Six New Offerings Enter Printer Landscape

The new monochrome models are so easy to set up that they can be working within a few minutes of being taken out of the box.

Hewlett-Packard's brand-new LaserJet 2300dtn monochrome laser printer is fast enough to support a small workgroup yet takes up very little space. It prints up to 20 pages per minute (ppm) at 1,200 x 1,200 dpi resolution, finishing the first page in as little as 10 seconds. The 2300dtn features built-in duplexing, and it comes with 48 Mbytes of memory, expandable to 304 Mbytes. This model also features USB, parallel and Ethernet connectivity.

This tiny unit,it measures only 10.2 inches high x 16.2 inches wide x 17.7 inches deep and weighs about 32 pounds,turned out to be the second-fastest monochrome printer tested, being just a tick faster than the Lexmark T420 and about 30 percent slower than the Kyocera FS-3800N when converting color images to monochrome. Though the output is monochrome, photographs printed on the 2300dtn contain a great amount of detail and contrast. Text is quite sharp. This printer provided the best quality output of the three monochrome units tested.

Lexmark International's new T420D monochrome laser printer outputs up to 22 ppm, with the first page out in only 10 seconds. This unit has a monthly duty cycle of 50,000 pages per month and is ideal for small workgroups that don't need to print in wide format. The base model includes USB and parallel ports and 16 Mbytes of memory for $649, while one with 10/100 Ethernet and 32 Mbytes of memory costs $1,039.

This space-saving printer measures 10.2 inches high x 16 inches wide x 16.7 inches deep and weighs just over 30 pounds. The T420D has a print resolution of 600 x 600 dpi with a 1,200-dpi enhanced mode. Memory can be increased to a maximum of 272 Mbytes. Duplex printing is standard.

Kyocera's FS-3800N is a small-format, high-speed, high-volume monochrome laser printer with a monthly duty cycle of 100,000 pages. This is a genuine 1,200 x 1,200-dpi printer with a 2,400 x 600-dpi enhanced mode. The printer comes standard with 32 Mbytes of memory, upgradable to 288 Mbytes. It has a standard input capacity of 500 sheets plus a 100-sheet bypass feeder. An optional 2,000-sheet feeder increases the capacity to 2,500 sheets. An automatic 70-sheet envelope feeder is optional. Network connectivity is standard.

The printer measures 11.8 inches high x 13.6 inches wide x 15.4 inches deep and weighs 28.7 pounds.

The FS-3800N turned out to be the fastest monochrome printer tested, outputting a 10-page Word document in just 31.5 seconds, with the first page out in 10 seconds. It really shines when processing color images and printing them in monochrome. Output quality isn't quite as good as the Lexmark unit, but if print speed is the priority, then the Kyocera unit is the right printer.

The three new color printers evaluated by the Test Center run the gamut from a model good for general office use to a great printer for high-volume printing of any type.

Minolta is trying to shake up the market with its new magicolor 2300W, a color laser printer with the incredibly low street price of just $699. The 2300W is designed for personal, home- and small-office use and is best intended for personal use or shared through a workstation in a small workgroup. The unit features both USB and parallel interfaces, but no network interface. While the 2300W does not offer Ethernet connectivity, it is available on the 2300 DL model for about $100 more. An automatic duplexer costs an additional $399. Toner cartridges come pre-installed so the 2300W is ready to run out of the box.

The 2300W is very small for a color laser printer, measuring just 15.4 inches high x 14 inches wide x 19.7 inches deep and weighing only 55 pounds.

The 2300W has a resolution of 1,200 x 600 dpi and features a 200-sheet multipurpose input tray. It prints up to 16 ppm in black-and-white, but only 4 ppm in color. Almost as fast as the monochrome units when printing monochrome text, the 2300W printed the 10-page monochrome Word document in 49 seconds, with the first page out in 15 seconds. But throw in a splash of color and things can take three times as long; the 10-page Word document with color headings took 2 minutes 46 seconds to print, with the first page out in 30 seconds.

Though it can't churn out color pages all that quickly, the 2300W can process color images in a reasonable amount of time. The 2300W's image quality is quite good for such a tiny printer, and better than some color laser printers many times its size and price. While the 2300W is not the best choice for doing lots of color printing, neither is an inkjet. But for general office use, printing Web pages and the occasional color photograph, this printer beats color inkjets by a long shot,and for not a lot more money.

Oki Data Americas' single-pass OKI C5300n costs almost twice as much as the Minolta. But the C5300n prints in color nearly as fast as it does in black and white. It has a duty cycle of up to 50,000 pages per month and features standard network connectivity. Oki Data's printers use LEDs instead of lasers to generate an image; otherwise, the two technologies are similar, as is the output quality. The C5300n's four in-line digital LED print heads and image drums that lay down all colors in one pass at speeds up to 12 ppm in color and 20 ppm in monochrome. Duplex printing and a 10-Gbyte hard disk are optional.

Powered by a 400MHz PowerPC CPU, the OKI C5300n has a print resolution of 1,200 x 600 dpi. It has a 300-sheet paper input tray and 100-sheet multipurpose input tray, and an optional 530-sheet second tray increases capacity to 930 sheets. Small in size, the printer measures 13.6 inches high x 16.6 inches wide x 20.7 inches deep. It weighs about 57 pounds. With four toner cartridges to install, setting up this printer is more work than any of the monochrome units.

The OKI C5300n is slower at printing monochrome-only text than Minolta's 2300W, but faster printing color. The OKI C5300n printed the 10-page monochrome Word document in 1 minute 13 seconds, with the first page out in 47 seconds. But adding color doesn't change things much; a 10-page Word document with color headings took 1 minute 17 seconds to print, with the first page out in 34 seconds. While the OKI C5300n can print color images faster than the Minolta, it can't process some images nearly as fast. Output from this printer looks great, though photos are a bit over-saturated and overly vibrant. But most color printing done in business consists of Web pages, basic charts and so on, not high-resolution photos. With that in mind, the OKI C5300n is an acceptable choice for moderately heavy office use.

Hewlett-Packard's LaserJet 5500 is faster and costs a lot more than any other model in the group of both color and monochrome printers. The high-speed, high-volume LaserJet 5500 prints black and white or color at 21 ppm. It offers 600 x 600-dpi resolution and HP's ImageREt 2,400-dpi enhanced mode. The printer's inline engine, 400MHz processor and a minimum of 96 Mbytes of memory allows for an 18-second first-page-out time. This large-format printer will accept paper up to 12 inches wide and 18 inches long, and it has a monthly duty cycle of 120,000 pages. Relatively small in size for a large format printer, the LaserJet 5500 measures 25.2 inches high x 22.7 inches wide x 27.7 inches deep. The printer itself weighs 132 pounds. Options can add as much as 150 pounds to the setup.

For such a big printer, the LaserJet 5500 is very easy to set up. The four toner cartridges simply slide into color-coded tracks behind the front panel making the printer ready to use. Clearly this is a great printer for high-volume printing of any type. Not surprisingly, the LaserJet's image quality, for both text and graphics, is the best of any unit tested here.