists of a single 250-sheet tray.

TallyGenicom T8026N Consumables costs at-a-glance

e g

TOSHIBA

Irvine, CA

949 583 3000

www.toshiba.com

Vendor Profile

Toshiba, a huge Japanese electronics company, is a rela-

vely small pla

ti Toshiba makes fax machines and copiers, and has recently entered the color laser printer market. Its current models are relabeled versions of Lexmark color printers, including one that has recently been discontinued by Lexmark. Toshiba’s partnership with Lexmark is part of a strategy to offer a broader range of devices to its cus-

s, whic

tomer

ding on large multi-machine deals. Toshiba has intro-

bid duced relabeled versions of Lexmark’s monochrome laser printers as well. Note that Toshiba prices for machines and options are list. They tend to have prices similar to Le ate consumables with your dealer. All Toshiba models come with Ethernet included. You can add duplexers, memory, and paper trays to match other Lexmark models in the respective families.

yer in the office equipment market.

h is especiall

k equivalents, but you’ll have to negoti-

xmar

y important w

hen it comes to

k-and-white cost per pa

Price

Blac

k toner

Cyan toner $154.00 6,000 $ 0.026 N/A

genta toner

Yellow toner $154.00 6,000 $ 0.026 N/A

Drum/4-color $349.00 30,000 $ 0.012 $ 0.012

OTAL PER-PAGE COSTS

$99.00 8,500 $ 0.012 $ 0.012

$154.00 6,000 $ 0.026 N/A

ressiv

Yield

e Business Publications. Copying of Pages Prohibited.To Order: 800 247 2185 or www.betterbuys.com 47

Full-color cost per pa

$ 0.1003 $ 0.0233

10.03 2.33

Blac

Product Profiles

oshiba e-STUDIO205CP

20ppm full color 20ppm black & white Same Mac

hine as the discontin

Chart entry — page 117

www.betterbuys.com

l Update information

l Searchab

k C524dn

xmar

ued Le

le databases and more!

Page 49

Better Buys for Business

Toshiba e-STUDIO360 CP

32ppm full color 3

6ppm black & white

Same Machine as the Lexmark C920

Chart entry — page 117

XANTE

Mobile, AL

800 926 8839

www.xante.com

UNISYS

Blue Bell, PA 800 874 8647

www.unisysdirect.com

Vendor Profile

Unisys is best kno computer ernment, banking, and insurance companies. As such, it is IBM’s only real competitor, though definitely a distant second. ed on selling services rather than hardware. It has become expert at configuring and maintaining computer systems for widel clients.

Unisys adopted this series of laser printers from

xmark and has relabeled them. These models are sold

Le through Unisys’s direct-sales organization and also on the Inter customer w one. Note that Unisys has a slightly higher price and carries the netw

Unisys UDS 579-DN1

25ppm full color 25ppm black & white Same Machine as the Lexmark C770n (duplex version)

Chart entry — page 118

s, especiall

In recent y

y distributed corpor

net. It’

ould buy one, but they are available for any-

GET THE LA

INFORMA

For update information on this and other

guides

wn as a manufacturer of mainframe

y for large institutions suc

s, Unisys

ear

y tha

s unlik

orked version only.

Access passwords are on the

oduct Profile

TEST BETTER BUYS

TION ON THE WEB

k out

, chec

back cover of every guide.

, like IBM, has concentrat-

ate and governmental

t anyone other than a Unisys

www.betterbuys.com.

e Business Pub

ressiv

h as gov-

lications

Vendor Profile

Xanté Corporation specializes in prepress equipment and printers for the graphics industry. It sells monochrome and color laser printers as well as specialized printers for such media as printing plates, film, and heavy stock.

Xanté has consolidated its color laser printing line, replacing its CL30 family of printers with its Ilumina machine. As with its previous printers, Xanté emphasizes

ble for

color quality with the Ilumina, creating accurate and consistent color and for proofing pages destined for the printing press.

Xanté w ees of QMS, another printer vendor in Mobile, Alabama, that is now a division of Konica Minolta. Xanté sells its printer

Xanté Ilumina

36ppm full color 40ppm b

Sum-up: Speedy, feature-rich ledger-size model prints on a variety of media.

ving discontin

Ha laser of printer, which offers 36ppm printing in color and 40ppm in black-and-white, and prints at 1,200 x 600dpi resolution.

he sing

y tha

r 720MHz pr and the machine has Ethernet, parallel, and USB connectivity standard.

The Ilumina’s main selling point is its paper-handling

satility. It can print on up to 24pt. cover stock on up to

12.9" x 47.24" sheets jobs, the Ilumina can print 4-color business cards, postcards, brochures, banners, and signs.

This machine has impressive paper capacity. It comes with a standar

Copying of Pages Prohibited.To Order: 800 247 2185 or www.betterbuys.com

as founded in the la

ect and through reseller

s dir

Product Profiles

lack & white

ued its CL30 f

ering at present is the $6,495 Ilumina tabloid

le-pass Ilumina comes with 512MB of

t can be upgraded to 1GB. It has a powerful

ocessor. PostScript and PCL are standard,

. Besides conventional paper print

d 530-sheet tr

making tools a

te 1980s b

y, Xanté’s sole color

amil

. You can put up to five

vaila

y former emplo

memo

Page 50

Xanté Ilumina Consumables costs at-a-glance

Price

Black toner $99.99 15,000 $ 0.007 $ 0.007

Cyan toner $290.00 15,000 $ 0.019 N/A

Magenta toner $290.00 15,000 $ 0.019 N/A

Yellow toner $290.00 15,000 $ 0.019 N/A

Drum/black $155.99 39,000 $ 0.004 $ 0.004

Drums (3)/3-color $573.00 39,000 $ 0.015 N/A

Fuser roller $296.00 80,000 $ 0.004 $ 0.004

TOTAL PER-PAGE COSTS

ays in this unit, added to a 230-sheet

530-sheet pa

per tr

Yield

Full-color cost per page

$ 0.0871 $ 0.0144

8.71 1.44

Black-and-white cost per page

bypass, for a total of 2,880 sheets. You can also add a 1,590 high-capacity tray for a total of 2,350 sheets of capacity. Duplexing is standard. It has a 530-sheet standard output tray.

The Ilumina is a w

orkhorse, with a 150,000-page monthly duty cycle. According to Xanté, it can print 2,000 sheets an hour.

Consumables costs are pretty attractive for the color

mar

ket,

at 1.4¢ f

lack-and-w

or b

hite and 8.7¢ for color.

Xanté offers software tools for managing jobs through writing ready-to-print jobs like forms to the hard disk, printing PDF files, and secure printing. The company’s ColourMatch 2 software allows you to get accurate color results from scanned materials. Automatic color calibra-

ps the printer color

tion k

s a nice set of features.

s consistent.

All in all,

Xanté

This Xanté printer looks like a very solid model, with lots of power. One problem, however, may be pricing. While the list price is high, the actual street price is not certain. Unfortunately for Xanté, buyers might feel more

le with a comparable model from better-known

comf companies like OKI Printing Solutions and Xerox. Ho

wever, it makes sense to compare those companies’

prices with one that a Xanté dealer might offer you.

Chart entry — page 118

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The Color Laser Printer Guide: Vendor & Product Profiles

XEROX

Wilsonville, OR

503 682 7377

www.officeprinting.xerox.com

Vendor Profile

Xerox contends for leadership in the color laser printer market with Hewlett-Packard. Xerox is proud of its color printer line, and with good reason: the company offers a variety of very good workgroup printers.

ox became a player in color printing with its pur-

Xer chase of Tektronix’s printing business, which was completed early in 2000. Tektronix (Tek) was a color printer specialist whose smart pr

ategies won it a first-class reputation. But Tek, as a

ing str

oduct de

specialist vendor, lacked the size and financial muscle to compete successfully with mar (HP).

esult of the acquisition, Xer

As a r range of color printer models, as well as access to Tek’s unique solid ink jet technology. Note that the company also markets a series of production-level color printers, which are not covered in this guide.

Xerox dropped the Tektronix brand name. (There is still an independent Tektronix company, which sells electronic testing and measur held on to the Phaser br

ement equipment.) It has, ho

and.

There is a pattern to Xerox product development that is not apparent from the printer names. Xerox has focused on a strategy of offering three color technologies: laser,

and solid ink jet. This makes their printers suitable

LED for a wide range of requirements.

Note that all Xerox units are sold with Xerox’s Total Satisfaction Guarantee. With that warranty, if you are not satisfied with any Xerox equipment you buy from Xerox or its participating dealers and retailers, they will replace it without charge with an identical model or, at the option of Xerox, with a machine with comparable

es and ca

tur

bilities

that’s not matched by other vendors.

Log on to our Web site!

— www.betterbuys.com —

Update information and more...

velopment and market-

ket giant Hewlett-Packard

ox got an unmatched

wever

hat’s a nice plus, and one

e Business Publications. Copying of Pages Prohibited.To Order: 800 247 2185 or www.betterbuys.com 49

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Page 51

Better Buys for Business

Product Profiles

Xerox Phaser 6120N

5ppm full color 20ppm black & white

Sum-up: An entry-level model with basic features and a very low price.

