Epson Aculaser C2000

Aculaser C2000 is the latest color laser printer from Epson, suitable for

small to medium workgroups. It has a 266 MHz RISC microprocessor and it came to

us loaded with 32 MB RAM. It can be upgraded to 512 MB, which is important if

you have to work with large files like those used in graphics-related work. You

can also add another hard drive to increase the printer’s buffer. This comes

in handy if you plan to use it over the network, as it will have more space for

queuing the documents waiting to be printed. The C2000 takes in four different

toner cartridges: Black, Yellow, Magenta, and Cyan. It also requires a fuser

unit, a fuser oil roll, a photoconductor unit, and a transfer belt unit to be

installed, which adds up to a lot of consumables. It also has a waste toner

collector, which fits on one of the sides and fills up slowly as you go on

printing. The printer can print at 600 dpi and 300 dpi resolutions.

The printer can be hooked to either a PC via its parallel port, or to the

network with its Ethernet interface. We connected the printer to a vacant

network point and assigned it a static IP address using EpsonNet WinAssist

software that comes with it. Once you install a software called EpsonNet Direct

Print, the printer will show up in your network neighborhood. The printer has

drivers for Windows 95/98/2000 and NT 4.

We tested the C2000 by installing it on an isolated 100 Mbps network to

ensure that no undue network traffic hampered print speeds. The client machine

had a Duron 600 MHz processor with 64 MB RAM, a Creative GeForce display card,

and an Intel 82559 network adapter. The operating system installed was Win 98

SE. We first tested it for minimum readable font size, and found the text to be

crisp and readable right up to the smallest font size of two points. We then

measured its speed for printing a single black-and-white and color page each.

The printer managed to print these in 15 and 24 seconds respectively. We then

checked its speed in printing a 31-page Word document. Here, it managed to

finish the task in 1:29 minutes, which gives it a speed of 20 ppm. For color

documents, it gave a time of 1:59 minutes to print 10 copies of a colored

graphic file, giving it a speed of 5 ppm. These speeds match its rated specs. We

didn’t find any problem with its color quality either, and it didn’t have

problems in printing fine lines and curves. It even managed to reproduce a

fountain fill, which is a smooth gradient of shades of gray, without any

banding. So, as far as performance goes there is nothing to worry about.

The printer has an input paper capacity of 500 sheets in its lower tray,

which can be upgraded to 1,000 by adding another paper tray. It also has a

multi-purpose tray, which can take in 150 sheets, 10 envelopes or up to 50

sheets of labels, thick paper or transparencies. Its rated lifetime is five

years or 500,000 sheets whichever comes first. To top it all, the printer has a

very good price tag.

Sachin Makhija at PCQ Labs