Oki Data C9500DXN

The C9500dxn's 19.9 ppm text-printing puts it near the front of the pack, at about 30 percent faster than the color-laser average, though its color graphics printing speed was one-third below average, at 2.7 ppm. Text performance eliminates any concern that this color printer might bog down office workflow. Office workers will also appreciate the sharp, clean black text and near-perfect narrow parallel lines. This model also does better than other Okis--or most color lasers for that matter--on gray-scale prints, too: The prints show some cross-hatching but have good detail and shading. The C9500dxn even printed decent color photos with fairly accurate colors and sharp detail, though banding was evident.

We tested Oki Data's Oki C9500 in its loaded DXN configuration, which includes 320MB of memory, a duplexer, and a 10GB hard drive for $4600. You can use the hard drive to store fonts and frequently printed documents; it also supports special features such as holding a password-protected job until you reach the printer and enter your code. The Oki's driver simplifies using other features the internal hard disk provides, such as uploading a frequently printed document to the drive or getting a single proof printed before running a whole job. Oki Data includes heaps of documentation, too--both printed and on-screen--with excellent detail and illustrations; one wire-bound booklet attaches to the printer, covering troubleshooting tips that users are likely to need in a crunch, such as clearing paper jams or replacing paper and toner. Installing and running Oki's PrintSuperVision network management tools and setting the printer up on a network print server requires a trained network administrator.