Xerox Phaser 6125/N Color Laser Printer Review

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(More customer reviews)I am awarding this printer 5 stars for its ease of installation, quality of output, quality of workmanship, unit price and the average cost of a printed page.
The Xerox Phaser 6125N appears to be a solid, quality unit. Given that you will print about 500 pages before you need to buy your next toner, you get a lot of value for the price. Thereafter, based on the prices currently listed at Amazon, paying $70 for 2000 black and white pages is not bad at all. In fact, on a per-page basis, you are paying significantly less vs. what you would spend on a generic ink-jet printer.
I installed the printer at home, in the basement, plugged into a wireless Linksys router via an Ethernet wire. My printer is now taking jobs from 5 different computers, connected through the same router over Wi-Fi and running Windows XP and Vista.
The unit comes in a nice, neat box where very little space is wasted. The unit is very much assembled and ready to go. There is a `Quick Installation', poster-sized guide (also a 'flash' animation on the CD) that explains in detail how to remove the various sticky tapes that held the printer together during transportation and lock in the toner cartridges. Once that's done, you plug in the power, connect the printer via either USB or Ethernet (USB and Ethernet cables NOT included), turn it on, set up your favorite language if it's not English and you are ready to go. On the computer side, you need to install the Xerox printer driver.
The driver installation(*) was relatively quick and nearly flawless. For it to proceed, the setup program must first find the printer. Since the printer was not physically connected to the laptop, it immediately started to look for IP-based printers. You must make sure that the printer is turned on and it has an IP address(**) while this is happening. The status page, which you can print from the front panel, will tell you if that is the case. My DHCP-enabled Linksys router assigned an address to the printer so no complicated setup was required. On the Vista side, I had to give Vista permission for a couple of tasks to complete. The setup gives you the opportunity to register your printer online. I agreed and it was quick and easy even though I was surprised that the setup knew my printer's serial number but not the model which I have to pick it myself from a long drop-down list.
From the moment I opened the box to the time I printed my first page off a document, it took less than one hour. I can see how some users may require help with the network installation part. I cannot say how Xerox supports end-users with more complex network setups because I did not have to call the tech support.The Phaser 6125N is a large, solid box (see Amazon's picture) and it is so because it holds large (fully loaded) toner cartridges and the fuser unit. Printing is quick and quiet and I experienced no paper jams yet. The colors are bright and both the text and the graphics are crisp - I printed some very complicated flowcharts and a colorful logo to test and I was satisfied with the result. Out of the box, over 200 PCL and PostScript fonts are supported. Other features include 128Mb of memory, support for various paper sizes and paper types including glossies and envelopes, it can be set to go into PowerSaver mode after a period of inactivity (and I reduced it from the 30 minute default to 5 minutes), can be set to produce an audible tone on various conditions, will produce Configuration pages with values for various settings and parameters including the environment's temperature and humidity.
This printer should be ideal for the small office and it could be great for the home if the relatively large size does not bother you. In my case, it doesn't because it's going to stay in the basement. Memory expansion or wireless connections were not issues for me but those who have such concerns should do some research before buying.
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(*) Be aware that a nearly identical model, the Xerox Phaser 6130/N Color Laser Printer offers a few enhancements and extra capabilitis such as:
- Double standard memory (128 MB vs. 64MB) and the ability to upgrade it up to 1152MB
- Larger toner cartridges
- Mac OS support
- Built-in PCL emulation and PostScript 3
(**) Note that you will have to install the driver on ALL the computers that are going to use the printer. Every time you install the driver, you will be prompted to register again. After you complete your first registration, ignore any subsequent invitations.
(***) I can think of 3 basic way you can connect the printer without having to buy any extra hardware, other than a cable, if you don't have one already:
1 - Personal printer - use a USB cable to connect it directly to your desktop computer (or your laptop's docking station)
2 - Shared printer - after connecting the printer as above and you install the printer driver, share it (the specific steps depend on your operating system but it's usually easy). This way, anyone on the same network can use it for as long as the computer that's sharing it is up.
3 - Network printer - you plug it into a network port or directly into a router using an Ethernet cable. Unless you place some restrictions, everyone on the network should be able to use the printer for as long as it is on and the network is up.
(****) The 6125 Toner capacity are: 2000 pages for 'black' and 1000 pages for the Cyan, Magenta and Yellow. If found a 'third party' that offers the set of 4 cartridges for about 55: Xerox Phaser 6125 Set of 4 Compatible Laser Toner Cartridges: 1 each of Black 106R01334 , Cyan 106R01331, Magenta 106R01332, Yellow 106R01333 by LD Products.

