Even a full-colour photo print, normally a hard test for a colour laser, looked better than from many of its competitors. Most suffer from a reduced range of colours and loss of detail in darker areas of an image. Here though, the colour set is more balanced and most of the detail in darker areas can still be seen.

Easy access and storage in this optional pedestal configuration

The black page print cost is comparable with other colour lasers in the same marketplace. Colour costs vary more widely among rival colour lasers, but the Xerox costs are pretty much in the middle of the field. However, there is a trade-off to be had here between the initial purchase price of a colour laser printer and it's consumable costs.

If you're prepared to pay £500 or more for your colour laser, you can get running costs down to under 6p per page, so to make up the difference of around £150 in the purchase price, you're only going to need to print around 6,000 pages on the more expensive printer. For the small office or workgroup, though, that higher initial price may be hard to justify. If so, the Phaser 6280V/DN is well up the field of mid-range, colour machines.

Verdict

If you're looking for a workhorse colour laser printer which can happily handle the output from several people in a workgroup, the Phaser 6280V/DN has few faults. It's reasonably cheap to run, produces good quality print and its duplexer doesn't slow it to a crawl. Just designate somebody to fill its tray regularly. ®

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