Oki Printing Solutions OKI B6200N DIGITAL MONO PRINTERPRNT (25PPM)/ 120V/ (ENGLISH)

The printer comes with a toner cartridge rated by Oki to yield 6000 pages (using the industry's 5 percent paper coverage convention), but it's less expensive to use the replacements rated at 10,000 pages. Costing $225 with the drum assembly built-in, your per-page cost comes to 2.25 cents each, which is above average for a workgroup printer. Oki doesn't offer the 17,000-page cartridge that makes printing with the B6300n much cheaper.

Though the B6200n's processor (a 266-MHz PowerPC) is slower than the B6300n's (a 350-MHz PowerPC), it clocked similarly high speeds in our performance tests. The printer churned out text at 18.8 pages per minute and graphics at an impressive 11.7 ppm. The default print resolution of 600 dots per inch (compared to the B6300n's 1200 dpi) may contribute to this feat--as well as to less-than-sterling print quality. At first glance, most characters in our text pages seemed crisp and sharp. But on closer examination, some looked washed out, particularly along their lower edges. Our line art sample displayed smooth diagonals and sharp white-on-black contrast, but some narrow horizontal banding. The grayscale image (printed at 1200 dpi) was too dark, obscuring any shadow detail, and produced lots of moire patterns in textured areas.

The control panel has a two-line LCD with no backlighting, plus a variety of buttons that make managing the printer fairly easy. A built-in Web server lets you check your print job's status and the printer's toner level from your PC. You can also set up the B2600n to receive e-mail, so its built-in PostScript engine can print PDF documents and TIFF images sent as attachments.

Upshot: The Oki B6200n is a good choice for medium-size workgroups with moderate paper demands, where fast printing takes precedence over quality.

Paul Jasper