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The Color Laser Printer Guide: Vendor & Product Profiles
Entire Contents © 2006 Prog
ressiv
e Business Publications. Copying of Pages Prohibited.To Order: 800 247 2185 or www.betterbuys.com 31
w
ell as over the Internet. OKI also sells its printers in spe-
cial 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 pre-
dictably 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 perform-
ance 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
o
ption for adding one. It runs on OKI’s host-based archi-
tecture, not PostScript, although that shouldn’t be a prob-
lem. 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
C5800Ldn,
the
y are still reasonable. But they offer more
advanced features and better options than their bargain-
priced 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
ha
v
e 60,000 monthly duty cycles. One clear improvement
o
ver the C3400n is the printers’ built-in memory: the
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
P
ostScript.
Both w
or
k with OKI’s host-based architec-
tur
e.
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
pa
per suppl
y, which can be expanded with the addition of
a 530-sheet additional tray. Neither has a bypass tray or
an
y ad
ditional output options
.
OKI C3400n
Consumables costs at-a-glance
Price
Yield
Full-color cost per page
Black-and-white cost per page
Blac
k toner
$70.00 2,500 $ 0.028 $ 0.028
Cy
an toner
$100.00 2,000 $ 0.050 N/A
Ma
g
enta toner
$100.00 2,000 $ 0.050 N/A
Yellow toner $100.00 2,000 $ 0.050 N/A
T
O
T
AL PER-P
AGE COSTS
$ 0.1780 $ 0.0280
17.80 2.80