Top 10 Color Laser Printers
Dell's 3000cn offers terrific text.
This month's chart consists entirely of a crop of newly tested color lasers. We divided the printers into two price-related categories: small-office ($1000 or less) and corporate (above $1000). At the low extreme is Dell's 3000cn, our small-office Best Buy, priced at an amazing $449; at the other end is Xerox's $3899 Phaser 7300N, the corporate model that earned the highest star rating.
The two Dell models we tested were excellent small-office performers. The 3000cn captured our Best Buy award thanks to its affordable price and great-looking text. The $999 5100cn took the top spot in our rankings, however, due to its speed, better paper-handling options, and support for Windows, Mac, and Linux.
In the corporate category, we were impressed with the Xerox Phaser 7300N's speed, excellent text, and detailed graphics, but its hefty price reserves it for offices with healthy IT budgets. Our Best Buy in this group is Lexmark's C762n, whose print quality rivaled that of the Xerox.
Three printers we looked at did not enter our Top 10: Lexmark's C510n, a $999 model that fell down on print quality; the Xerox Phaser 8400N, a $1299 printer that underwhelmed us on both speed and print quality; and the Okidata C5400N, a $1099 unit that was too slow to make the cut.