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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 35
p
rinters with more capacity, but we think that this is more
than adequate for most offices.
T
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 compara-
bly priced CL7300 family. The Ricoh model has some-
what more sophisticated finishing and output options,
including higher
-capacity stapling and a mailbo
x. It is a
bit slower, especially in black. Ricoh’s color operating
costs are considerably lower as well. The Xerox Phaser
7400 series also offer
s speed and features comparable to
those of
this OKI family for similar pricing.
But that takes nothing away from the C9600/C9800
famil
y. It still has adequate finishing, good input, and lots
of memory. These are among the cream of the crop in the
color laser-quality printer market.
Char
t entries — pages 103–104
PANASONIC
Secaucus, NJ
800 742 8086
www.panasonic.com
Vendor Pr
ofile
P
anasonic sells color printer
s under its o
wn name using
engines made by its parent company, Matsushita. The
company also sells black-and-white printers, fax
mac
hines
, copiers, and scanners.
Panasonic sells its color laser printers through both tra-
ditional office equipment dealers — Panasonic copier
dealer
s
,
in par
ticular — and w
holesale printer c
hannels.
P
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
speed
y platfor
m for a sub-$1,000 printer. It also has built-
in Ethernet compatibility, making it an even better value.
Both models have some quite good standard features.
USB and parallel ports complement the Ether
net port.
(Wireless Ethernet is a third-party option.) They have
embedded Web servers with remote administration and
maintenance tools
. The
y also have PCL 5c as a standard
feature (PostScript is an option). And they offer an
optional 40GB internal hard drive.
P
aper capacity is pretty good. You start with a 100-
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.
T
hese printer
s start with 128MB, so they handle com-
ple
x jobs and/or duplex printing more easily. Memory
can be e
xpanded to 512MB, appropriate for this class of
printer.
Consumables costs for the KX-CL400 are reasonable,
especiall
y f
or the sub-$1,000 printer
.
We calculate the
b
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
mar
k
et with a r
ace to the bottom in ter
ms of
price
.
W
ha
t