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Like many people, you may have contemplated the death of monochrome printing, given the low cost and fine quality of color ink jets. But monochrome printers still make a lot of sense: They're faster than ink jets; they usually hold more paper; their consumables cost less; and laser text quality remains superior.
Printer makers seem far from entertaining death-of-monochrome thoughts: This month they deluged us with new small-office models. We tested four, all priced at under $400: Brother's HL-1040, HP's LaserJet 1100, Minolta's PageWorks 8L, and Xerox's DocuPrint P8. The Brother and Minolta models land on the small-business/home section of our revamped chart, which covers monochrome printers for businesses of every size, from one-person shops to large corporations. One new corporate printer makes the chart: Lexmark's inexpensive Optra K 1220 debuts at number five. We also retested older models with a new test suite and revised the criteria and weightings to differentiate corporate models from small-business printers; you will see some significant changes in chart order from past months.
Small Office, Small Printer
Minolta's PageWorks 8L, our new number two, mixes a little bad with a...