The Phaser 6120N model, which replaces the Phaser 6100 family (though based on a different engine), allows Xerox to offer a low-cost color laser solution. The model offers unspectacular basic features, but it has a low base price of $499 ($299 after Xerox’s current $200 rebate).

The 6120N prints at 5ppm in color and 20ppm in blackand-white. It has 128MB of standard memory, which you can upgrade to 640MB. That may be a good idea if you run complex jobs in PostScript, a nice plus for a low-level printer. The processor is reasonably fast at 300MHz.

ox sets its monthly volume as 35,000 pages, which is

Xer far more of a workout than this machine is likely to get.

Paper supplies consist of a 200-sheet paper tray. You can add an optional 500-sheet tray. Output is limited to 200 sheets. That’s not much, but it is comparable to most other lo

w-cost color laser

s. Ether

net and USB are standard. There’s a third-party Wi-Fi option. These are features that go beyond the minimum.

As with all inexpensive color laser printers, we suspect

you’ll mak

Xerox Phaser 6120N Consumables costs at-a-glance

Black toner $99.99 4,500 $ 0.022 $ 0.022

Cyan toner $159.99 4,500 $ 0.036 N/A

genta toner

w toner

ello

Imaging unit/4-color $169.99 10,000 $ 0.017 $ 0.008

AL PER-PAGE COSTS

e up for the bargain by spending more on

k-and-white cost per page

Price

$159.99 4,500 $ 0.036 N/A

Yield

ressiv

Full-color cost per pa

$ 0.1459 $ 0.0302

14.59 3.02

e Business Pub

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lications

toner. The per-page price for black is 3¢, while color pages cost 14.6¢.

This model is intended to keep Xerox in the running from the bottom to the top of the color laser printer market. That’s all for the best for consumers, and we think that this is one of the better bargains at the low end.

Chart entry — page 118

Xerox Phaser 8500N Xerox Phaser 8500DN

24ppm full color 24ppm black & white

Xerox Phaser 8550DP Xerox Phaser 8550DT Xerox Phaser 8550DX

30ppm full color 30ppm black & white

Sum-up: A speedy update to a unique printer series that remains a good buy.

The Phaser 8500/8550 family is the latest product offering in an evolving line of

solid ink printers. That engine technology was originated by Tektronix, whose printer division was taken over by Xerox in 1999. Solid ink print-

s (Xerox is the only company selling office printers with

er this technology) have little to do with the more common, inexpensive thermal ink jet printers of the small or home office. Instead, solid ink is a technology in office printing competing with laser and LED machines. We consider it a laser-class technology, and it compares favorably with standard color lasers.

Solid ink printer

s offer what we consider to be excellent image quality. It used to be the case that these machines were almost too vivid for their own good, so that printed photos were not true to color. But Xerox color scientists have upgraded the ink technology so now photos look

loser to the original. Even the default settings seem to

c produce pretty accurate color renderings, though this printer tec

xact color ma

hnolo

y is not intended f

, say, Xerox’s own Phaser

hing (unlik

or those w

ho need

7760 series).

It must be said that these printers run relatively slow at the maximum resolution photo mode speed, with a standard resolution of around 300 x 400dpi more likely for nor

mal w

e have said, resolution is not the

As w

k. biggest issue when dealing with color quality, especially given the way a solid ink jet prints. On the other hand, if you demand extremely crisp black-and-white type, you’ll have to run at higher than the standard resolution.

This generation of solid ink printers offers very

especta

le speeds

. The 8500 engines are rated for up to

24ppm, both in color and in black-and-white. The 8550

Copying of Pages Prohibited.To Order: 800 247 2185 or www.betterbuys.com

Page 52

odels are rated at 30ppm. Numbers don’t tell the complete story here — 24ppm or 30ppm are achieved in the “

fast color” mode, which is 225 x 400dpi. The default mode is “enhanced” mode, which is 1,200dpi interpolated. On the 8500 printers, that runs at 12ppm, half the speed of fast mode. On the 8550 models, enhanced mode runs at 16ppm.

In addition, the Phaser 8550 models have two other modes. The “standard” mode prints at 300 x 450dpi at a speed of 24ppm. The “photo mode” has an interpolated resolution of 2,400dpi and prints at 10ppm.

You select a printing mode (other than the default) as an option in the print dialog box. Because solid ink technology is so different from toner, it is hard to make exact comparisons between these resolutions and those of other color printers in this guide. To our eyes, the enhanced mode is also quite acceptable for all office work and the faster speeds are totally acceptable for drafts, memos, and most other internal documents.

The standard resolution sounds low compared with the 1,200dpi claimed by some rivals, but we find that the resolution is totally acceptable, even in standard mode. This high quality at seemingly low resolution may be due to the difference between laser and solid ink,

so that direct

comparisons of resolution aren’t possible.

In any case, while photo-quality printing is not very fast, it r speeds on most r

uns circles around the real-life photo printing

egular (liquid) ink jet printers.

These models come with powerful 600MHz processors, ensuring that the

y will handle images fast enough to keep the engine cranking out pages. Indeed, this printer series is very respectable for everyday black-and-white office printing as w

ell.

The Phaser 8500/8550 printers are also very easy to use. For example, when you have to change consumables, you need only open the top cover of the machine and slide in b

loc

ks of

ink tha

t look and f

eel lik

e disk-sha

ped crayons. A Phaser printer melts those “crayons” and sprays the melted extract onto the paper.

You can’t even make a mistake, as each of the four colors has a unique shape that only fits in the appropriate slot. Replacing supplies on color printers can be a daunting task,

ut not on these models

Per-page prices fall in the midrange, though a small difference in the capacity of the maintenance kit makes for a notable difference between the 8500 and the 8550 models. For the 8500, an average page costs 11.3¢ in color,

e average, and 2.5¢ for black-and-white,

h is a

hic

h is a little high f

hic

or similar color printers. For the

8550, prices are much more competitive: 10.8¢ for color,

1.95¢ for black-and-white.

Versions: There are two 24ppm Phaser 8500 models

and three 30ppm Phaser 8550 models. All of them come

e Business Publications. Copying of Pages Prohibited.To Order: 800 247 2185 or www.betterbuys.com 51

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The Color Laser Printer Guide: Vendor & Product Profiles

ith both USB and Ethernet ports. They are:

l The Phaser 8500N (street price $899), which comes

with 128MB of memory, upgradeable to 512MB.

l The Phaser 8500DN (street price $1,099), which adds

duplexing.

l The Phaser 8550DP (at $1,299), a faster model that

has 256MB of memory upgradeable to 1GB. It also offers an optional 20GB hard disk.

l The Phaser 8550DT (at $1,599), which comes with a

second 525-sheet paper tray standard.

he Phaser 8550DX (at $2,399), with 512MB of

l T

memory upgradeable to 1GB, a standard 20GB hard

and a third standard 525-sheet input tray.

disk,

h model star

Eac

ts with at least a 100-sheet bypass and a 525-sheet standard paper tray. A second and a third 525-sheet paper tray are available (optional on the lowerend models). The maximum input capacity for the models is 1,675 sheets. The bypass can handle up to 110lb. card stock, quite unusual in this price range. Output capacity is based on a simple 300-sheet tray.

PostScript and PCL ar

e standard fea

tures. USB and par-

allel connectivity are standard as well.

When it comes to pricing, the Phaser 8500/8550 series

ery competitive with its laser and LED counterparts at

is v

w end of the midrange level of the market. But the

the lo

Xerox Phaser 8500 Consumables costs at-a-glance

e g

k-and-white cost per pa

Price

Black toner $88.99 6,000 $ 0.015 $ 0.015

an toner

Magenta toner $88.99 3,000 $ 0.030 N/A

Yellow toner $88.99 3,000 $ 0.030 N/A

Maintenance kit $149.99 30,000 $ 0.005 $ 0.005

TOTAL PER-PAGE COSTS

$88.99 3,000 $ 0.030 N/A

Yield

Full-color cost per pa

$ 0.1088 $ 0.0198

10.88 1.98

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Page 53

Better Buys for Business

Xerox Phaser 8550 Consumables costs at-a-glance

Price

Black toner $88.99 6,000 $ 0.015 $ 0.015

Cyan toner $88.99 3,000 $ 0.030 N/A

Magenta toner $88.99 3,000 $ 0.030 N/A

Yellow toner $88.99 3,000 $ 0.030 N/A

Maintenance kit $99.99 10,000 $ 0.010 $ 0.010

TOTAL PER-PAGE COSTS

Yield

Full-color cost per page

Black-and-white cost per page

$ 0.1138 $ 0.0248

11.38 2.48

Phaser 8500/8550 family is really in a category by itself.

In another plus

, these machines ar

e small in dimension

and weight, unlike some laser machines.

A fear that some users have had in the past with solid ink jets is that printed pa scan la

ter via a copier’s automatic document feeder

ges can be difficult to copy or

because of the slightly raised texture of the image. But

vances in ink manufacture have minimized that prob-

ad lem.

