Oki C5100n

UPDATE: This group test has been updated. See Budget colour laser printers

Highly Commended - Personal Computer World.

The C5100n from Oki differs from all the others here in that it uses a single-pass LED engine in this group test. However, you'll also notice that it is the most expensive printer out of the six on test by some way.

Shipped with low-capacity 1,500-page starter toners, it won't be long before you have to make your first consumable purchase. What's more, each toner has an individual drum that has to be replaced every 17,000 pages at a price of £118 for colour and £81 for mono.

If you plan to print more than 17,000 pages you'll find that there's a nasty period where you have to replace the toners, followed soon after by all of the drums. However, as you'll see by looking at our graphs later on, it's certainly not the most expensive printer at 25,000 pages and before that point it's often much cheaper to run than the rest.

LED printers don't have a great reputation when it comes to output quality, and in terms of colour output the C5100n simply couldn't match the detail of the other models - colours appeared oversaturated, which resulted in a loss of detail. However, high-quality mono output wasn't a problem, although it didn't manage well printing a 2point font.

Being a single-pass model, the C5100n was obviously going to beat the speed of the other fourpass devices printing colour documents. It delivered our A4 colour photo in just 27 seconds, which was by far the best here.

Although it's got a high RRP, like the others, the printer is available for less cash - try www.pcw.co.uk/bestprices where, at time of going to press we found it for £579.

It's a reasonably cheap printer to run but the photo printouts had us a little worried and we'd rather spend a little more running a better quality printer, such as the Konica Minolta 2300W. However, the Oki impressed us enough to win an award.

Contact: Oki 0800 917 6015
ww.oki.co.uk

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