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Entire Contents © 2006 Prog
ressiv
e Business Pub
lications
.
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features for the price. Even with many under-$500 color
l
aser printers to choose from these days, the prices are
e
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 dumb-
ed-down models. While the 3010cn prints at a pokey
5ppm in color, it runs at a decent 25ppm in black-and-
white. 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
tr
ay. You can add a third, 500-sheet paper tray to the
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 lim-
ited to 250 sheets
, with no option for expansion.
As y
ou would expect,
these are pretty basic models
. But
the low prices make them very desirable small-
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.
Better Buys for Business
Dell Color Laser Printer 3110cn
Consumables costs at-a-glance
Price
Yield
Full-color cost per pa
g
e
Blac
k-and-white cost per pa
g
e
Blac
k toner
$110.00 8,000 $ 0.01
4
$ 0.01
4
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
$ 0.0944 $ 0.0138
9.44 1.38
Dell Color Laser Printer 5110cn
Consumables costs at-a-glance
Price
Yield
Full-color cost per page
Black-and-white cost per page
Black toner $90.00 18,000 $ 0.005 $ 0.005
Cy
an toner
$230.00 12,000 $ 0.019 N/A
Magenta toner $230.00 12,000 $ 0.019 N/A
Yellow toner $230.00 12,000 $ 0.019 N/A
Drum/b
lac
k
$169.99 35,000 N/A $ 0.005
Drum/4-color $169.99 35,000 $ 0.020 N/A
TOTAL PER-PAGE COSTS
$ 0.0825 $ 0.0099
8.25 0.99