Although these limitations may cause a f look else

where, we feel that many color users will be

ew buyers to

swayed by the Phaser 8500/8550 family’s undeniable strengths.

These are not intended for really high-volume use — they are rated for 85,000 pages per month. The meager output tra

y is a clear indication that this printer is better suited for a moderate flow of work. The warm-up time may be an issue as well; it’s considerably longer than that

But this should be a once-a-day issue.

or LED and laser

These machines are capable of producing very good color output and good black-and-white documents as well. They are easy to use and can be pretty fast when it comes to full-color output, though not at the highest resolution. Keep in mind, however, that the series does not

ve the paper-handling capability to be used in place of

ha a departmental laser printer.

But all things told, we really like the Phaser 8500/8550 family. We also find its attractive pricing, small and elegant footprint, and quiet operation very nice bonuses as

ell.

Chart entries — pages 119–120

Xerox Phaser 6300N Xerox Phaser 6300DN

26ppm full color 36ppm black & white

Xerox Phaser 6350DP Xerox Phaser 6350DT Xerox Phaser 6350DX

36ppm full color 36ppm black & white

Sum-up: Raw power makes this a very good family of workgroup printers.

As with the Phaser 8500/8550 family, Xerox’s Phaser 6300/6350 family has models that run at different speeds but otherwise share virtually all features and are clearly based on the same engine. In this case, that engine is a powerful one, as the 800MHz processor indicates.

The Phaser 6300 models run at 26ppm in color and 36ppm in black-and-white. The Phaser 6350 models run at 36ppm in both color and b

lack-and-white. The 6350 models come with more standard features, but these features are optionall

y available in the lower-priced 6300 models. There aren’t many color laser printers that offer faster speeds, especially at this price range.

The models in the series are:

l The $1,299 Phaser 6300N, which starts with 256MB

of memory and 700 sheets of standard input. The monthly duty cycle is set at 100,000.

Xerox Phaser 6350 (High-Capacity Toner Cartridge) Consumables costs at-a-glance

Price

k toner

Blac

Cyan toner $249.99 10,000 $ 0.025 N/A

enta toner

w toner

ello

ging unit/4-color

Ima

oller

er r

ransf

Fuser kit $149.99 100,000 $ 0.001 $ 0.001

TOTAL PER-PAGE COSTS

$99.99 10,000 $ 0.010 $ 0.010

$249.99 10,000 $ 0.025 N/A

$249.99 35,000 $ 0.007 $ 0.007

$71.99 35,000 $ 0.002 N/A

Yield

Full-color cost per page

$ 0.0957 $ 0.0230

9.57 0.02

Black-and-white cost per page

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Page 54

l The Phaser 6300DN ($1,499) adds automatic duplex-

ing.

l The Phaser 6350DP ($1,799) has a faster color speed

and a higher monthly duty cycle (120,000).

l The Phaser 6350DT ($2,549) adds a second 550-sheet

paper tray for a total of 1,250 sheets of input. It also comes with 512MB of memory.

The Color Laser Printer Guide: Vendor & Product Profiles

erox Phaser 7400N Xerox Phaser 7400DN Xerox Phaser 7400DT Xerox Phaser 7400DX Xerox Phaser 7400DXF

36ppm full color 40ppm black & white

Sum-up: Very fast LED printer series built for high color quality.

l The Phaser 6350DX ($3,149) adds a third 550-sheet

tray for a total of 1,800 sheets. It also adds a standard 20GB hard disk.

All of the models can have up to one gigabyte of memory installed. A 20GB hard disk is available, standard on the DX model, optional on the others. PostScript and PCL are installed. Ethernet and USB ports are also standard.

The input system starts with a 150-sheet multipurpose tray and a 550-sheet standard tray. Other configurations are a 550-sheet paper tray or a two-drawer 1,100-sheet feeder. The maximum configuration is 1,800 sheets. The usual 250-sheet exit tray is the only output device a

vail-

able.

Xerox tells us that the Phaser 6300 consumables costs come in a

t around 2.2¢ for b

lack and 10.8¢ for color. Phaser 6350 consumables have a high-capacity toner option, and that make costs a little lower, at 2.1¢ for black and 9.6¢ f industr

or color

. These costs are about average for the

The Phaser 6300/6350 models are very fast machines

t have good, if basic, features and acceptable printing

tha costs. But that’s the rule in this market segment, where the Xerox models offer more speed, memory, and paper handling than its rivals. Given all those factors, they stand out as very good workgroup printers. The one thing they lack is something more than a 250-sheet output tray,

ut the same can be said f

or almost all other color laser

printers under $2,000.

Nev

ertheless, these are excellent buys for mid-size

workgroups.

Chart entries — pages 120–122

Discontinued Models?

We don't cover these “end of life” models in this volume,

but they usually have been covered in previous issues.

Call us at

800 247 2185

ou are interested in bac

if y

issues

The Phaser 7400 series is based on OKI’s C9600/C9800 family of printers. These ledger-size models produce color pages with excellent speed. In addition, they add a number of productivity-enhancing features that make them even more useful in office environments. If you need a rugged business printer, the Phaser 7400 family is a smart choice.

Above all, it is speed that makes this series stand out. OKI Printing Solutions and Xerox have come out with a family of color printers that print at 36ppm in color and 40ppm in black-and-white. These models can act as

partmental color printers. Plus, in black-and-white,

y exceed most b

the

k-and-white mac

lac

hines.

Over the years, the big issue with LED printers has been image quality, but Xerox has worked diligently on this. In addition to the single-pass engine tec

hnology tak

en from OKI, Xerox has added the software-based color savvy and the toner expertise they’ve gained in making printers

h as the Phaser 7760 family, which we consider to sit

suc at the top of the color market. Xerox claims to have created color toners that are matched to the LED technolo-

y, allowing for finer dot size and crisper quality. In addi-

g tion, the company’s driver software makes it easier to achieve accurate color that approaches professional quality. These Xerox-only advances are supplemented by the OKI Printing Solutions developments, which have the machine self-recalibrating on a regular basis to ensure

gistration.

consistent r

Xer

hich it argues has even higher image quality and recom-

ox isn’t claiming this family as a rival to its 7760,

mends it for prepress proofs that will match colors on press. Nevertheless, the company does claim that it can

y and vibrancy, more than a

er superior accur

deli

tch for most laser printers.

The Phaser 7400 family comes in five models:

l The Phaser 7400N ($2,999 street), which includes 800

sheets of input and 256MB of memory and prints at 1,200dpi

www.betterbuys.com

e Business Publications. Copying of Pages Prohibited.To Order: 800 247 2185 or www.betterbuys.com 53

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Page 55

Better Buys for Business

l The Phaser 7400DN ($3,349), which adds automatic

duplexing

l The Phaser 7400DT ($4,599), which has 512MB of

standard memory and a 40GB hard disk, and adds a second 550-sheet paper input drawer for a total of 1,350 sheets

l The Phaser 7400DX ($5,499), which adds a 1,650-

sheet high-capacity paper feeder for a total of 2,450 sheets

l The Phaser 7400DXF ($7,999), which adds an 1,100-

sheet finisher

All of these models have other strong features. They

ve speedy 800MHz processors and come standard with

ha both Ethernet and USB connectors. They also support PCL and PostScript printing. And they all have a rated duty cycle of 150,000 pages per month. Like most printers in this guide, they can be managed remotely over the

net.

Inter

The one-year on-site warranty is typical, and Xerox

adds its own excellent Total Satisfaction Guarantee.

All five models can output color pages at up to 36ppm and black-and-white pages at 40ppm. They print at 1,200dpi, with the exception of the base model, and they run at full speed at the highest resolution.

Standard memor

y comes in at 256MB on the two lower-end models and 512MB on the rest. In any case, this can be expanded to a full gigabyte. Added memory can make a big dif

ence in a b

fer

usy office where print jobs back up, especially when they are large color jobs. It also is a help in mopying or collating large documents.

The Phaser 7400DT, DX, and DXF models come with a 40GB hard disk. This can be used to store frequently run images or jobs. Most important, this makes it easy to print complex jobs involving electronic collation, where

the printer prints an entir

e document,

in sequence

, and over. 40GB is, by printer standards, a decent harddisk capacity.

he 800MHz processors in these machines are among

T the fastest in the printing industry. It’s hard to tell how much processor speeds matter in this market, since printing speeds ar

e also limited b

y the ph

ysical elements of

the

printer. However, it’s always nice to have more speed.

The Phaser 7400’s paper handling is quite good. It can handle ledger and tabloid-size paper, if that’s your requirement, along with legal- and letter-size pages. The

have

-end models

an 800-sheet standar

the Phaser 7400N and 7400DN

, which is based on

pacity

per ca

d pa

a 550-sheet paper tray (a little better than the usual 500sheet tray) and a 250-sheet multipurpose tray (letter-size

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Xerox Phaser 7400 Consumables costs at-a-glance

Price

Black toner $134.99 15,000 $ 0.009 $ 0.009

Cyan toner $324.99 18,000 $ 0.018 N/A

Magenta toner $324.99 18,000 $ 0.018 N/A

Yellow toner $324.99 18,000 $ 0.018 N/A

Imaging unit/black $139.99 30,000 $ 0.005 $ 0.005

Imaging unit/cyan $199.99 30,000 $ 0.007 N/A

Imaging unit/magenta $199.99 30,000 $ 0.007 N/A

Imaging unit/yellow $199.99 30,000 $ 0.007 N/A

Waste toner box $25.99 30,000 $ 0.001 $ 0.001

Fuser kit $199.99 100,000 $ 0.002 $ 0.002

TOTAL PER-PAGE COSTS

sheets only).

