🖨️ A Comprehensive Review of the Xerox Phaser 6700/N Color Laser Printer
The Xerox Phaser 6700/N is a robust network-ready color laser printer designed as a workhorse for small to mid-sized offices or busy workgroups. Replacing the successful Phaser 6360 series, the 6700/N model (the base network version without standard duplexing) offers a blend of speed, high duty cycle, and impressive features aimed at boosting office productivity.
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| A Comprehensive Review of the Xerox Phaser 6700/N Color Laser Printer |
Performance and Speed
One of the Phaser 6700/N's most notable features is its exceptional speed. It boasts a swift print rate of up to 47 pages per minute (ppm) for both color and black-and-white documents, which is highly competitive in its class.
Processor: The printer is equipped with a powerful 1.25 GHz processor and comes standard with 1 GB of memory (upgradable to 2 GB), allowing it to handle complex print jobs and heavy workloads with relative ease.
First-Page-Out Time: While some users note a slight warm-up delay, the first-page-out time is respectable: as fast as 7 seconds for black-and-white and 8 seconds for color.
Duty Cycle: With a massive 120,000-page monthly duty cycle, the 6700/N is built for longevity and high-volume environments, living up to its workgroup printer designation.
Print Quality
The Phaser 6700/N delivers solid output quality, though it has garnered mixed reviews when compared to some high-end competitors.
Resolution: It offers a high maximum print resolution of 2400 x 1200 dpi, which contributes to smooth color transitions and sharp details, particularly in photos.
Text Quality: Text quality is generally rated as very good for a laser printer, making it suitable for all typical business uses. However, reviewers suggest it might not be ideal for applications requiring extremely small fonts.
Graphics and Photos: Graphics output is considered solid but slightly below par for a color laser in this segment. Colors are bright and well-saturated. However, some reviews mention issues like dithering (graininess), minor banding, or a tendency toward posterization (sudden color shifts). Photos generally have a smooth look, but some color tweaking may be necessary, as the default palette can sometimes err on the side of orange or red.
Color by Words: A standout feature is Xerox's Color by Words system. This utility allows users to make color adjustments using natural language commands (e.g., "Change the blue-green to more lime green"), simplifying color correction for non-graphic arts professionals.
Paper Handling and Connectivity
The standard 6700/N configuration offers excellent paper capacity and robust connectivity options.
Standard Capacity: The printer features a generous standard input capacity of 700 sheets, divided between a 550-sheet main tray and a 150-sheet multipurpose tray.
Maximum Capacity: Optional trays (including a 550-sheet and an 1,100-sheet feeder) can boost the maximum capacity to an impressive 2,900 sheets.
Media Versatility: It can handle a wide range of media types and weights, from plain paper to various cardstocks (up to 80 lb cover or $220 \text{ g/m}^2$), labels, and transparencies.
Connectivity: The printer comes standard with Gigabit Ethernet (10/100/1000Base-T) and USB 2.0 connectivity, supporting common page description languages like Adobe PostScript 3 and PCL 5c/6.
Usability and Operation
User interaction is facilitated by a modern interface, although some operational aspects have been noted.
Interface: The unit features a 4.3-inch color touch-screen user interface, which is intuitive and easy to navigate.
Noise and Size: The Phaser 6700/N is a hefty machine, measuring $22 \times 20.3 \times 16.9 \text{ inches (HWD)}$ and weighing 93 pounds, requiring multiple people to move. Some users have also noted that the printer can be quite noisy during operation.
The Bottom Line
The Xerox Phaser 6700/N is an extremely fast and powerful color laser printer best suited for high-volume workgroups prioritizing speed and robustness. Its high maximum duty cycle and large paper capacity make it a reliable machine for handling heavy daily print loads. While its operating cost per page is considered by some to be high for its class, and graphics quality may not satisfy users with strictly high-end demands, the inclusion of the Color by Words feature and its excellent speed and reliability make it a very capable contender in the mid-range workgroup color laser market. Those needing automatic two-sided printing should consider the 6700/DN variant, which includes a standard duplexer.