Xerox Phaser 7500 Color Laser Printer

The control panel (with a six-line, monochrome LCD) has a simple design, but I didn't like having to back out of submenus manually. The toner cartridges are idiot-proof, with colors strikingly visible on the cartridges and the slots keyed by color. The PDF-based user guide is comprehensive, and a paper-based Quick Use Guide comes attached to the side of the printer. Oddly, the latter doesn't cover common tasks such as replacing consumables and clearing jams.

The Phaser 7500/DN's huge toner cartridges are incredibly cheap per page. The 19,800-page black cartridge (one size only) costs $330 or 1.7 cents per page. The standard 9600-page cyan, magenta, and yellow cartridges cost $315, or 3.3 cents per color, per page. The high-yield colors last 17,800 pages and cost $480 each or 2.7 cents per page. A four-color page using all high-yield supplies would cost just 9.8 cents. Obviously a tabloid-size page with heavy color would cost significantly more.

Look not just at what the Xerox Phaser 7500/DN costs, but also at what it does. It's a fast, heavy-duty, wide-format printer that could print everything from a memo to a poster or a banner without blinking. Oki Printing Solutions' C8800n is a less-expensive wide-format printer, but it's not as well designed.

--Susan Silvius