But you can build from there, by adding one

Yield

Full-color cost per page

$ 0.0907 $ 0.0145

9.07 1.45

550-sheet paper tray. The top-end model also gives you a 1,650-sheet high-capacity feeder

, with a potential maximum of 3,000 sheets. That’s pretty good, and few models do much better.

Output capacity

, however, is a disappointment. There are only 600 sheets of output on the 7400N, and 750 sheets of output on the other machines in this family.

ven the throughput these machines will generate and

Gi the good input capacities, we find the lack of larger output options may be a problem in some offices.

Color pages print at a below average cost of 9.1¢, while

black-and-white costs are excellent for a color printer at

1.5¢.

We believe that in terms of performance and features,

hey are among the lowest-

ood printer

these ar

e g

priced color printer

t can handle 11" x 17" pa

s tha They make most sense in office environments where you need both monochrome and color capability. Improvements in quality are fully appreciated, but this machine is not intended for the most demanding graphics tasks

hese Xer

ox printers come in at prices below their OKI Printing Solutions cousins. They offer a good set of features for the price, and the reasonable output costs are pretty good as well. If you want even more, you might also look a

amilies

Char

t the mor

t entries — pages 122–123

e e

xpensi

ve Xerox Phaser 7760

www.betterbuys.com

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Black-and-white cost per page

per

Page 56

erox Phaser 7760DN Xerox Phaser 7760DX X

erox Phaser 7760GX

35ppm full color 45ppm black & white

Sum-up: A leader in quality laser color reproduction and a fast ledger-size printer series to boot.

The new Phaser 7760 is a ledger-size color printer series that is an upgrade to the Phaser 7750, a powerhouse that can meet very demanding requirements. It is one of the fastest office color printers, and can surpass most other models for speed and image quality. The Phaser 7760 prints at 35ppm in color and 45ppm in black-and-white. In addition, that speed is combined with excellent quality.

Overview: The Phaser 7760 family has some nice fea-

tures. It supports printing of up to 12" x 18" paper sizes, and it has excellent ima

ge quality, lots of memory, and strong paper handling. The standard models have a Fuji Xerox engine with a powerful 800MHz processor.

The Phaser 7760 has a standard 40GB hard drive in all models. The hard drive supports electronic collation of comple

x multipage documents. In addition, the Phaser 7760 models can accommodate up to 2,150 sheets of paper capacity, though the different models come with different standard paper capacities.

All three models have a generous 512MB

. This can be

expanded to 1GB with options. All come with USB and

Xerox Phaser 7760 Consumables costs at-a-glance

e g

k-and-white cost per pa

Price

Black toner $129.99 32,000 $ 0.004 $ 0.004

Cyan toner $324.99 25,000 $ 0.013 N/A

Magenta toner $324.99 25,000 $ 0.013 N/A

w toner

ello

Imaging unit/4-color $329.99 35,000 $ 0.009 $ 0.009

aste toner box

Fuser kit $199.99 100,000 $ 0.002 $ 0.002

TOTAL PER-PAGE COSTS

$324.99 25,000 $ 0.013 N/A

$19.99 27,000 $ 0.001 $ 0.001

ressiv

Yield

e Business Publications. Copying of Pages Prohibited.To Order: 800 247 2185 or www.betterbuys.com 55

Full-color cost per pa

$ 0.0552 $ 0.0142

5.52 1.42

Blac

The Color Laser Printer Guide: Vendor & Product Profiles

thernet connectivity as standard features and support

PostScript 3. The machines print at 1,200dpi.

The Phaser 7760 also offers a feature that’s now common on upscale color printers — a Web-based printer management program that allows you to check printer status remotely using the browser on your computer. The Xerox name for this software is CentreWare. Xerox also touts something called Intelligent Ready software, which can minimize printer warm-up time.

As with other Xerox products, this family has a oneyear warranty plus Xerox’s Total Satisfaction Guarantee.

There are three models in the Phaser 7760 family:

l The 7760DN is the base model (street price $6,299),

which comes with 650 sheets of input, a hard disk, standard Ethernet, and standard automatic duplex.

l The 7760GX ($7,399), which has 2,150 sheets of stan-

dard input and adds Xerox’s PhaserMatch colormatching software standard (available as an option for the 7760DN).

l The 7760DX ($7,699), identical to the 7760GX,

but

with 3,150 sheets of standard input.

All of these units offer some standard Xerox color features, including secure print, job pipelining and compression, and usage and analysis tools. PostScript 3 and PCL 5c are standard as well.

Output devices: These units all come standard with a

400-sheet offset catch tray. You can also add a 3,500sheet-capacity finisher that offers multiposition stapling of up to 50 sheets and 3-hole punch, or a 2,500-sheet capacity booklet maker with stapling and 3-hole punch.

hile this is not the widest r

ange of output options in the

color printer market, it’s not too bad.

These printers are rated for 150,000 pages per month, meaning they are designed to be serious workhorses.

Image quality: Xerox provides an impressive array of

or maintaining color calibr

tools f ing with this printer f

tion and color ma

. These include such items as

amil

Pantone certification, sRGB color matching, ICC profiling, and their own TekColor Dynamic Color Correction. The aforementioned PhaserMatch software allows you to create color proofs that match as closely as possible the look of

the same pa output de to high-g

e printed on an of

vice on a range of paper types from newsprint

loss. These capabilities are not very useful for

fset press or other

the typical office user, but they answer a major requirement for the design/graphic arts group that needs precise

hing

color ma

he printer also allows you to print in photographic

mode and produces photo-like quality (though you sacri-

Page 57

Better Buys for Business

fice a little on text quality in this mode). These features suggest that the Phaser 7760 is well suited for use on g

raphic arts color printing and able to perform as an

office printer as well.

Operating costs: Operating costs on the Phaser 7760

are quite good. The cost for a black-and-white page is around 1.4¢, a little less than most color printers. The color price per page is around 5.5¢. That’s better than most models in the color printer market.

Conclusion: We believe this is a terrific multipurpose

printer family. The machines are able to perform as office printers as well as superb graphic arts printers. The cost of operation is good, and the input and output options are above average. We’re also impressed by the image quality we’ve seen from this printer series. Its biggest challenges on the graphics front is the Sharp AR-C360P, which do quite well in color quality, too. The Ricoh family has a lower cost per page and matches up well in terms of input and output, while the Sharp model offers comparable performance for about half the price. The Phaser

p, though they are economical

7760 models are not c to run. If your needs match their strengths, they’re an excellent solution. They get our Editor’s Choice Award.

Chart entries — page 124

hea

Coming Soon....

The Color Copier Guide

Full-color copiers that can also double as upscale color printers. Prices from $2,000 to and higher.

The Office Laser Printer Guide

Black-and-white laser printers that run at up to 49ppm. These machines can be either personal, workgroup, or departmental models.

The Laser Fax Guide

Covers laser plain-paper faxes, many of which also have low-end multifunctional capabilities.

The Printer Multifunctional Guide

Small-office multifunctionals and multifunctional office printers that print at up to 50ppm. These also copy, scan, and fax, and include both ink jet and laser machines that operate in black-and-white and color.

The Mid-Volume Copier & Multifunctional Guide

Black-and-white copiers and multifunctionals (copy, print, fax, and scan) that cruise at 20–49 pages per minute and support 11" x 17" — best suited for 10,000–40,000 copies per month.

Update Infor

www

.betterbuys.com

mation at

e Business Pub

ressiv

lications

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Page 58

Industry Briefing

What We’re Covering

This guide covers desktop printers that deliver full-color output using laser or laser-class technology. (We’ll explain in a minute what we mean by “laser-class.”) All the machines discussed are suitable for workgroups and can be connected to a network, often as a standard feature. We use the term “desktop” somewhat flexibly: although most of these machines will fit comfortably on a desktop on the floor — when fully configured. In fact, some look more like copiers than printers.

Drama

Note that prices in this industry are in rapid change mode this year, and that many companies are either reducing prices f

Prices have fallen significantly in recent years, and you can now get a color laser printer for as little as $299 (a few year $2,999). Most of these printers can be bought for less than $2,000, and the bulk of the 8 1/2" x 14" printers are in the $500–$2,000 segment. generally range from $3,000 to $7,000.)

This guide does not cover regular ink jet printers, though w few ink jets has increased to the point that they can pose a via this volume for what we call “business-class” ink jet printers, beginning on page 125.

hnolo

tec viewed as being on something of a peer level with laser. This, as well as LED printing (a close cousin of laser), accounts for our use of the term “laser-class” in defining the parameters of this guide.

