Epson Aculaser C900

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

Highly Commended - Personal Computer World.

Epson clearly didn't want to overcomplicate the design of the Aculaser C900. Not only does it lack any sort of LCD panel, but you won't find a single service button on the case either.

After counting up the cost of the various consumables, we found that, while the Aculaser C900's mono printing costs are impressively low, colour printing turns out to be considerably more expensive.

It doesn't take long to see why either - each colour toner will cost you just under £115, and for that you only get 4,500 pages. As you'll see by looking at the graphs on page 119, the toner replacement costs soon mount up, making the C900 an expensive option for those wanting to print a high number of colour prints.

While the colour printouts might cost a bit, you simply can't deny their quality. The C900 managed to outshine the other printers in this group test by some way and we could easily spot the extra detail in its test prints.

Mono printouts were, as you'd expect from any laser printer, up to the usual standard, but we did find that it couldn't cope with printing extra-small 2point text accurately. When compared with the others it looked a fair bit worse.

At 120,000 pages, everything goes a little pear-shaped for the C900. Not only do you need to buy a fuser and fuser roll at a combined cost of more than £230, but you also need to get an approved engineer to come round and fit the fuser for you.

According to Epson, this engineer call-out would cost no more than £150 - certainly something to bear in mind if you're thinking of trying to get more than 120,000 pages out of the Aculaser C900.

So, while it wouldn't suit those who regularly print in colour, the Aculaser C900 serves extremely well as a mono laser that may occasionally be required to print high-quality colour documents.

Contact: Epson 0800 220 546
www.epson.co.uk

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