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ressiv
e Business Pub
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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 black-
and-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.
Xer
ox sets its monthly volume as 35,000 pages, which is
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 stan-
dard. There’s a third-party Wi-Fi option. These are fea-
tures that go beyond the minimum.
As with all inexpensive color laser printers, we suspect
you’ll mak
e up for the bargain by spending more on
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 mar-
ket. 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 offer-
ing 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-
er
s (Xerox is the only company selling office printers with
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
c
loser to the original. Even the default settings seem to
produce pretty accurate color renderings, though this
printer tec
hnolo
g
y is not intended f
or those w
ho need
e
xact color ma
tc
hing (unlik
e
, say, Xerox’s own Phaser
7760 series).
It must be said that these printers run relatively slow at
the maximum resolution photo mode speed, with a stan-
dard resolution of around 300 x 400dpi more likely for
nor
mal w
or
k.
As w
e have said, resolution is not the
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
r
especta
b
le speeds
. The 8500 engines are rated for up to
24ppm, both in color and in black-and-white. The 8550
Better Buys for Business
Xerox Phaser 6120N
Consumables costs at-a-glance
Price
Yield
Full-color cost per pa
ge
Blac
k-and-white cost per page
Black toner $99.99 4,500 $ 0.022 $ 0.022
Cyan toner $159.99 4,500 $ 0.036 N/A
Ma
genta toner
$159.99 4,500 $ 0.036 N/A
Y
ello
w toner
$159.99 4,500 $ 0.036 N/A
Imaging unit/4-color $169.99 10,000 $ 0.017 $ 0.008
T
O
T
AL PER-PAGE COSTS
$ 0.1459 $ 0.0302
14.59 3.02