Color & Monochrome Lasers

Laser printers have been around since 1971 and yet they're hot in demand

even today. Many exciting things have happened to this category over the recent

past. For one, the cost of owning and running a laser printer has come down

dramatically. From being an enterprise level product that was only meant to be

shared by a group of people, lasers have even reached the personal desktop,

making it an ideal choice for the senior management.

Color laser printers have been talked of for quite some time, but it's only

recently that their costs have come down considerably for any office to consider

them seriously. With this, their adoption rate should increase considerably in

the near future, thereby allowing color printing of office documents in the

workplace. Looking at this trend, for the first time, we decided to also include

color laser printers in our shootout.

This time, we asked for monochrome lasers that fall between 20 to 40 ppm, and

color lasers with print speeds of up to 20 ppm. After receiving the models, we

further sub-divided the color lasers into two categories, and monos into three.

This decision was taken to ensure a fair comparison. The categories are as

follows:



Color Lasers:


1. Entry level


2. Mid range

Mono Lasers:



1. Personal mono lasers


2. Small workgroups


3. Medium workgroups

Before we get into the shootout, let's answer a few pressing concerns every

organization is facing today.

Laser MFD or Laser Printer?



We've already seen inkjet based MFDs overtaking inkjet printers, so the same
question for lasers is only natural. Today you can buy an entry level mono

laser-based MFD at a decent price tag of 18k, which includes a scanner, digital

laser copier, PC fax and a telephone handset. Likewise, a higher end laser based

MFD can even work as an organization's communication hub. Laser based MFDs

definitely have an advantage there, but that doesn't mean you should replace

all your laser printers with laser based MFDs. They will remain for the simple

reason that the usage for various functions of an MFD varies across every

department in an organization.

Not everybody needs to send out the same number of faxes, nor does everybody

require so much scanning. Everbody on the other hand needs to print, making a

strong case for laser printers. Also, when it comes to bulk purchase, laser

printers would still be more cost effective than laser MFDs.

Color or mono?



If you have high volume color printing requirements in the office, then go for
color lasers. They are definitely more economical than color inkjets. After

comparing the cost per print of the color lasers we received, we found that each

page on an average for a color laser can cost as low as Rs 3.12. The cost of a

color inkjet print however would be more.

How we tested



We used an Intel P4 3.2 GHz system with 512 MB RAM running on Win XP. All the
printers had a USB 2.0 interface, with a few having network interfaces and even

a parallel port. When a printer had both USB as well as Ethernet support, we

tested with the latter. It was done on an isolated network so that there was no

unnecessary traffic to hinder our test.

We performed ten tests for each printer to check for quality and speed of

printing. The tests were done using Word 2000, CorelDraw 9, and Adobe PhotoShop

7. Each test was repeated thrice and its average was considered. If the

difference between any two readings was more than 10 percent, the test was r

peated.

Print speed: We measured the printing speed using the following

mechanisms:



1. Time taken to print first page of a multi-page document.


2. Time taken to print multiple pages.


3. Time to print multiple copies of the same page.


4. Time to print a single page with a small graphic.


5. For color lasers, a 16 MB full-page photograph was printed and the time
recorded.

Print quality: After setting each printer to the maximum print

resolution it supported, we checked for the following:



1. Smallest readable font.


2. Full-page monochrome graphic.


3. Line art and curves.


4. Sharpness of a wedge patch: A wedge patch is a circle with many lines
extending out from the center towards its periphery. A good printer should be

able to replicate this with all the lines clearly visible, even at the center,

and without any overlaps or patches.



5. Quality of fountain fills: This is a smoothgradient of shades of gray.


We checked how accurately each printer was able to replicate this without any
banding.



6. Quality of full-page color image: Here, we have taken a full color image
print on plain paper as well as on photo paper and then compared the quality.

All the above tests were done on A4 Xerox paper. For color photo printing, we

used 173 GSM photo paper.

Features and upgradability: What can you upgrade in a printer and by

how much? We looked for the following:



1. Memory: How much RAM does a printer ship with and what's the maximum it can
support?



2. Network: What are the various protocols and platforms that the printer
supports? How many network cards can it take?



3. Accessories: These include extra input trays, feeders, output bins,
duplexers, etc. These are all optional, and we checked how many did each printer

support.



4. Ease of upgrade: We looked at how easily you could access the different parts
inside to upgrade the printer, like adding a hard disk, more memory, or a

network card. We also checkedwhether a printer had its own proprietary memory

modules or if regular SDRAM could



be used.


