Kyocera 2160 - page 7

features for the price. Even with many under-$500 color

laser printers to choose from these days, the prices are

eye-opening: the Color Laser Printer 3010cn goes for

$379, while the Color Laser Printer 3110cn, with better

features, is selling for $499.

Despite their competitive pricing, these are not dumb-

ed-down models. While the 3010cn prints at a pokey

5ppm in color, it runs at a decent 25ppm in black-and-

white. The 3110cn ups those figures to a respectable

17ppm in color and 31ppm in black-and-white. Both

come with Ethernet standard, and they have adequate

memory: 64MB on the 3010cn, upgradeable to 576MB;

and 128MB on the 3110cn, upgradeable to 1,152MB.

And they have reasonably powerful processors:300MHz

on the 3010cn, and 400MHz on the 3110cn.

The 3010cn does not have PostScript,while the 3110cn

does. And while the 3010cn starts with a 150-sheet paper

tray,the 3110cn supplements this with another 250-sheet

tray. You can add a third, 500-sheet paper tray to the

3010cn for a total of 900 sheets, or add a 550-sheet tray

to the 3110cn for a total of 950 sheets. Output is limited

to 250 sheets on both models.

Cost per color page is 14.1¢ in color (rather high) for the

3010cn, and 9.4¢ (not bad) for color for the 3110cn. The

black-and-white per-page cost for both models is 2.4¢

(very reasonable for low-end color lasers). Output is lim-

ited to 250 sheets, with no option for expansion.

As you would expect, these are pretty basic models.But

the low prices make them very desirable small-

office/home-office laser machines. The toner prices

aren’t bad for the low end of the market. On the other

hand, you now have the option, for a little more money,

to get machines that print far faster in color. Look at the

$499 Lexmark C532n, which has PostScript, Ethernet,

and 20ppm color printing. The $599 OKI Printing

Solutions C5500n costs a bit more, but is similarly

impressive. Also note the Hewlett-Packard Color

LaserJet 3600n, which at $699 delivers 17ppm color.

Dell is the rock-bottom choice for price. But given the

low prices of color laser printers in general, you might

find a little bit more value without breaking the budget by

looking elsewhere.

Chart entries — pages 70–71

Dell Color Laser Printer 5110cn

35ppm color

40ppm black & white

Sum-up: Excellent performance for the price.

Dell stole a march on other printer vendors by offering

this impressive platform before anyone else and at a price

that challenged big name competitors to reduce prices

faster than they may have wanted to. At just under

$1,000, the 35ppm (color) and 40ppm (black-and-white)

Color Laser Printer 5110cn offers very good performance

at a low price.That was amazing a year ago, though other

vendors have managed to get back in the race more

recently.

Better Buys for Business

Dell Color Laser Printer 3110cn

Consumables costs at-a-glance

Price

Yield

Full-color cost per page

Black-and-whitecost per page

Blacktoner $110.00 8,000 $ 0.014$0.014

Cyan toner $215.00 8,000 $ 0.027 N/A

Magenta toner $215.00 8,000 $ 0.027 N/A

Yellow toner $215.00 8,000 $ 0.027 N/A

TOTAL PER-PAGE COSTS

$0.0944 $ 0.0138

9.44 1.38

Dell Color Laser Printer 5110cn

Consumables costs at-a-glance

Price

Yield

Full-color cost per page

Black-and-whitecost per page

Black toner $90.00 18,000 $ 0.005 $ 0.005

Cyan toner $230.00 12,000 $ 0.019 N/A

Magenta toner $230.00 12,000 $ 0.019 N/A

Yellow toner $230.00 12,000 $ 0.019 N/A

Drum/black$169.99 35,000 N/A $ 0.005

Drum/4-color $169.99 35,000 $ 0.020 N/A

TOTAL PER-PAGE COSTS

$0.0825 $ 0.0099

8.25 0.99