Most of us are familiar with the business model of printers: Practically give away the printer itself, and then make a killing selling the ink. With its Phaser 8860 Color Printer, Xerox has turned that model on its head. The color printer itself cost $2,500, but Xerox is just about giving the ink away with its very low cost per page. If your business prints a lot in color, this laser-class, solid-ink printer will more than pay for itself within a few years.

Xerox claims a 3.2-cent cost per page (based on the ISO/IEC standard) for color with the 8860. Few color printers even break the 10-cent mark. The next-lowest claim among color lasers I’ve tested is 8.7 cents per page for the Konica Minolta magicolor 5570. That’s a minimum savings of 5.5 cents per page with the 8860, which would pay for itself in three years should you print 1.275 color pages per month. The 8860’s 1.7 cents per monochrome page is also very attractive.

The 8860’s rated print speed is 30 pages per minute (ppm) for both monochrome and color at its top speed, and 16 ppm for both in default (enhanced) mode. This is a little slow for the price-though it’s tempting to quip that you could use the extra waiting time to calculate your cost saving. In absolute terms, though, the 8860 is none too slouchy. On our tests, it turned in reasonable times in default mode.

Text is a touch below typical laser quality, though fine for most uses. The text’s clean, crisp edges give it a professional look. A few small or stylized fonts suffered on our tests, but most were easily readable at 6 points, and some at 4. Graphics are better than I usually see from lasers, despite some graininess. They’re fine for in-house use, as well as mailings and simple brochures. Photo quality is typical of lasers.

Equipped with a standard 525-sheet drawer, a 100-sheet multipurpose tray, and a duplexer, the 8860 does well at paper handling. You can also add two more 525-sheet drawers ($400 each) for a maximum capacity of 1,675 pages.

Even if it were a mediocre printer, the operating cost savings alone would make the Phaser 8860 well worth considering. Adding In the strong output quality, ample paper handling, and acceptable speed should be enough to convince you to Ink the deal.

Xerox Phaser 8860 Color Printer Review
Price range: $2,500 street

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Labels: Printer