Content area
Full Text
Leapin' lasers! When we set out to discover the state of the art in office-ready color printers, we were inundated with new models. This flood of products prompted us to launch our Top 10 color laser chart this month, covering printers from the plain and inexpensive to the sophisticated and costly.
Eight of the 15 printers we tested are new: Five print standard- size color documents, and three are tabloid (11-by-17-inch) models. Three new models--from IBM, Mita, and QMS--made the chart. We also retested seven printers from previous months on our new ethernet network.
Leading Lasers
The capabilities of standard printers--even those from the same vendor--tend to overlap. QMS Magicolor 2+ CXE, which just missed the chart, prints the same attractive text and detailed, colorful graphics as sibling Best Buy Magicolor 2 DeskLaser. Both operate similarly, but the 2+ CXE offers a bit more speed and memory, plus extras like watermarks and color separations. The 2+ CXE's 8.6-ppm text printing is 10 percent faster, but its $1869 price is a whopping 70 percent higher. The DeskLaser's impressive print quality and performance for a low $1104 price make it our top pick. But if you need extra features, the 2+ CXE is still a good deal.
NEC's new SuperScript 4600N (not on the chart) and the sixth- ranked 4400N are also close relations. Both offer solid quality and similar speeds--1.2 ppm on graphics and about 9 ppm on text--but the 4600N costs $500 more. If you need more features and a faster processor, the 4600N may be worth the higher price.
Another chart newcomer, Mita's seventh-ranked Ci1100, impressed us with its sharp text, broad array of features, and reasonable $2718 price. Text speed, however, lagged at 7 ppm, and the printer's weak documentation and baffling control panel unfortunately may take the fun out of using it.
Oki Data's OkiColor 8n and IBM's Infoprint Color 8--essentially identical printers in different packages--use an array of LEDs instead of the laser found in most color page printers. Oki Data has perfected the technology, and these two models produce admirable text quality and detailed, if average, color on graphics. They're very slow on text, however. With a PostScript driver, the IBM turns out only 4.2 ppm, and the OkiColor...