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Xerox PHASER 860N 16PPM 64MB 1200DPI ENET
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Xerox Phaser 860N
June 26, 2001
WHAT'S HOT: The 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.
WHAT'S NOT: 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.
WHAT ELSE: 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.
BEST USE: 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.
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Review Now! Already own it? Tell us What You Think
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Reviewed by: rcharby
Strengths: Everything from the high speed printing, excellent output and highly informative web interface.
Weaknesses: Nothing.
Overall: I cant say enough about the Xerox Phaser 860. I thank the tech gods when a company gets a product right. The web interface is full of information that includes SMTP notices! The output is excellent and the speed is scary fast. Setup was the easiest I have seen. Remove two cardboard protection pieces, drop in the cool solid inks, plug in the power cord, ethernet cable and turn on. That is it! Nothing else to do. It took me no more than 5 minutes to setup. As far as the initial warmup, it's not a problem. We have a Lexmark C710N as well and that thing is a joke. It is slow, noisy and the printout is bad. With the Phaser 860 you also get free black ink for life. This means we can replace our Laser Jets and Inkjets with one printer. I am glad I took a chance on the Phaser 860.
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Reviewed by: epthompson
Strengths: business graphics, B&W text, duplexing
Weaknesses: at photo quality, speed is slow, putting it mildly, legal support is weak, and it's a poor office "neighbor"
Overall: We have an 860DP and print 5K pages per month. The PC World review cites parallel lines and images that look like they were printed by an inkjet - this is not our experience at all. My suspicion is that running a "remove vertical lines" cleaning would have solved it. With quality on anything higher than Basic Color, the output is exceptional. Color fidelity (as compared to Pantone samples) is excellent, and the color is rich and vibrant. Text is sharp, deep black and first-page-out times, color or B&W are fantastic. The poor support for legal size is a fault, as is the 12x8.3" printable area (which leaves large borders on legal documents). The manual feed is a sick joke, with a sensor that will penalize you if you're a millisecond too fast in placing the sheet, which is quite frustrating on long print jobs. I recently printed 250 legal sheets via manual feed, and the only thing that kept me from sending the printer into Puget Sound was that the output looked like offset, printing on a paper that inkjet printers loathe (Kromekote). Others have mentioned the sounds (jarring) and the smell (vaguely hot Crayola) but no mention of the fact that it puts out a lot of heat. Think "space heater". All said, I'd still buy it. For printing letter-size documents with business graphics (logos, charts, etc) there isn't a better choice and nothing can beat it on cost-per-page. Changing the manual feed to a paper tray bypass would make this an almost-perfect business color printer.
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