T “GelSprint,” which qualifies as “laser-class” color printing and ink jet print technologies that offers laser-like precision and resolution with consumables costs comparable to those of

, some of them sit on stands — or even directly

tic price c

ast or offering big r

s ago, by contrast, the least expensive street price was

e should point out tha

le alternative to laser. There’s a separate section in

however, including in this guide a less common

e ar

gy known as “solid ink jet” because it is widely

here’s also a new technology from Ricoh,

ding to Ricoh,

Accor

hanges

laser mac

ebates.

(Larger, 11" x 17" printers

t the perf

GelSprint is a h

hines. GelSprint utilizes a perma-

ormance of a

ybrid of

laser

The Color Laser Printer Guide: Industry Briefing

nent print head that, Ricoh claims, enables fast printing by low-cost printers while contributing to their long life.

Until a few years ago, most desktop color laser printers typically had full-color engine speeds of about 3–5 pages per minute (ppm). Then there was a move toward faster models with speeds in the 6–12ppm range. Most recently, the industry has been flooded with even speedier models using so-called tandem-engine, single-pass technology, which allows for rated full-color speeds above 20ppm. (We’ll explain this technology later in this section.)

Most color laser printers have been faster when printing in black only: commonly, color printers have run three or more times faster in black-and-white. This is because pages had to be run across the drum four separate times

h of the four colors was laid down.

as eac

The growing number of tandem-engine machines, however, often run at the same or similar speeds in color and in black-and-white. In addition, a new class of color printing has emerged, one that acts as a departmental, high-speed black-and-white laser, but has as an extra feature: the ability to print in color, albeit at a relatively slow speed.

The copier-printer alternative

Keep in mind that all color copiers can be connected to computer printers. These machines are expensive devices, generally costing $12,000–$40,000 or mor nected. Traditionally, they have offered faster speeds than desktop color printers and more sophisticated paper handling laser printer money:

4 The 20–40ppm speeds for the growing number of

color laser printer printers, which are quite a bit more expensive.

4 Until a f

color on 11" x 17" pa is common.

4 Until recently, desktop color printers rarely had paper

tr at least 500-sheet trays as standard, and some can go up to more than 3,000 sheets.

s so that they double as upscale color laser

e at list price once con-

vertheless, some of the latest single-function

e giving the copier-printers a run for their

s ar

most color copier

oda

ew years ago, no desktop model could print in

ys holding mor

al those of

s ri

. Today, however, this ability

per

e than 250 sheets

most have

Page 59

Better Buys for Business

4 Not long ago, no desktop color printer could perform

automatic double-sided work. Now, however, almost all have at least an option to do so.

4 In the recent past, no desktop color printer offered fin-

ishing (stapling and/or hole punching). Now a small but increasing number have them.

What this means is that people don’t have to migrate upward to a color copier-printer just to get more upscale printing, even if they don’t especially need the copier function — previously, by contrast, this was quite a common occurrence. However, the extent to which desktop printers are now challenging copier-based products should not be overstated: the latter are still able to offer a better combination of high performance and paper handling. But the desktop models are certainly getting closer, and the prices ar sions.

Keep in mind also that color copier prices have fallen in response to the challeng a discount, you can now get a connected, network-ready copier-based machine for about $12,000. Although this

y not sound like a bargain, it is pretty low by tradition-

ma al standards of this market.

We won’t be talking further about the copier-printer alternative here, but you can get complete details in

Color Copier Guide

We will, however, discuss some printers with copi-

tion). er functionality, if they are still, first and foremost, creatures of the printer world.

What this guide offers

This guide is divided into four parts. We start with our Editor’s Choice selections (page 2), which is a list of color printer models we feel provide the very best value.

Immedia Profiles section (pages 3–56), which introduces you to the suppliers and gives our assessments of all the individual products. The Profiles section also includes charts of consumables costs for the leading color laser models; these

e y

ts gi

har

c economical to oper

The third part of the guide — the article you’re reading now — examines the state of the market, discusses technology and features, and advises briefly on how to go about buying a color laser printer. Finally, our grid-charts

es 70–124) a

(pa

lance comparison of

g covered in the guide.

What we are assuming

Keep in mind tha

e remarkably lower than the copier ver-

e from the printer world — with

(see back cover for ordering informa-

endor & Product

d comes the

y afterw

tel

ou an idea of which printers are the most

te on a cost-per

t the bac

t w

k of the guide provide an at-a-

features and pricing of all models

e will not be spending much time in

ge basis.

-pa

e Business Pub

ressiv

lications

The

this article explaining printer terms and concepts that are not color-specific but apply equally to regular black-only models. So if you have very little technical grasp of printers — for example, if you don’t really understand what’s meant by the word “PostScript” — you may want to refer to the separate Better Buys guide on black-and-white office laser printers (see back cover). As well as focusing on black-only models, that guide serves as a printer primer in general.

Nevertheless, we will be reminding you about a few printer basics in this article, so what follows should be reasonably easy to understand if you consider yourself moderately printer-proficient.

The State of Office Color

Desktop color lasers aimed at non-specialized users have been around for more than a dozen years. The market dates bac Minolta) introduced a landmark machine priced at $12,500; color lasers had previously cost over $20,000. Today, a good printer can cost less than $2,000, and — with a growing number of entry-level models priced under $1,000 — the machines are becoming more affordable every year. Operating costs have also fallen, making the price of using these machines less prohibitive than was once the case (more on this la

The main priority in vendors’ product development strategies is to continue getting the price down, as it is cost — more than any other factor — that has so far kept these machines in something of a niche. As the prices have continued to plunge below $1,000, color laser print-

s ha

er bly taking the place of some black-and-white models.

Overcoming objections

However, any widespread move to introduce color into mainstream business documents will run up against two objections

The main roadblock is that even if you put aside the cost of buying the machine, full-color pages will always have higher consumables costs than black-and-white ones. Urging corporate America to switch to color is akin to asking it to r tor of four or more.

Vendors never tire of pointing out the commercial benefits of ting fy than the costs. And there is also a hidden cost that

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k to 1993,

e become attractive to a broader audience, possi-

aise its hard-copy operating costs by a fac-

color — making sales pr

or example — but these gains are harder to quanti-

when QMS (now part of Konica

ter).

oposals mor

e har

d-hit

Page 60

The Color Laser Printer Guide: Industry Briefing

many people overlook — namely, the time it takes for computer users to apply color to documents in the first place. There is also an undeniable element of waste — the trivial, unnecessary, and often non-work-related uses to which color can be put once it is made available to everyone in the office.

The second objection has been one of speed — no matter how fast vendors made color machines, black-andwhite ones were usually faster. This relationship was due to mainstream color laser technology, which lays down black-and-white four times as fast as it does full-color images. Under that scheme of things, vendors were asking buyers to wait longer for their work, as well as to pay more for it.

But speed objections have pretty much vanished. Printers using single-pass tandem technology are able to print color as fast, or almost as fast, as they do black-andwhite. As a result, color speeds are very fast by historical standards, and their black-only speeds are also quite acceptable.

To be sure, cost will continue to limit the use of color in the office for some time. But as vendors develop printers that are good for both color and black-only printing, they

e overcoming these limitations. A likely vision for the

ar office of the future is one where most printers are capable of color but are not always used for that purpose.

The twin-missions concept

As we’ve explained, manufacturers are now offering a number of models that are designed to more adequately meet the twin missions of ca

tering to both plain-vanilla

black-and-white work and color printing needs.

A number of models now have black-only speeds over 15ppm,

even up to 28ppm or 38ppm. That’s a significant number given that, until very recently, 25ppm defined the high end of mainstream network black-and-white printing (that barrier has lately shifted to 35ppm or 45ppm, but 25ppm still marks the start of “fast” workgroup and

partmental printing).

And whereas black-only consumables costs on color-

capable machines were previously at least double those of

gular monoc

ome laser printer

s, today the cost of

printing in black on a color machine can be more reason-

le (more on this later when we talk about operating

a costs).

A network-ready color laser that’s able to print in black

t 30ppm (lik

e the $999 HP Color LaserJ

et 3000) is ef

f tively giving you the performance of a 30ppm dedicated black-only printer costing $550 (like the HP LaserJet

2420).

And it adds 15ppm color printing. What this means is that the cost of adding color to your workgroup printer is, in this case, about $450.

se, presupposes that you need (another)

cour

This

lack-and-white printer. And the key to growing this market is persuading people to buy color instead of blackonly when they need new printers rather than asking them to go out and buy specialized printers in addition to the ones they have.

Under this scenario, people in an office would have access to color when they need it but would be able to print in black-and-white when speed and cost are more important than appearance. What’s more, color would often be used only in a limited way — to highlight headlines, for example — rather than to print the endless photos and full-color business graphics that tend to be featured so heavily in printer vendors’ samples.

Still, vendors have some way to go before they can really deliver color printers that also fulfill a no-compromises monochrome mission. Typically, color printers are far bulkier than black-only ones. And even when engine speeds are similar, paper-handling capabilities are generally more limited on comparable-speed color printers.

