SECTION 2
Evaluating Color Laser Printers
The benefits of color are widely accepted: Color increases document impact and retention of document
information by readers. Evaluating color printers is less intuitive: There are many factors to weigh, but
some are more important to your organization than others. Based on years of experience and research into
the real-world needs of color printer users, Xerox has identified some key issues for you to consider.
Workgroup printers are typically shared by as many as 25 people on a day-to-day basis; even more people
are likely to use it on a sporadic basis. To support larger groups of employees, performance is an important
characteristic — but it’s essential to dig deeper than just page-per-minute numbers. Further, larger workgroups
often comprise employees who work off of different platforms and operating systems — such as Microsoft
Windows
®
, Apple Mac
®
OS or Linux
®
— so driver support for multiple platforms is another important factor.
Finally, deployment, management and day-to-day ease of use are important considerations for larger organizations,
where IT resources are often spread thin.
Regardless of the applications or environment, the following areas continue to be very important factors when
customers make color printer purchasing decisions:
Printing Performance and Print Quality
More than just pages per minute, the overall printing performance of a color printer will indicate whether
it can support the workload of your busy employees.
Evaluate Installation
The color printer you choose needs to be quick and easy to install, whether you have IT staff on hand
to assist or not.
Evaluate Ease of Use
For your employees, the printer needs to be simple and intuitive to use on a day-to-day basis:
Supplies should be easy to replace and issues easy to resolve.
Evaluate Management
Examine the tools available for IT administrators in larger organizations to manage printer set-
tings, user access, printer status and more.
Your challenge is to evaluate the color printers available on the market
today and choose the one that most completely meets your company’s
needs in each of these areas. This section of the Evaluator Guide will
examine each of these areas, suggest ways you can evaluate a printer
against that requirement, and explain how the Phaser 6360 color laser-
printer exceeds the expectations of color printer users on all counts.
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P H A S E R 6 3 6 0 E VA L U AT O R G U I D E
