Color Lasers Fit For Print
Quality improvements and price drops color SOHO and home networking solutions with laser printers
By Marc Spiwak Digital Connect
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With prices down and quality up, color laser printers are now a viable fit into a home networking or SOHO solution. Aside from paper-handling limitations, some sub-$1,000 color laser printers have better output quality than more expensive printers. All the printers examined here by Digital Connect Lab engineers are ideal for home and small-office use. They are all relatively small, cost between $500 and $2,000, and are fairly easy to set up.
Performance tests were conducted using a simple stopwatch, while image quality was tested using sample images from the Spencer & Associates Printer Test Suite. All printers reviewed here are limited to paper up to 8.5 inches wide. While Digital Connect engineers can point out what's good and bad about each printer, integrators have to decide which best meets a customer's needs. In general, the larger and more expensive units are more robust and the toner tanks last longer. The smaller and less-expensive printers are an easier sell but toner needs to be replaced more often.
Lexmark C510
Lexmark's C510 is one of the smallest color laser printers we've ever examined. It measures 19.5 x 15.2 x 16.5 inches, weighs 67 pounds and will fit almost anywhere. Toner cartridges come preinstalled. Street prices for this capable little printer range from $440 to $650.
The C510 flies when printing monochrome. A 10-page monochrome Word document took 30 seconds, with the first page ready in 12 seconds. For monochrome only, this was one of the two fastest units tested, with the Brother HL-2700CN posting the same results. If the unit will primarily be printing monochrome text, then the C510 is an ideal choice. On the flip side, the C510 is not a single-pass unit, so it was one of the slower units when printing text in color. A 10-page Word document with color headings took 1 minute, 27 seconds to print, with the first page out in 19 seconds, the same as the Brother unit. Color graphics and photo output from the C510 look great. The C510 printed a high-resolution photo in just 34 seconds, and it was the second-best-looking print of the units.
Brother HL-2700CN
The Brother HL-2700CN ($549 list), is rated at 31 ppm in black and white and 8 ppm in full color, with a maximum print resolution of 2,400 x 600 dpi. It has a standard capacity of 250 sheets and a monthly duty cycle of 30,000 pages for monochrome and 5,000 pages for color. Standard interfaces include 10/100 Ethernet, parallel and USB 2.0, and standard memory is 64 Mbytes, expandable to 512 Mbytes.
The Brother HL-2700CN has almost identical dimensions to the Lexmark C510, measuring 18.9 x 15.2 x 16.5 inches and weighing 69 pounds. Performance for the Brother and Lexmark units was almost identical, as was print quality. The unit printed a 10-page monochrome Word document in 30 seconds and a 10-page Word document with color headings in 1 minute, 27 seconds, the same as the Lexmark unit.
Strangely, the Brother printer took nearly three times as long to print the test color photo (1 minute, 15 seconds), but image quality was better than the Lexmark and was the best quality print of any unit covered here. Overall, the HL-2700CN is a general-purpose color laser printer with outstanding but somewhat slow color processing.
HP LaserJet 3550
Hewlett-Packard used to make the best color laser printers, period. While HP printers are still very good, the competition has increased and HP units tend not to stand out as much. HP's LaserJet 3550 ($799 list) is a single-pass unit with a 100-sheet multipurpose tray and 250-sheet input tray. Being a single-pass unit, basic color printing takes no longer than monochrome; HP rates the 3550 at 16 ppm in color or monochrome at 600 x 600 dpi. Memory is fixed at 64 Mbytes.
The LaserJet 3550 is one of the larger units reviewed: 19.7 x 17.6 x 18.4 inches and about 70 pounds. With a monthly duty cycle of 45,000 pages, the unit is heartier than the Brother HL-2700CN. Input capacity is 350 sheets, and USB 2.0 connectivity is standard.
The four-pass LaserJet 3550 was one of the slower units for printing monochrome output but one of the faster units for printing color. It printed the 10-page monochrome Word document and the one with color headings in about 53 seconds each. The 3550 was also the second fastest at printing a color graphics file.
Minolta Magicolor 2430 DL
The Minolta Magicolor 2430 DL is the smallest, lightest and possibly least expensive color laser printer ever tested by Lab engineers, and therefore deserves the spotlight in this roundup. Priced at just $499, the Magicolor 2430 DL nonetheless includes Ethernet and USB 2.0 interfaces. The standard 200-sheet paper input capacity can be expanded to 700 sheets by adding an optional 500-sheet cassette. The four-pass unit is rated at 20 ppm in monochrome and 5 ppm in color, with a maximum resolution of 2,400 x 600 dpi. Standard memory is 32 Mbytes, which is upgradable to 544 Mbytes. The PictBridge 1.0-compatible printer lets users print pictures directly from PictBridge-compliant digital cameras. This tiny printer has a monthly duty cycle of 35,000 pages.