Speed and pr

oduct differentiation

While price is still the number one priority in manufacturers’ development plans, speeds are still improving, as is the price/performance ratio. As stated earlier, entrylevel and midmar

ket models once had top color speeds of only 4ppm. These days, however, it’s more common to see new models with top color speeds of 12ppm, 20ppm, or even 30ppm+.

Keep in mind that the engine speed is that which the

machine is guaranteed not to exceed — not that which it

omised to r

is pr ance y

each on e

ou get out of a printer also depends on the ability

very job. The actual perform-

of the printer’s built-in controller to process the types of

ou send and the amount of

jobs y

memory installed. Also, it is the speed for printing letter-size pages, even if it is the speed rating for a printer that handles ledger-size output. In any case, the rated speed for laser-class printers will correspond much more closely to actual performance than will rated speeds for color ink jet models.

Another tr

e marketing more than one desktop color laser printer,

eas pr

her

end in the last y

y most concentr

viousl

ear or so is that most vendors

ted on a sing

le model. Most often, there are two basic models for most vendors — one that prints on letter- and legal-size paper and one

t will do ledg

tha smaller siz

and the larger size to more graphics-intensive uses.

e corresponds to “business color” applications

er-size printing. To some extent, the

However, as the sales of color printers grow, more and more vendors are offering models with a range of speeds and a selection of imaging technologies.

Image quality

the

hene

er v

s come out with ne

endor

w models

y pro-

Page 61

Better Buys for Business

claim “breakthrough” image quality. The reality, however, is that image quality has reached something of a p

lateau, and the latest machines aren’t, as a rule, vastly different in this respect from those of a year or two earlier. Price, speed, and features, more than quality, are what have changed.

We see the market in terms of three levels of color

image quality. They are:

l Business color, which could also be called “good

enough” color, means that the color used on company logos, charts, diagrams, and other graphics looks fairly close to the color intended by the author. However, it is not entirely perfect. This is typical of LED printers and most low-end color laser printers. The key issue is color consistency, so that color doesn’t vary

om one print to another during a run.

l Photographic color, where the images (whether pho-

tographs or simple documents) go through a process that makes the color output g

lossy. This kind of color is provided by solid ink jet printers and some laser printers, especially those with improved toner that can print on g

lossy paper stock or specialty paper sold by the manufacturer. Note that this look is not directly related to higher resolution.

l Professional color, for designers and graphic artists

preparing high-value documents or other work (such as covers, folders, and packaging) that will later be sent to commercial printer

s. This level of image quality accurately portrays the colors that will be printed on the final product by the commercial printer. Highend color laser printers with color calibration and color-matching software are able to produce this type of

color quality, though even here the user may have

to work at getting the right settings.

The lines drawn between the various color-quality cate-

ories are not absolute, of course. And some printers can

g serve more than one purpose. But it’s important to assess your color needs before you go out and buy a new machine.

On-demand color printing

Although the most obvious use for color printers may be to spruce up the documents you currently produce in black-and-white, these machines can also offer an alternative in some cases to commercial printing. Instead of

hures produced by a firm of commer-

ving color br

ha cial printer

s using offset printing equipment, you could

instead start producing them on a “just-in-time” basis on

your o

wn laser mac

hine

e Business Pub

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lications

However, the per-page cost of an on-demand color laser print is normally higher than that of commercial offset printing, especially when it comes to printing longer runs. However, if you need to produce 50 or 100 copies of a flyer or postcard, a color laser printer will be a bargain.

On-demand printing using a laser printer also allows you to avoid the storage costs and waste typically associated with producing long runs of promotional literature. You can also keep your materials up-to-date, and you can personalize them to the needs of recipients. The quality of the color and the paper may create a different look and feel from what you may be used to with offset printing, however. While this method of output may be good for things like price lists, it has its limitations.

We should also mention a class of machine that falls somewhere between desktop color printing and offset printing. These machines include the digital press from Indigo (now owned by Hewlett-Packard) and productionlevel color printers from Xerox and Kodak (not within the scope of this guide). There are also the very fast color copier-printers from Canon, Konica Minolta, and Xerox. These machines fill in the gap between short runs (100 or less) and long ones (500 to 1,000 or more). In the world of on-demand color printing, the (mostly) desktop print-

s we cover her

e are relative lightweights.

Many vendors

After incr

easing for several years, the number of vendors in the desktop color laser printer market seems to have reached a plateau. Early in the 1990s, there were only two vendors in the mar

ket. That number multiplied by a factor of 10 over the latter half of the decade as a number of office equipment companies rushed to get into a new,

rowing market.

ast-g

Although you may see as many as 23 different brand names on color laser printers, keep in mind that some of the differences are only skin-deep. For example, Ricoh markets identical color products under the Savin, Gestetner, and Lanier brand names. Also, many vendors use other companies’

engines

. For example, HP uses Canon engines; Xerox uses engines from Fuji Xerox and OKI (as w

ell as a couple of

home

wn engines);

and a number of other vendors use Ricoh (formerly Hitachi), OKI, Matsushita, and Fuji Xerox engines.

however, that two printers sold under

Do not assume

, different brand names but using the same engine are exactly the same. While they may have certain things in common, there can be important differences under the hood. The information in this guide shows which machines use what engines and highlights the important

ferences between models that share the same ones.

dif

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Page 62

Color Fundamentals

Let’s focus next on some of the main technical and performance issues that crop up in any discussion of color printers.

Laser basics

As with monochrome machines, color laser printers work by having a light source etch an image onto a photosensitive drum that then attracts toner; the toner is transferred to paper, heated, and fused; and an image is created. The difference is that with monochrome lasers, the process is completed with one pass through the machine, but with older color models, the imaging (at least traditionally) takes place a total of four times — one for each of the four process colors from which all composite colors are formed. This explains why color print speeds have typically been much slower.

But lately, the fastest models are using tandem engines featuring a one-pass process, resulting in color speeds that are the same or almost as fast as black-only ones. The engine prints the three basic printer colors — cyan, magenta, and yellow — in tandem with black, in a single pass of pass engines ma past few years, this technology has almost completely taken o models offer four-pass color

Solid ink jet:

Solid ink jet tec mal ink jet, the much more common and less expensive variety. The image quality, full-color speed, and price of solid ink jet all place it in the laser class.

At present, Xerox is the only vendor in this guide that of mentioned above, Xerox also sells color laser and LED printer

Solid ink jet technology relies on a solid block of ink that’s melted and dropped precisely onto the paper. The ink r maintain its clarity. Because very little ink soaks into the paper, solid ink jets deliver brighter colors than regular laser

Solid ink jets aren’t fussy about what type of plain paper they print onto — they generally work fine with regular copier and laser printer paper. One benefit of the technology is that the output doesn’t smudge if it gets wet.

ecent de

R ear tendency to jam in copier document feeders due to added

the paper thr

ver the industry. Only older and less expensive

laser-class alternative

ers products using solid ink jet technology. (As we

esolidifies immedia

Speeds ar

elopments b

anta

lier disad

ough the ima

y be either laser- or LED-po

hnology shouldn’t be confused with ther

tely in a process designed to

e brisk b

y full-color standar

y Xer

es of solid ink jet printing, such as a

ging unit. These one-

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x ha

The Color Laser Printer Guide: Industry Briefing

hickness and its vulnerability to scratches.

Xerox’s solid ink jet machines are comparable to the less expensive color lasers. Therefore, the product positioning stresses brilliant colors, along with economy, as a reason to opt for this technology. Xerox has established a successful niche with these printers.

You may sometimes hear solid ink jets referred to as “phase change” printers, a term that refers to the melting/resolidifying process — there’s no special significance to this, and the term is synonymous with “solid ink jet.”

The colors themselves

All color print technologies involve mixing three or four basic colors to create millions of color combinations. You may hear of a three-color palette abbreviated “CMY,” standing for cyan, magenta, and yellow. To form a composite black, CMY printers combine the three primary colors.

However, current color laser printers — including all featured in this guide — have a separate, true black (designated as “K” in printer lingo). This four-color palette is referred to as “CMYK,” and it’s preferable to the threecolor variety: CMYK models typically generate richerlooking black te ors to create composite black. The colors themselves come in the form of different substances, depending on the print technolo

Keep in mind that computer monitors use a different palette — red, green, and blue (RGB) — to mix their col-

s. To reconcile the two color sets, some printers include

-matching software that lets users specify which

color

monitor they have, enabling the printer to adjust the output to ma

In addition, there is a whole subindustry devoted to third-party software and hardware tools designed to control, match, and calibrate color to satisfy the pickiest people. Advanced users (especially those in the graphic arts, publishing, and design businesses) will look for “manual”

. However, most mainstream users will be con-

ols

contr tent with softw

oduction to suit the content of

How important is resolution?

he best w

you must judge image quality by reviewing machine

If specifications, you should be aware that there are differing schools of thought as to what matters most. In the black-and-white market, the main reference point on a spec sheet when it comes to image quality is a printer’s

esolution. This is measured by the number of dots per

r square inch, normally noted as the number of dots per

h in a r

inc

xt than those that combine the CMY col-

gy — in the case of laser

h the monitor.

are that automatically optimizes color

eac

ay to judge print quality is simply to look at it.

w times the n

umber of

dots in a column.

s, it is toner.

h pa

Page 63

Better Buys for Business

example 600 x 600dpi (which we call 600dpi for short) means a grid with 360,000 individual elements that the p

rinter can place toner on.

