Kyocera 2160 www.betterbuys.com

The Color Laser Printer Guide: Vendor & Product Profiles

The OKI C7350hdn ($1,669) is the next step up in the

line. It starts with 320MB of memory, and the hard disk

isstandard equipment. Automatic duplexing is standard,

as is PostScript.

The C7550 models print at a somewhat higher resolu-

tion than the C7350s, namely 1,200dpi versus 1,200 x

600dpi. PCL and PostScript are standard features.

The C7550n ($1,516) comes with 192MB of memory

and an optional hard drive. The C7550hdn ($2,029) is

similar,but it has standard duplexing and a standard hard

drive.

The memory on all models can be expanded to

1,024MB (1GB), though we doubt there’s much advan-

tage to going over 512MB. It’s hard to imagine anyone

needing that much memory, even with complex color

print jobs, but it’s there if you want it.

OKI has a lot of competition in the under-$2,000 cate-

gory from printers that are at similar speeds in color.

Check out Ricoh’s SP C410DN, Konica Minolta’s magi-

color 5450, and Xerox’s Phaser 6300, for example. The

OKI C7350 does hold its own in terms of paper handling,

especially in output, where it offers more than the mini-

mal 250-sheet output trays of its competitors.

In terms of consumables costs, the C7350 does pretty

well, at around 9.5¢ in color. It is not so good in black-

and-white (2.4¢).

OKI now has some strong competition, but it’s a strong

workgroup printer family and, thanks to an increase in

speed, still competitive.

Chart entries �� pages 101–102

OKI Printing Solutions C6100n

OKI Printing Solutions C6100dn

OKI Printing Solutions C6100dtn

OKI Printing Solutions C6100hdn

26ppm full color

32ppm black & white

Sum-up: Speedy yet economical color laser family.

These new models offer far better speed than most econ-

omymodels, with a very strong 26ppm in color and

32ppm in black-and-white.

The basic technology on the series is similar to that of

other OKI Printing Solutions models. These models are

ideal for small workgroups doing low-volume color print-

ing.Aside from their affordable speed, they have a solid

set of features.

The family members now being sold are:

lThe C6100n, which has a 500MHz processor, 256MB

of memory, a 400-sheet paper supply, an optional

hard drive, standard PostScript, and comes Ethernet-

ready ($899).

lThe C6100dn, which adds automatic duplexing

($1,049).

lThe C6100dtn, which adds a standard 530-sheet input

trayand also has automatic duplexing standard

($1,249).

lThe C6100hdn, the same as the 6100dtn (except for

the 530-sheet tray), and with a built-in 40GB hard

drive.

At 26ppm color, 36ppm black-and-white,these printers

offer speeds that would have been quite amazing a few

years ago. That OKI can offer such speeds starting under

$900 shows how far the industry has come.

Paper supplies consist of a standard 400-sheet tray but

no bypass tray.You can also add a 530-sheet paper tray,

which comes standard with the C6100dtn, to the n, dn,

and hdn models.OKI hasn’t released the output paper-

handling capability for these models.

By our calculations, the cost of operation is above aver-

age. Black-and-white pages cost around 1.72¢, and the

color cost is 11¢, also a bit higher than the 10.0¢ per page

cost we think of as moderate.

The C6100 models compete well in the low-end market

segment, and if you need PostScript, they work with it as

OKI C6100

Consumables costs at-a-glance

Price

Yield

Full-color cost per page

Black-and-whitecost per page

Black toner $75.00 6,000 $ 0.013 $ 0.013

Cyan toner $130.00 5,000 $ 0.026 N/A

Magenta toner $130.00 5,000 $ 0.026 N/A

Yellow toner $130.00 5,000 $ 0.026 N/A

Drum,black $70.00 15,000 $ 0.005 $ 0.005

Drum,cyan $73.00 15,000 $ 0.005 N/A

Drum,magenta $73.00 15,000 $ 0.005 N/A

Drum,yellow $73.00 15,000 $ 0.005 N/A

TOTAL PER-PAGE COSTS

$0.1098 $ 0.0172

10.98 1.72

www.betterbuys.com