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Xerox makes color the easy choice with the refreshingly office-friendly, value-packed Phaser 6125 color laser printer. This's compact printing solution powerful enough to handle all of your office printing demands with ease.

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Brother MFC-490CW Color Inkjet Wireless All-in-One Printer Review

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(More customer reviews)I was skeptical of Brother printers, but after having a miserable experience with HP trying to get a 6380 to work (two broken units delivered; two units returned; 4 hours on phone with tech support), I broadened my search and found consistently good reviews of this printer. I live in a mixed household (Windows and Mac), which also eliminated many competitors. Finding it on sale tipped the scales.
Out of the box, the printer is compact, has a low profile, and is a bit sleeker looking than the competitors. Overall workmanship is solid.
Only exception is the paper tray which feels a bit flimsy, but nothing that would deter me. There is also no easy way to feed envelopes or letterhead without pulling out the papertray -- and to run envelopes, you need to remove regular paper since the bypass tray is only for photo paper.
Fax machine is a nice feature to have and, thankfully, it does not come with a phone handset attachment which would just take up space for no reason.
Per the manual, the printer can NOT handle both wireless and wired USB/network connection at the same time. Not a problem for me at all as the unit will only be used via wireless.
It is energy star rated and defaults to putting itself to sleep after a period of non-use. Startup out of sleep is very fast when you send a wireless document. I tend to unplug my power strip when I won't be using the computer for a while and was afraid that the settings would wipe, but when I plugged it back in the printer sprang back to life with all wireless configurations intact.
Set up was pretty simple. Following the quick start instructions went fine. Found my wireless router, connected, printed test page, no problem. Installed drivers/software on Windows XP, and it looks to be a lot less heavy than HP's full software. Only wrinkle in installation is that it asked me several times to connect/verify the wireless connection (each piece of software plus the hardware basically asked me the same thing a few times... I probably didn't need to enter it so many times, but it wasn't difficult so I decided to be safe). No problems with Mac install either. Very simple.
Overall, the set up was easy and quick. Brother could learn a bit from HP in terms of integrating the documentation and the printer set up a little bit better, but that's a minor issue. It was easy and the thing worked right away.
Automatic document feeder on top of the machine is a great feature to have in a printer at this level, and it works well.
The wireless integration is well done. I was able to print wirelessly immediately, and, quite a pleasant surprise to find that the "scan" feature actually worked as advertised.
Scanning was as simple as dropping a document into the feeder, hitting scan, selecting which of my two wireless PCs I wanted to receive the doc, and then hitting start. Seamlessly scanned and dropped the PDF onto my hard drive.
Ditto for requesting an OCR of the paper document. OCR quality is pretty amazing. I haven't had experience with desktop/consumer OCR in a few years, so maybe they are all of similar quality now, but I was pleasantly surprised. No formatting came over, but I was able to take a memo sitting on my desk and scan/OCR it in a few seconds. The text dropped into a plain text file and had no errors in text recognition or punctuation.
Print speed appears to be slower than the box claims. I haven't tested it, but it feels slower than a lower quality HP deskjet it replaced. Could be a function of the wireless throughput. I'm not terribly concerned since this is for a low-volume home setup. Print quality is good, not fantastic (I will play with settings and see if I can't improve that). Photo prints onto plain paper are not as clear as HP.
I am also very happy with the low noise level. The printer is quiet (much more so than my prior HP inkjet) and it doesn't rattle and shake and rumble like my prior HP inkjet.
If you're having trouble getting the photo paper bypass to work, I had to resort to the manual. You need to physically move the bypass tray forward and lock it into place -- there is no software setting or configuration switch in the print properties. (You can select paper type and all the normal options there, but not the bypass.) Then when done, you pull the paper tray out and physically move the bypass tray back into standby position. At first I was annoyed, but given the frequency of printing via the bypass, I don't care. And I figure not having two paper paths probably means less chance of paper jams.
The model higher than this one is essentially the exact same unit but with a phone handset and a built in digital answering machine. I didn't think that was worth an extra $50, but if you need an answering machine it might be worth it to save footprint.
So far so good. I highly recommend this printer. For the price, features, ease of set up, size, and quiet, it is a very good deal.
I had tried the HP 6380 which had (to me) slightly better print quality, but lacked the automatic document feeder fax and the very well integrated wireless software. I also was unable to get multiple of them to work -- fatal errors on hardware, plus bad customer support, so I gave up and went to this unit... glad I did. I saved money and got a printer better suited for me.
I will update this review in a few weeks if I have any issues with reliability.