5. We also looked for ease of setup, and configuration, printing modes, recovery
from paper jam, support for multiple platforms and other features, if any.

Pricing: Here we considered the actual cost of each printer, the cost

of its toner cartridge, cost of a RAM upgrade, and warranty.

Lastly, we used the Brown Gibson model to arrive at the weightages, which

were then used for the rankings.

Entry Level Color Laser Printers

Xerox Phaser 6120

Price: Rs 19,990 (1 yr warranty) Contact: Xerox India, Gurgaon PH: 9810296115 Email ID: d.bernard@xerox.com

+ Lowest price, high on features — High cost of consumables

This is the lowest priced color laser printer in the shootout. The printer is

meant for small offices. The rated color and monochrome print speed is 5 and 20

ppm respectively and it lived up to its spec in our tests. Xerox 6120 offers

USB, parallel as well as Ethernet options.

The printer also offers various expandability options such as adding a duplex

unit, hard drive and extra RAM. The printer can print at 2400 dpi, which is the

highest resolution for this category. The printer is powered by 300 MHz 32-bit

RISC processor and 128 MB RAM (expandable up to 640 MB). But, to expand the RAM,

you need to spend substantial money. To upgrade from 128 to 256 MB it will cost

you Rs 6,120. To expand the RAM to the maximum possible, you have to shell out

Rs 24,480, which is more than the cost of the printer itself.

Quality wise, the printer gave excellent output in color and mono, and

achieved highest scores in performance tests in this category. It scores the

highest points for features as it provides maximum RAM expandability and a

higher capacity paper tray. Another added bonus is that the printer supports

both PCL and Postscript, and is even Pantone certified.

It gives color prints @ Rs 5.90 and mono @ Rs 1.21 per printed page. Plus,

you have to spend Rs 8,853 for replacing the drum after printing



20,000 pages.

Bottom line: This is the best printer in

this category, due to its performance and features.

HP Color LaserJet 2600n

Price: Rs 19,999 (1 yr warranty) Contact: HP India, Gurgaon  PH: 2566111  Email ID: kakuni.mahto@hp.com

+ Good price, no need to replace the drum  — RAM is not upgradeable

This printer has a rated color print speed of 8 ppm, which is higher than the

other two in the category. However, its monochrome print speed is also



8 ppm, which is much lower than the other two. Being an office printer, it has a
network interface. It comes with 16 MB RAM and unfortunately, this cannot be

upgraded. Moreover, it does not have a duplex unit for double-sided printing,

which comes built-in with the Samsung printer.

However you can avail duplex printing on this printer, manually, using its

driver. The capacity of the input paper tray is 250 while that of the output

tray is 125. The printer can print at upto 600x600 dpi resolution. It gave us

good quality color prints and very good black and white prints for daily office

work. However, in the Grayscale test, it gave average quality mono prints due to

slight banding. For printing full color graphics, the printer took 22 secs and

for printing multiple pages it gave 8 ppm speed as rated.

It warmed-up in about 20 sec, which is acceptable if the printer is connected

to a network. In line art printing, the print quality was excellent with smooth

lines. In the CMY print test, the print quality was sharp but there was slight

banding in the printed sheet. The printer gives you full color prints @ Rs 4.50

and monochrome @ 60p per page, which is the best rate in this category. Plus,

the printer has an in-built imaging drum, which saves on the cost of replacing

the drum at the end of each duty cycle.

You just need to spend for its color and black cartridges.

Bottom line: A very effective printer

overall, but loses out on features.

Samsung CLP-510

Price: Rs 20,000 (1 yr warranty) Contact: Samsung India Electronics, Delhi. PH: 41511234 Email ID: anupam.k@samsung.com

+Low cost per color page and highest ppm in this category   — Below average print quality, generates too much heat

This is the heaviest color laser printer in this category. The model comes

with a USB port only, but you can add Ethernet capability. The printer can print

color images or text at up to 1200 dpi resolution. It has a duplex unit, an LCD

display and navigation buttons to control the print job, and for configuring the

settings. The printer has a Samsung SPGPM processor with 64 MB RAM, expandable

to 192 MB. Moreover, it has optional wireless connectivity. We were not too

pleased with this printer's print quality. In every print, the color was

darker than it should have been, with deep color shades. Same was the case with

mono prints. When we took a CMY print, it gave a small rectangular patch at the

center of the page.



We re-calibrated the cartridge and re-did the test many times, but the results
were the same. It printed at 5 ppm in color and 24 ppm in mono, just 1 ppm less

than the rated speed. Still, this is the highest speed in this category.