Never before has a color laser printer been so easy to set up. That's the case mainly because the printer weighs only 44 pounds and it's easy for one person to handle. The Magicolor 2430 DL measures 16.9 x 13.4 x 19.8 inches.
No speed demon, the Magicolor 2430 DL printed a 10-page monochrome Word document in 41 seconds and a 10-page Word document with color headings in 2 minutes, 10 seconds. What was most unexpected, however, was that the unit printed two color graphics test images with better quality than anything else in this roundup. Color photos printed on the Minolta showed the best color tones, contrast and detail. This is an ideal printer for use in the home and small offices.
OKI C5400
The Oki C5400 ($1,099 list)is the second smallest color printer covered in this roundup. Not technically a laser printer, the Oki printer uses LEDs instead of lasers to "draw" images on its transfer drum; after that, it uses the same process of melting powdered toner to paper as do true laser printers. By looking at the printouts, though, you can't tell LEDs were used over lasers. The Oki C5400 uses single-pass technology, and it's rated at 24 ppm in monochrome and 16 ppm in color, with a maximum resolution of 1,200 x 600 dpi. For such a small printer, the C5400 has a large paper capacity—a standard paper capacity of 400 sheets from its 300-sheet main paper tray and a 100-sheet multipurpose tray. High-speed USB connectivity is standard, as is a parallel port. The printer also comes standard with 64 Mbytes of memory, upgradable to 320 Mbytes.
Almost as small as the Minolta printer, the Oki C5400 has a monthly duty cycle of 50,000 pages. That's a lot for a printer that measures only 16.7 x 13.6 x 22.1 inches and weighs about 57 pounds. Aside from its small size and high duty cycle, there is little reason to select this printer over anything else examined in these reviews. The C5400 costs twice as much as some others and is slower than most. Certain photos printed on the C5400 showed poor color tones.
Ricoh Aficio CL2000N
Ricoh's Aficio CL2000N ($860 list) is very small for a single-pass color laser printer, making it ideal for home or small office use. The default resolution is 600 x 600 dpi, with an enhanced mode of 1,200 x 1,200 dpi. Ricoh rates the Aficio CL2000N at about 17 ppm in color or monochrome at 600 x 600 dpi, with print speeds decreasing as resolution increases.
The Aficio CL2000N has a standard paper input capacity of 530 sheets and output capacity of 250 sheets. Standard memory is 64 Mbytes, expandable to 256 Mbytes. The printer measures 16.5 x 15.6 x 21.1 inches. While it looks small, it's heavy for its size, weighing in at almost 70 pounds. The Aficio CL2000N was relatively fast at printing text but slow when printing color graphics. It printed a 10-page monochrome Word document in 45 seconds and printed the same document with color headings in 48 seconds. Performance aside, color images looked quite good, with close attention to linearity, very good contrast and detail.
Samsung CLP-550
Samsung's CLP-550 ($599 list) offers greatly improved sharpness and better contrast than its previous generation color laser, the CLP-500. The CLP-550 is a four-pass unit, so it doesn't print as quickly in color as it does in monochrome. Samsung rates the unit at 5 ppm in color and 21 ppm in monochrome. Automatic duplexing is built in. Standard memory is 64 Mbytes, upgradable to 384 Mbytes. The CLP-550 features a standard 250-sheet input tray and it's rated for a monthly duty cycle of 35,000 pages.
The CLP-550 is easy to set up. On the large side, the unit measures 15.9 x 20.1 x 18.5 inches and weighs 77 pounds. Both parallel and USB 2.0 connectivity are standard. As for performance, the CLP-550 printed the 10-page monochrome Word document in 41 seconds and the same document with color headings in 2 minutes, 12 seconds. The color test photo took just 29 seconds to print, but it had poor contrast and showed little detail. In a nutshell, this printer is a fine choice if performance and image quality are less important than price.
Xerox Phaser 6250
Xerox started the trend toward small-size, high-performance color laser printers with its Phaser 6200, which was upgraded to the 6250 about a year later. It has not changed since. The Phaser 6250 was intended more for performance than size or cost, but it also happened to be small. At the time, nothing in its class could beat it, which still seems to be the case. Even though the Phaser 6250 has been around for a while and is rather expensive for this roundup, it still seems to be the one to beat. Street prices range from $2,000 to $2,500.
The Phaser 6250 prints up to 26 ppm in color or monochrome at 2,400 x 600-dpi resolution. Its input trays combine for a total of 600 sheets and it's rated for a monthly duty cycle of 100,000 pages. Larger and heavier than anything else in this roundup, the Phaser 6250 measures 17.5 x 17.3 x 23.2 inches, weighs 80 pounds and is easy to set up.
Still the speed king, the Phaser 6250 was the fastest at most of the performance tests. The 10-page monochrome Word document took about 35 seconds to print, while the same document with color headings took 43 seconds. The test photo took 27 seconds, and image quality was close to best. For customers that want a very robust printer in their home and when price is not the major concern, the Phaser 6250 is still the printer of choice
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