Five Fastest Color Laser Printers

Speedy, cost-efficient laser color printers for offices and workgroups.

By PCWorld Staff, PCWorld

1 of 7

All Images
Related Articles

Fight Ink and Toner Addiction With Adobe's LeanPrint
37 Tech Shortcuts From the Experts
Ink-flation: Printer Cartridge Prices Are Climbing Quickly
HP Announces 'World's First' Portable Multifunction Printer
Your Printer Could Be a Security Sore Spot

Would you recommend this slideshow? YES NO

Fastest Color Laser Printers

These speedy color laser printers are perfect for an office or workgroup that wants to improve its efficiency and save money. Here's our collection of the five swiftest models, as measured on our in-house benchmark tests.

Dell 5130cdn Color Laser Printer

Price: $1549

The Dell 5130cdn color laser printer has the speed and features that offices with a high print volume need, along with nearly perfect print quality. Though it is expensive up front, its toner cost per page are low (1.2 cents for a black page; 10.9 cents per page for a four-color page) and will save you in the long run. Besides being extremely fast (it prints plain text at 25.2 pages per minute, simple graphics at 8.3 ppm, and photo-quality graphics at 3.2 ppm), the 5130cdn has 256MB of memory (upgradable to 1.2GB), a 550-sheet main tray, a 15-sheet multipurpose tray, and an intuitive monochrome LCD.

Lexmark C792de

Price: $1599

Though it's not as fast or as economical as the Dell 5130cdn, the Lexmark C792de is one of the better workgroup color laser printers we've tested. The C792de comes with a 1.2GHz processor, 512MB of RAM (upgradable to 1.5GB), automatic duplexing, a 550-sheet input drawer, and a 100-sheet multipurpose feeder. This printer was a top performer in our tests, outputting plain-text pages at a rate of 22.7 pages per minute, and snapshot-size photos (on plain paper) at a rate of 4.2 ppm.

Kyocera Mita FS-C5300DN

Price: $1739

The Kyocera Mita FS-C5300DN is very fast, and its consumables are extraordinarily inexpensive. The sticker price is a bit high, but this printer is worth considering for an office that has high-volume color needs--as long as the color is for pie charts and accents, but not photos. The FS-C5300DN is one of the fastest color laser printers we've tested, with a plain-text output rate of 27.1 pages per minute. The printer also comes with automatic duplexing, a 500-sheet input tray, and a front-USB port for use with key drives.

Oki C610dtn

Price: $699

The Oki C610dtn color LED printer is a balanced, speedy, moderately priced office machine. Installation can be somewhat tedious because you have to install each driver and utility separately and then "activate" the installed accessories. But once set up, the C610dtn churned out plain-text documents at 19.1 pages per minute, and photos at various high-quality settings at between 2.7 and 3.2 ppm. The C610dtn also features USB and ethernet connections, 256MB of RAM with room for expansion, and two letter/legal paper trays that hold 300 and 530 sheets, respectively.

Dell 3130cn

Price: $350 to $480

The Dell 3130cn is a near-perfect color laser printer for a small office or workgroup--extremely capable and quick, with a plain-text print rate of 25.3 pages per minute. Text looked crisp and black, and photos seemed realistic, even on plain paper. The standard configuration includes automatic duplexing, 250-sheet input and output trays, and a two-line, monochrome LCD with navigational buttons.