The fuser of the printer generated too much heat compared to others. If

people stand near the printer to collect the printed pages, they have to

tolerate the hot air coming out of the fuser unit. The Samsung CLP-510 has a

cost per page for color prints of Rs 3.87 and Paise 76



for mono. It has the lowest cost per color print.

Bottom line: An average printer overall,

but good enough for routine office text printing requirements.

Mid Range Color Lasers

Mid Range Color Lasers



As these printers could not be clubbed into any of the other categories, due to a wide variation in their price, they've not been ranked, but reviewed separately nevertheless

HP LaserJet 3000dn

Price: Rs 94,000 (1 yr warranty) Contact: HP India, Gurgaon  PH: 2566111  Email ID: kakuni.mahto@hp.com

+ Low cost per page, fast print speed — Costly

This is the fastest color laser printer we received and the most expensive

one in this category. The printer is meant for workgroups with up to 50 users.

It comes with default 256 MB RAM that can be expanded to 512 MB. However, this

upgrade can cost you about Rs 31K. It has an LCD panel with navigational

buttons. Plus, it has a useful Jam Recovery option that ejects the jammed sheet,

without requiring any opening of the unit. The 3000dn has a rated ppm of 30 in

mono and up to 15 ppm in color. It can do 600x600 dpi in both mono and color

modes. For connectivity, you have two options: USB 2.0 and Ethernet. The printer

has HP JetDirect embedded print server for managing print jobs.

The HP printers we have seen so far, have been quite noisy. The 3000dn is a

lot quieter in comparison. This printer is a clear winner in terms of speed. It

achieved a perfect 30 ppm as rated, while printing text with a color image. On

printing a full color image it took around 33 secs to print. As far as quality

is concerned, line art as well as full color and CMY graphic prints were very

good. The printer gives you very economical color prints (about Rs 3.12 per

print) in this category. And in mono, the cost per page was only 52p, which also

very low and affordable.

Bottom Line: Good print speed coupled

with low printing cost make this an excellent choice.

HP LaserJet 3600dn

Price: Rs 65,000 (1 yr warranty) Contact: HP India, Gurgaon  PH: 2566111  Email ID: kakuni.mahto@hp.com

+ Good print quality  — Lower print speed, RAM can't be upgraded

This printer is meant for those workgroups that need good quality color

prints. Unfortunately, this printer also comes with 128 MB RAM that cannot be

upgraded. Just like the HP 3000dn, it has an LCD panel, but here you would be

shown the name of the job it is processing. You can connect the printer over USB

or Ethernet and printing jobs can be managed using its built-in print server.

The printer gave us 17 ppm as rated for both color and mono prints. It can print

at 600x600 dpi and the print quality was excellent with color as well as mono.

In the line art test, the lines were slightly dotted instead of being solid, but

to an acceptable extent. Surprisingly, full color graphics took only 22 secs,

which is



11 secs lesser than its cousin, the HP 3000dn.

This printer gives the same speeds over both USB as well as Ethernet

interfaces. The HP 3600dn costs Rs 65,000 and the cost per page with this

printer was Rs 4.33 for color and just 97p with mono. But compared to HP 3000dn,

the cost per page for 3600dn is higher.

Bottom Line: Overall, a good printer for

small workgroups.

Personal Mono Lasers

Personal Mono Lasers

Xerox Phaser 3122

Price: Rs 6,750 (1 yr warranty) Contact: Xerox India, Gurgaon PH: 9810296115 Email ID: d.bernard@xerox.com

+ Low Price — High cartridge cost

This printer has the lowest price at Rs 6,750 and the amazing part is that

its print cartridge costs Rs 4,300. This is the trend with most of the Xerox

printers where you have a huge recurring cost. It comes with just 8 MB RAM which

cannot be upgraded and has both parallel and USB connectivity. The time taken

for first page print is 10 seconds. But, it did manage to meet its claimed print

speed at 20 ppm. The Phaser can print up to 1200 dpi resolution and the printing

quality was good in our tests. The duty cycle of the printer is 35,000 pages

while the cartridge yield is 3,000 prints.

Bottom Line: A compact design and low price, make it a good buy.

Epson Stylus EPL-6200L

Price: Rs 10,800 (2 yr warranty) Contact: Epson India, Bangalore PH: 30515000 Email ID: prabagaran@eid.epson.co.in

+ Good printing speed — Low Ram

This was a last moment entry in our shootout. At first glance it's a nice

looking laser printer. But if you are standing near the printer to collect the

printouts, then the heat emanating from the vents at the top of the unit hits

you in the face. This is annoying. The printer managed to give good performance

in our tests-its output was 20 ppm and time taken to print the first page was

14 seconds.