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Unattended fax, copy or scan with up to 15-page auto document feeder. Flexibility to share with multiple users with wireless (802.11b/g) or wired (Ethernet) network connection. Wide 3.3" color LCD provides easy help menus and photo enhancement.Direct photo printing from media card slots or USB direct/PictBridge Interface. Print rich, vibrant photos on demand at up to 6000 x 1200 dpi. Fast print speeds at up to 33ppm black/27ppm color and high speed Super G3 33.6Kbps fax modem. 4-ink cartridge system replace only the cartridge that needs to be replaced. Other features include standard paper tray for up to 100 sheets and convenient photo bypass tray for up to 20 sheets 4"x6" glossy paper.

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Brother Black Compact Inkjet All-in-One with Fax and Wireless Networking (MFCJ265W) Review

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(More customer reviews)In case you got down to the reviews and didn't realize what you're looking at: the Brother MCFJ265W is color ink-jet, multifunction machine. It prints, scans, and faxes. It's wireless. It's an inkjet. It's pretty cheap.
I assumed at first, that this was one of those scam printers which lure you in with price, but don't work very well and charge a wad for replacement ink. Not so! Within the realm of cheap inkjet printers, the output is plenty adequate. You can print photos in a pinch, but it's perfect for printing out maps, web pages, and other notes where color adds to the information. And the OEM replacement ink is reasonably priced, and available on Amazon.
I use a Mac, and as far as I was concerned, set up was easy. There are several modes of wireless, as well as a USB cable connection. (Cable is not included.) There's an included CD with software, but I went to Brother's website and downloaded the latest version. Installing just the printer driver got me printer function, without any additional cruft. I had to install the TWAIN package to get scanner function, which put a little icon in the menu bar. (A *color* icon, actually, ruining the default-black OS X menubar look. Ahem.) And it locked up my menu bar at one point, freezing the clock and nearly making me late for an appointment. But other than that, I've had no problems. I no longer have it auto-load on login, and quit when I'm done with it, and that's been fine.
Scanning was near miraculously easy. I pressed the scan button. The scanner operated. A file appeared in my "Pictures" directory. That's it. The scan was gorgeous, too.
The printer prints reasonably fast. It's quiet. It doesn't vibrate or have any weird smells or do anything objectionable. Since it's inkjet, it doesn't take gobs of power to start up as a laser printer -- no flickering lights. The print quality is fine, but it's not as precise and high-contrast as a laser printer. If your business presence involves looking good on paper, you probably want to spend a bit more on your printer than this. For everyday household printing, though, this is easy, fast, cheap, and totally readable. There is no real output paper "tray" -- printed sheets just poke out the front, waiting to be taken. If you're printing more than a couple pages, there's a little tongue that can be extended to catch them, but I wouldn't let a whole lot of pages build up there. (Which you probably can't since the input paper tray isn't all that large either.)
There's a very nice color LCD screen on the front, which makes setup easy. It even shows you a little animation of how to install the ink cartridges. The cartridges are easily loaded on the front side, behind a hinged door. Each of the three colors and the black are all separately replaceable. The starter ink claims to be "approximately 65%" of a full-sized cartridge, so the printer comes with about 290 pages worth of ink.
Overall, as a household printer for everyday personal printing, I think this is a great choice.

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Mfcj-265w clr inkjet p/s/c/f fb usb wl 6000x1200dpi 32mb 33/27ppm.

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