Today, all color and black-only printers produce pages at a native resolution of at least 600dpi, and some work at 1,200dpi. It is widely felt that higher numbers mean better quality. And whether or not you agree with this, it seems inevitable that the dpi resolution figure will always be the most “visible” specification by which printers are judged on paper because it attempts to boil down several complex elements to a single value.

However, most vendors have their own versions of interpolated resolutions, meaning a manipulation of the output to give it the appearance of higher resolution. Some vendors seem to have better software for this than others. Some have better toner quality that allows for finer apparent resolution. It’s all very confusing. For example, HP has come up with a heavily patented technology called ImageREt 2400 that supposedly delivers 2,400dpi-grade results from a 600dpi engine.

competing technical claims,

Caught in the crossfir the conclusion we draw is that there is no single magic formula for designing color printers that deliver fine results — different paths can lead to the same destina-

A higher r

tion. be-all and end-all of everything. In commercial printing, for example, resolution is considered more important for

xt than for reproducing photographic images. And

te don’t forget that image quality can be in the eye of the beholder — that’s why it makes sense to look before you buy. In an

ver adequate business color.

to deli

Keep in mind that a few models with 1,200dpi maxi-

esolutions may extract hefty speed penalties when

um r

m you take advantage of their capabilities. Hence, even if 1,200dpi is available, you might choose to print most of your work at 600dpi on some printers.

“True” high resolution

As indica er than 600dpi. But within the printer industry, there are occasional squa “true” high-resolution output.

Some laser printers that boast resolutions higher than 600dpi ar designed to be 600dpi engines causes the laser beam to create a higher-resolution image by placing tens of thousands of additional tiny dots. This process is sometimes known as “software interpolation” or “modulation.”

Most ne work at resolutions higher than 600dpi. The technical arguments g

esolution can be helpful, but it is not the

y case, all the products on the market now seem

bove, many printers offer resolutions high-

ted a

e actuall

wer engines are designed from the ground up to

et pr

e of

y be consider

eall

t can r

bout w

les a

y based on what were originally

etty comple

, but they use software that

ut purists insist tha

e Business Pub

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lications

“from the ground up” means “better.” The phrases “native resolution” and “true resolution” are sometimes used to refer to the base resolution of an engine before any software modulation kicks in.

As we’ve said previously, true 1,200dpi resolution on some printers can result in a big hit on some printers’ speeds. Note that modulated higher resolutions sometimes have numbers that read something like “1,200 x 600dpi” — in other words, the “dot intensity” along one axis is greater than along the other. Vendors often use the term “class” to mean interpolation, as in “2,400dpi class.” That simply means an interpolated resolution of 2,400dpi.

How much does 1,200 x 600dpi differ from 600dpi or 1,200dpi? The difference may be visible in complex graphics and smaller type sizes, but only with a magnifying glass. Your salesman may tout these figures, but they are less important than the actual appearance of the printed page and the quality of the imaging system and toner, which can’t be measured in numbers.

Operating Costs

Operating cost comparisons can be quite tricky to make in the color printer mar

s a consensus among vendors that quoted consum-

e’

ther ables figures are based on an assumption of the image area co sounds when you think about the white space in the middle of figure ma what occurs in practice, it does provide a constant standard against which you can make like-for-like comparisons between different monochrome machines.

enter into a cost-per-page analysis. For example, the cost of image area but also on the color mix and the type of image being printed. A number of vendors have come up with their idea of the standard page on which they base their cost-per-page figures. The problem, however, is that the standar

particular vendor in its best possible light — a vendor with especially low black toner costs might assume a higher proportion of black, for example. And some vendor the basis on which they are reached.

color stud page coverage is more like 4 percent per color than 5 per-

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vering 5 percent of a page (which is more than it

letters lik

In the color market, however, numerous variables can

a printed pa

Not surprisingly, the different standards tend to show a

s quote cost-per

Putting aside the issue of vendor self-interest, a recent

e “e” and “o”).

y or may not be an accurate representation of

ge depends not only on the size of the

y be dif

ds ma

y Xer

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ferent from vendor to vendor.

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x sho

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t the average business

hrome market,

Page 64

cent and that black is much more prevalent than the other three colors. It is important to keep in mind that estimating color operating costs is not an exact science. Other experts in the business differ from Xerox, and we tend to think that the real-life coverage may average more like 6 or 7 percent per color. Be aware that all vendor cost estimates are probably on the low side.

The method we prefer

In order to compare operating costs, Better Buys for Business has adopted a standard page definition that — while it does not set out to be more or less representative than the others — does provide a simple standard on which it is easy to make transparent comparisons. The assumption is simply that there is 5 percent coverage of each of the four colors in the CMYK palette. We take into account all consumable items that need regular replacement, not just the obvious ones such as toner and the imaging cartridge (drum or belt). This method — which is also used by most vendors — is really an extension of the standard we use for comparing black-andwhite costs.

The Color Laser Printer Guide: Industry Briefing

The Dell 3110cn includes PostScript, a rare feature among

sub-$500 color laser printer

t to expect

Wha

Using this method, the per-page color costs of most recently introduced color printers fall in the 9–15¢ range, though a couple of vendors have managed to bring costs down to 4–5¢. Black-and-white page costs on some color models typically cluster around 2 or 2.5¢, with a growing number under 1.5¢.

p in mind that the mac

Kee starter supplies included in the purchase price (though sometimes with reduced-capacity toner cartridges). Since some of last for tens of thousands of pages, this means that it will be quite awhile before you actually have to pay the full cost per page in terms of separately purchased supply items.

Suppl more widely discounted than others.

the supply items (such as drums and belts) can

y items are discountable, but some brands are

hines come with a full set of

More About Features

ds on features to look for — but because

w w

a f

xt,

Ne none of these are color-specific, we won’t go into a lot of detail.

PostScript tips

e description lan-

ostScript is w

— it is softw

e”

gua governs the way in which the machine handles instructions from the computer. If you want to read more about

e that resides within the printer and

wn as a “pa

s kno

t’

it, there’s a discussion in the Better Buys

ver for details).

Printer Guide (see bac

For now, we’ll just remind you about when you do and don’t need it. Note that while almost all the printers in this guide come with PostScript standard, some discussion is still required on the subject. of the least expensive printers we cover — from Konica Minolta, for example — come without PostScript. So if

ying to save a buck by buying an inexpensive

re tr

you’ printer PostScript.

desktop publishing programs (Adobe PageMaker, Quark XPress, etc.), you definitely need it. The same applies if you use upscale graphics programs such as Adobe Illustrator.

productivity programs, such as Microsoft Word, Excel, and P printer. A PostScript printer will be able to work with these programs, but it isn’t necessary or even particularly ad either a model without PostScript or one that offers it as an option that you can add later if you need it.

Level 2 compatibility, all of the PostScript-capable mac a v particularly relevant to color. If you want to match precise colors on your output, PostScript 3 can be a plus.

, you need to be sure you can live without

So when do you need PostScript? If you use serious

If, however, you use only word processing and business

owerPoint, you probably don’t need a PostScript

eous

anta

While some printers recently offered Adobe PostScript

hines in this guide suppor

ariety of

small enhancements — some of

k co

This is because some

In this case, you might want to purchase

ostScript 3,

t P

Office Laser

h offers

hic

hich are

Page 65

Better Buys for Business

Some printers don’t employ the original Adobe PostScript but instead use a PostScript-compatible print l

anguage developed by a third party. This isn’t a big negative these days, though some people still feel more secure with the original.

Most PostScript printers also offer PCL printing. This printer control language was designed originally by Hewlett-Packard and is generally used for everyday office work. Other machines offer only Windows-based GDI printing, which has a more limited set of capabilities. Its main disadvantage is that it can tie up your computer until the page is printed; that is, you can’t “spool” the job to a server or printer and get right back to work. That is especially a problem with longer and more complex jobs.

Memory and processors

The relationship and role of memory and controllers are discussed in the Better Buys

Office Laser Printer Guide. We are not going to dwell much on them here, save to say that more memory and powerful controllers enhance a printer’s speed and ar

e essential f

or more ambitious types of work. (Controllers are the so-called front end of printers and they process incoming data sent from connected PCs.)

ood news is that vendors are becoming more gen-

The g erous with the amount of memory they package into their color laser printers as standard. Only a couple years ago, printers with 64MB of memory were in the minority. Today, however, all but a few of the printers covered in this guide have at least 64MB of standard memory, with a substantial n “Memor

y-starved” color printers — those with 64MB of

umber offering a

t least 128MB as standard.

memory (only a handful now have less) included in the basic deal — ha

ve dwindled to a small minority. Because color files are bigger than black-and-white files, the need for memory is greater than that for similar speed blackand-white printers.