The printer is low on RAM having only 2 MB and has only two LEDs in its

control panel to display information about the status of the printer. It has a

parallel and a USB interface for connectivity. Its cartridge provides a yield of

3000 pages and its input tray can handle 150 papers while the output tray

capacity is 100.

Bottom Line: A good choice provided you

need only textual prints.

Small Workgroup Monos

Small Workgroup Monos

WeP Laser 2500

Price: Rs 22,500 (1 yr warranty) Contact: Wep Peripherals, Bangalore  PH: 2270359 Email ID: manjunatha.g@wepindia.com

+ Auto duplex printing — Initial setup is difficult

It is a winner in this category due to its superior features and performance.

However, the printer gave good performance in terms of speed, as time taken to

print first page was 11 secs and it has an overall speed of 20 ppm. The price

per page is Rs 1.17. It didn't do well in the grayscale test, although its

performance in other graphics and text quality tests was good. It comes with 16

MB RAM which is upgradable to 272 MB. For connectivity, it has parallel and USB

interfaces.

Bottom Line: The auto duplex feature,

makes it exciting for this category .

Xerox Phaser 3150

Price: Rs 17,000 (1 yr warranty) Contact: Xerox India, Gurgaon PH: 9810296115 Email ID: d.bernard@xerox.com

+ Good speed  — Low image quality, no auto duplexer

This printer is also meant for small workgroups and prints at a resolution of

1200 dpi. It is powered by a 32 bit RISC 166 MHz processor and has 32 MB RAM

that's upgradable to 144 MB. The cost for printing is Rs 1.77 per page. For

connectivity, it has a parallel and a USB interface. This printer does not have

an auto-duplex printing mode. It is similar in performance to the Wep Laser

2500. In our tests, the printer gave good quality text prints but when we threw

full page graphics at it, the print quality was below average.

In the speed tests, the performance was good and time taken for the first

page print was 11 seconds and the overall speed was 21 ppm.

Bottom Line: A useful printer for regular

text printing requirements.

Mid Range Monos

Mid Range Monos

HP LaserJet 2430n

Price: Rs 59,999 (1 yr warranty) Contact: HP India, Gurgaon  PH: 2566111  Email ID: kakuni.mahto@hp.com

+ Automatic duplex and low cost per page — Costly RAM upgrade

This printer has a perfect balance of price, performance and features. It

comes with 64 MB RAM which can be expanded to 320 MB. There is also a USB and

Ethernet interface for network printing. On the front panel, there is an LCD

screen and a navigation button to configure the settings of the printer.

In addition, it has an automatic duplex unit for two side printing. The

printer took only 10 secs to print the first page. Plus, the printer was able to

achieve its rated speed of 33 ppm.

The printer can print at 1200x 1200 dpi at best quality; therefore it showed

fine and crisp prints in all the print quality tests. The print quality was

excellent in gray scale printing and there was no banding at all.

The printer is a bit costly which does not matter in this segment, as people

would be more after good quality mono prints. However, in the long run it will

benefit you in terms of cost of consumables, because it has lowest cost per page

of 50p only.

Bottom Line: This printer gives you good

quality and economical prints at a fast speed.

Canon LBP3460

Price: Rs 54,995 (2 yr warranty) Contact: Canon India, Gurgaon PH: 5160000 Email ID: info@canon.co.in

+ Good printing speed, automatic duplex function — Average quality prints in grayscale

This printer was launched just as we were about to send this issue to press.

We received the test printer for evaluation with broken cartridges and were not

able to get a replacement in time. Therefore, we decided to repair the cartridge

ourselves and use that for our tests.

On the features front, the printer ships with 64 MB RAM that can be upgraded

to 320 MB. It has a USB as well as an Ethernet port. In addition, it has an

automatic duplex function for double-sided printing. The input as well as output

tray capacity is 250 sheets. The printer has a rated speed of 33 ppm which was

easily achieved in our tests. The time taken to print the first page was 11 secs.

The printer can print at a maximum resolution of 600x600 dpi. The quality of

mono prints was very good barring the grayscale test where there was visible

banding. The printer gives you mono prints with cost per page of Rs 1.40. It

also has an LCD panel and navigational buttons to manage and configure the

settings.

Bottom Line: A fast printer, that's

good for heavy text printing requirement of a small workgroup.

Sanjay Majumder and Swapnil Arora