Xerox Phaser 860NThe Phaser 860N uses solid-ink technology,
which heats blocks of wax and bonds the molten ink to the paper instead of
using a toner and a fuser. Solid ink technology is less expensive than that
used in laser printers and helps keep the Phaser 860N's price down to a
reasonable $2399. The 860N also prints color graphics at 2.8 pages per minute,
which is the fastest graphics printing we've seen.
The 860N is part of the Tektronix line of printers. In an effort
to persuade monochrome laser users to make the leap to color, Tektronix began
providing free black ink for the life of the printer several years ago, and
Xerox has continued that policy since acquiring Tektronix's printer division.
Monochrome users may also be persuaded by the 860N's text quality, which is
clean, dark, and even.
The 860N's 7.2-ppm text-printing speed isn't
fast enough to convince monochrome users to take the chance with color. Also,
the solid-ink technology requires a long warm-up period (10 to 15 minutes)
while the waxy ink melts. Once the 860N starts printing, it clanks, knocks,
whirs, and whistles so loudly that you won't want to be in the same room, and
another reason to lock it away in a separate room is the burning-plastic odor
of the molten ink.
The main paper tray doesn't hold legal-size paper, and the
auxiliary tray, which can process legal-size, is the hand-fed, single-sheet
kind. The 860N has one of the most baffling control panels we've
seen--hierarchies have no discernible organization, and the same items
sometimes appear under more than one menu. Finally, both color and gray-scale
images show a dotty texture and poor detail, while narrow parallel lines
overlap and drop out; the prints look like they were made on a low-cost ink
jet.
If you need more paper capacity, you can add
one or two 500-sheet feeders ($599 each). An internal duplexer comes standard
on the more-expensive DP and DX models (
PC World did not test those models).
Though we found the control panel confusing, the big and backlit LCD has
extensive on-screen tips and how-to guides.The fast color printing and free black ink may
entice users who do a lot of printing, but other printers in the same price
range provide more capabilities and less aggravation.2399Rated 10-ppm monochrome/10-ppm color,
solid-ink laser, standard 64MB of RAM, 464-by-928-dpi maximum resolution, 200
sheets input, 250 output.2399877/362-6567www.xerox.com/officeprinting