Keep in mind, though, that differing memory compres-

sion methods make it hard to infer too much from the

xact amount tha

t’s offered. Also, memory matters a lot

more for PostScript printing than for PCL printing from

memory

standar

d of

fice a

pplica

tions

or GDI printing

is not an issue.

Rest assured that you can often upgrade the memory to

e than y

mor does ad

ou would ever dream of getting, though this

d some cost into the equation. For example, OKI’s C9600 and C9800 color printer series will allow you to boost the memory as high as 1,024MB (one gigabyte).

Most printers use controllers that are proprietary to the

vidual model. However, a few use dedicated proces-

indi sors developed by a company called Electronics for Imaging

his compan

wn as EFI,

kno

is best known for

e Business Pub

ressiv

lications

supplying the front ends to connected color copiers (enabling the latter to double as high-performance printers).

The presence of an EFI controller on a desktop printer is a good indication that the machine has sufficient horsepower to deal with pretty serious workloads in terms of the complexity of files and the quantity being sent in close succession. That isn’t to say that non-EFI controllers are necessarily less powerful. It’s just that it’s hard for a buyer to assess the performance of a controller from specifications alone unless it is made by a recognized third party that supplies more or less the same front ends to a variety of different vendors. In short, there is a degree of comfort in knowing that a controller is EFIsupplied. However, printer vendors have not been asleep during the past few years, and several have controllers of their own that are comparable to EFI’s.

Paper handling

Traditionally, desktop color lasers have come with a 250sheet paper tray and have allowed you to add a second one as an option. Paper capacity is becoming more generous, however, and several recently introduced models offer additional standard 250-sheet trays, 500- or 550sheet tr

ays, and e

ven a 2,000- or a 2,500-sheet tray in several cases. Larger tray capacities are likely to be particularly important if you also plan to use your color laser as a mainstr

eam black-and-w

hite printer.

Often, the standard 250-sheet tray is supported by a

multipurpose tray holding 100–150 sheets. As well as

fering the con

venience of a second active paper source, this tray can often take heavier paper weights than the main tray. By no means are all machines suitable for

per or light card stock — be sure to satisfy your-

vy pa

hea self that the printer is comfortable with any challenging materials you want to feed it.

There are now a fairly large number of machines on the market that are able to take 11" x 17" (or ledger-size) paper. Typically, these can actually take paper a little larg-

der to give you the ability to print 11" x

er than tha

t in or

17" images with full bleed (the image going off the edge).

oducing

Among other things

this is v

y helpful f

or pr proofs of layouts that are being sent out to a commercial printer.

Another no

w-common f

eature is automatic duplexing (double-sided printing). Nearly all of the printers we cover now offer this, more frequently as an option, but in a growing number of cases as a standard feature. Previously, even manual duplex was not typically recommended on desktop color lasers because of paper-jamming issues

. Shorter paper paths and better paper-feeding

technology have overcome much of this problem.

ut most

All models can print onto tr

Copying of Pages Prohibited.To Order: 800 247 2185 or www.betterbuys.com

anspar

encies

Page 66

The Color Laser Printer Guide: Industry Briefing

require special ones that cost more than the regular variety. Printing on transparencies always runs slower than on regular paper.

Interfaces & network connectivity

Older color printers come with parallel interfaces standard. This ensures that they are compatible with all Windows PCs. More common on newer machines is a Universal Serial Bus (USB) port, which is used for direct connection to a PC (or a Mac). USB interfaces, especially the now widely used Version 2.0, provide faster data flow than parallel interfaces and are “hot-swappable.” That means you can connect or disconnect the printer without restarting your computer. It also can be used with Macintosh computers.

All workgroup color printers can be fitted with network interface cards that allow you to connect them directly to Ethernet. This is a standard feature on most printers in this guide. Also optionally available — though increasingly less important — are Token Ring network interfaces.

Some newer models are offering wireless connectivity: either the Ethernet-based IEEE 802.11b (sometimes

wn as “W

kno Bluetooth. We discuss these in more detail in the

Ink Jet Printer Guide

i-Fi”) or (less commonly) the infrared

Business

in this volume (pages 125–130).

Buying a Color

nd Lexmark (www.lexmarkstore.com) among them — will sell end users just about any of their color laser machines from their own sites on the Web. Xerox tends to direct customers to reseller sites or to brick-and-mortar dealerships for most color lasers.

Still other vendors do little or no direct selling over the Internet, although their color laser products are available on online reseller sites. Some of these sites are multi-line resellers, such as Zones (www.zones.com), Computer Discount Warehouse (www.cdw.com), and PC Connection (www.pcconnection.com) — while others are the online shop windows of in-store retailers such as Staples (www.staples.com) and Best Buy (www.bestbuy.com). The latter sites have a much smaller selection of color laser printers than the former.

Some of the online vendors also offer printer leases, extended warranties, and additional services, such as installation by a local dealer. Generally speaking, you may not get the very lowest prices on the vendors’ sites. (After all, they can’t undersell their retail vendors and resellers.) But their prices are a good reference point to start from. They also may include rebates and special offers.

We can’t stress enough, however, the importance of seeing color output with your own e going to do more than just add color to text-based documents. It’s not a good idea, in our opinion, to buy a color printer over the Web without seeing a few hard-copy samples first.

yes, especially if you are

Laser Printer

Recent price reductions have helped make color laser printers more mainstream devices, and this has meant

t they are easier to buy than before. Previously, a lot of

tha places you could turn to for black-and-white laser printers simply did not sell color models. Today, any reseller

k-and-w

t handles f

tha ple, 24–40ppm models — is likely to offer one or more color models as well.

This is a market where vendors generally sell through distributors that supply the computer dealer channel. As a rule, vendors do not maintain a network of authorized

s tha

dealer some manufacturers that are also in the copier business sell color lasers through their copier dealers as well as through the main computer printer channel.

In the past, vendors haven’t dealt directly with end

user

his has c

T ing over the Internet.

Certain vendors — Hewlett-Packard (www.hp.com)

aster b

t ar

pt when pursuing the very largest accounts.

hang

lac

e supplied dir

ed, however, with the advent of purchas-

hite printer

An exception is when

ect.

s — for exam-

ranties and consuma

War

Most color laser models ha year of onsite service. However, a few models through copier companies bear 90-da contract with a dealer for a service contract beyond that period.

Keep in mind that there is less competition in the market for color supplies than in the black-and-white supplies market. Resellers do, however, compete on price over the

ficial”

“of

bles for the HP Color LaserJet series tend to be dis-

a counted most of widely available over the Web.

Because actual, or “street,” prices for color printer consuma Consuma Product Profiles section beginning on page 3) to report these prices. Instead, we give you the “list” prices at which vendors suggest that consumables be sold or the “Web” prices on the vendors’ own Website. These prices will gi

hich printers are the most economical to run.

supplies for the most popular brands; consum-

all.

les vary widely, we don’t attempt in our

bles Costs at-a-Glance charts (see the Vendor &

ve you an idea, although not a perfect one, of

bles

ve warranties that include one

y warranties. You’ll need to

consuma

all

And na

tur

les are also

Page 67

Better Buys for Business

A-Z Guide to Features &

Technology

All-in-one: 1. A multifunctional printer (usually an ink

jet) that can scan, copy, and/or fax.

2. A consumables cartridge on a laser printer that has

both toner and drum in a single unit.

Bit: A piece of digital information consisting of a sin-

gle binary digit (that is, a 1 or a 0). This is the number of bits a printer uses at each pixel to compose an image in scales of gray or in color. Typical bit depths are 8 bits for black-and-white, 24 bits for color. Together, 8 bits make a byte, another unit of digital information.

Bluetooth: An industry specification for wireless com-

munication; industry, it means some mobile phones, laptops, and personal digital assistants (PDAs) can send jobs to printers.

Byte: A unit of

The memory capacity of printers is usually expressed in megabytes (a megabyte is 1,024 kilobytes).

Calibration: The process by which users ensure that

what they print is consistent with the colors they see on their monitor itors can be calibrated to more closely resemble printed output. Printer calibration is typically handled through the unit’s print driver.

CMYK: The four-color palette that comprises color

laser printing four primary colors: cyan (blue), magenta (red), yellow, and black. Toner for color printers is typically sold in

our color

these f

Collation: A print function that allows you to make

multiple copies of multipage originals and have the machine put the pages in order. Without collation, the job would emerge with all the page 1’s first, then all the

e 2’

the pa

tion, do this, the machine scans the job, stores it in memory, and outputs the pages in order.

Controller: This refers to the device at the heart of a

printer that processes an electronic file into information

t can be printed on pa

tha

erred to as an “RIP” (raster image processor). The

r controller is driven by a microprocessor, a semiconductor whose speed is rated in megahertz (MHz).

an alter

. Printers can’t be calibrated very well; mon-

then all the page 3’s, and so forth. With colla-

es emerge 1-2-3, 1-2-3, 1-2-3, and so on. To

native to Wi-Fi. For the printing

digital information consisting of 8 bits.

hich all colors are created from the

in w

. The controller is also

per