Xerox Phaser 6180/N

The Xerox 6180/N is a gigantic, office-oriented color laser printer that may also fit into homes that have high-volume print needs. The base model, the $500 6180/N comes network ready, but for automatic double-sided printing, you'll have to upgrade to the 6180/DN, which costs $650. Both models produce quick prints--particularly in color--and boast impressive print quality. But the Lexmark C530dn is a better value: It includes a duplexer, is network ready and, at $500, costs less than the comparably equipped Xerox 6180/DN. The Lexmark and Xerox models are neck and neck in terms of print speed, but we found the Lexmark provides slightly better print quality.

Design
The Xerox Phaser 6180/N is a monster of a machine, better suited for offices than for homes. The all-white printer sits 15.7 inches wide, 19.4 inches deep, and 18.5 inches tall, and weighs a hefty 62 pounds. Color laser printers tend to be larger than monochrome printers, because the four individual toner cartridges (black, cyan, magenta, and yellow) are arranged in a single row.

The main paper cassette pulls out from the front of the printer and holds up to 250 sheets of plain paper. You can adjust to hold sheets as large as legal-size. The front panel of the printer folds out to reveal a 150-sheet multipurpose tray--handy for one-off print jobs on media other than what you'd normally keep in the cassette. (Xerox offers an optional 550-sheet paper tray for a whopping $400.) The paper well in the top of the printer serves as the output tray, and a fold-out flap helps control long sheets.

The basic control panel comprises just a few buttons for navigating the menu, a two-line text LCD, and a wake-up button for nudging the printer out of power save mode. The menus mostly address maintenance issues and paper-selection options. The LCD constantly displays the various toner levels so you know when you're about to run out of a particular color, an incredibly helpful feature for preventing emergency ink refill runs to Staples.

Features
The Xerox Phaser 6180 comes in two configurations, the $500 6180/N and the $650 6180/DN (Xerox is offering a $50 rebate on both models at the time of this writing). Both models ship with a 400MHz processor, 128MB of memory (upgradeable to 1GB), and Ethernet, USB 2.0, and parallel connectors. The 6180/DN model adds a duplexer for automatic double-sided prints, a great way to save money and trees.

Xerox offers two types of toner cartridges, standard- and high-capacity. Though high-capacity toner cartridges are obviously more expensive, they save you money in the end because the per-page cost ends up being lower. For the 6180 series, the standard cartridges (2,000 pages for color; 3,000 pages for black) cost $90. The 8,000-page high-capacity black cartridge costs $190, and the 6,000-page high-capacity color cartridges cost $196. This works out to about 2.4 cents per page for black prints and about 12.2 cents per page for color prints. Both costs are within the normal range for a color laser printer, but the Dell 3110cn's per-page costs are lower: 1.4 cents for black and 9.4 cents for color. The Lexmark C530dn's print costs are just slightly higher than the Phaser 6180/N's.

Performance
The Xerox Phaser 6180/N is a fast performer, but not the fastest we've seen. It printed black text at a rate of 17.19 pages per minute (ppm) and black graphics at a rate of 17.44ppm. The comparably priced Lexmark C530dn scored 17.02ppm and 16.36ppm, respectively, and the Dell 3110cn outpaced all the competition, printing black text at a lightning-fast 23.36ppm and black graphics at an impressive 22.58ppm. The Phaser 6180/N slowed down a bit for color prints, which is normal for printers. It turned out color text at 14.76ppm and color graphics at 15.81ppm, just a bit faster than most of its competition.

CNET Labs' color laser performance (in pages per minute)
(Longer bars indicate better performance)

Color graphics

Color text

Black graphics

Black text

Dell 3110cn

13.3 

12.41 

22.58 

23.36 

Oki C5500n

14.85 

11.37 

18.41 

17.92 

Xerox Phaser 6180/N

15.81 

14.76 

17.44 

17.19 

Lexmark C530dn

13.56 

15.94 

16.36 

17.02 

The Phaser 6180/N made excellent work of black text prints. The characters printed out clean, sharp, and dark, even when reduced to very small point sizes. The color text prints were good but not perfect: We saw some minor errors in character formation and noticed cross-hatching in some of the more difficult colors, though the latter problem plagues most color laser printers. We were very impressed by the black graphics prints. The graphics and photo elements showed excellent detail and were free of the crosshatches common to lasers. The color graphics print also displayed excellent detail and a pleasing saturation of colors (though the colors tended to be a bit ruddy), but we saw banding in what should be a smooth grayscale. It also had some minor problems handling barcode patterns. Overall, we were pleased with the quality of the prints from the Phaser 6180/N but slightly preferred those we saw from the Lexmark C530dn.

CNET Labs' color laser quality
(Longer bars indicate better performance)

Color graphics

Color text

Black graphics

Black text

Lexmark C530dn

Good 

Excellent 

Excellent 

Excellent 

Xerox Phaser 6180/N

Good 

Excellent 

Good 

Excellent 

Oki C5500n

Fair 

Good 

Good 

Excellent 

Dell 3110cn

Fair 

Fair 

Good 

Good 

Service and support
Xerox backs the Phaser 6180/N with a one-year warranty, but you can upgrade it to two or three years. Toll-free phone support is available Monday through Friday, 8 a.m. to 8 p.m., ET. Xerox's Web site offers software and driver downloads, a troubleshooting knowledge base, video tutorials, and manuals.

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