Extending deeper into the low end of the printer market, Xerox Corp. on Monday rolled out a new color laser printer for small and medium-sized businesses.
“We see color moving down market, where there is very fierce competition,” said Joe Adriano, product manager at Xerox, in Wilsonville, Ore. “HP [Hewlett-Packard Co.] rules the monochrome world; anyone who wants to gain market share looks to color.”
The $699 Phaser 6100BD, fueled by a 120MHz processor and 64MB of memory, can print 21 ppm (pages per minute) in monochrome and 5 ppm in color. Initial warm-up speed is 15 seconds for monochrome and 24 seconds for color. Like other laser printers in the sub-$1000 market, the 6100 uses a four-pass system, compared with faster–and more expensive–printers like the Xerox 6250, which uses a one-pass approach.
Unlike other color laser printers in this space, the 6100 offers standard two-sided color printing, said Adriano. “Some of the other lasers dont even offer duplex at all, and those that do make it a very expensive add-on,” he said.
Another feature that sets the printer apart is its noise level, said Adriano. The machine operates at 48db, which is somewhere between a whisper, which falls in the 10-20 db range, and normal conversation, about 60 db. “Most network monochrome printers are running at 53db,” said Adriano.
The 6100 comes with a 250-sheet tray and a 100-sheet multipurpose tray. An extra 500-sheet feeder costs $299.
The printer offers 600- or 1200-dpi (dots per inch) resolution.
Stamford, Conn.-based Xerox offers another model, the $899 6100DN, that includes 10/100 Ethernet connectivity and an embedded Web server.
Xerox says cost per page depends on toner cartridge options. With higher-capacity cartridges, geared for businesses that print higher volumes, users pay about 2.5 cents for monochrome and 12.5 cents for color. With standard cartridges, which cost less than the higher-capacity version, users pay about 3 cents for monochrome and 15 cents for color.
Xerox also on Monday rolled out a new low-end monochrome printer, the Phaser 3130, for $299. With a 166MHz processor and 32MB of memory, the unit prints 17 ppm at 1200-dpi resolution. The printer can hold 250 sheets.
At 13.9 by 7.7 by 14.6 inches and 15.5 pounds, the 3130 is one of the industrys smallest black-and-white laser printers, according to Xerox. The machine has no internal networking.
Both printers are available now through Xerox reseller channels.
/zimages/4/28571.gifCheck outeWEEK.coms Enterprise Applications Centerat http://enterpriseapps.eweek.com for the latest news, reviews, analysis and opinion about productivity and business solutions.
Be sure to add our eWEEK.com enterprise applications news feed to your RSS newsreader or My Yahoo page:http://us.i1.yimg.com/us.yimg.com/i/us/my/addtomyyahoo2.gif