Oki Printing Solutions C8800n

But a confusing design and careless documentation mar the printer's ability to accommodate sheets of different dimensions. The control panel--a small grouping of buttons plus a two-line, monochrome LCD--offers no on-site cues for calling up the menus. (You're supposed to press the 'Enter' key.) If you're looking for an overview of the menu subcategories and options, you might be nonplussed to see them listed in different order in the two printed guides, as well as in the menu map you can print from the machine. When queried, Oki didn't share our concern--but to us, this inconsistent treatment seems careless.  

By far the worst example of both problems involves the 100-sheet multipurpose tray. The user guide tells you to open the door to the wrong area (the front paper path), an action that makes the multipurpose tray fall open with a crash into an unusable position. Oki confirmed this error in the user guide and promised to correct it. There are no instructions for closing the tray, even though this operation entails folding the parts in a specific sequence. In this case, Oki seemed to think that leaving users to learn by trial and error was acceptable. The accompanying rear output tray has a similar design and, on our test unit, was difficult to open.

The C8800n's separate toner supplies and imaging drums help a little with the cost per page. The starter-size toner supplies have 2000-page lives. Replacement supplies have 6000-page lives yielding costs per page of 1.2 cents for black and 1.8 cents for each color. Add about a half-cent per color per page for each drum.

The C8800n provides a special capability and prints at high speed. Unfortunately those benefits aren't enough to offset the unit's high price and design quirks. We preferred another wide-format printer, the inkjet-based HP Officejet Pro K8600dn.