Xerox’s Phaser 6130 is a color laser printer best suited for a lighter workload . The best part is that the 6130 costs less than $500. The 6130 is small (the size of a 15 inch cube) and doesn’t weigh much for a color printer (about 38 pounds). As small as it is, it is probably still too imposing for a desk .

An important component of any laser printer is not just how much it costs up front, but how expensive the consumables are . The 6130 toner cartridges are rather expensive. You can save a lot by buying discount toner. All our tests were performed on the 6130 using Xerox Phaser 6130 replacement color toner

Configuring the 6130 is easy even for a novice . Since the 6130 is so compact, you can set it up on your own. Once you lock the toner cartridges in place , all you have to do is connect it to your computer , power it up, and install the driver from the included CD.

Xerox’s network installation is also a snap . Complete network installation took just three mouse clicks .

The speed of Xerox’s 6130 over a 10/100 Base-T Ethernet connection was adequate, but not impressive . It took nearly half a minute to print a single Word document, 54 seconds to print ten pages, 2 minutes and 25 seconds to print a 25MB Photoshop image , and under 60 seconds to print a 4 page PDF file .

One of the Phaser 6130’s issues is that if the printer driver is set for color, the printer will always print in the 12-ppm color mode even if all you’re printing is black-and-white text. If it’s set for black and white, it will print at 16 ppm, but it will print everything, including color documents, in black and white. I’d expect most people will simply leave the printer in the default color mode instead of checking the setting each time. I ran all my tests based on that assumption.

As far as print quality , the 6130 doesn’t distinguish itself . Our testers rate the 6130’s color-photo printing a 5 out of 10 rating because colors appeared faint and the image lacked detail compared to our control photo. In graphical printing areas , the Phaser 6130 scored ahead of the pack. The color ratings were the same whether we used the included OEM toner or in a printer where we installed replacement Phaser 6130 toner cartridges.

The Phaser 6130 was impressive only in its ability to print very clean , clear grayscale text . The 6130 prints any text you give it and text quality was above average . Printed text was legible all the way down to 4 points. Most fonts needed no more than 6 points to be perfectly legible . Even a extremely cursive font that most printers have trouble printing in small or medium sizes printed legibly at 12 points. This color laser printed text clearly even with the discount Xerox Phaser 6130 high yield black toner .

The Phaser 6130 is inexpensive , and even though you can find other fine printes at the same price, the Phaser 6130 is a fine printer, and solid machine for any small office .