Xerox Phaser 6250 color laser Printer Review
Xerox 6250
Phaser Printer
One of our favourite
Color Laser Printers.
The Xerox 6250 is the Xerox's latest color phaser offering and is a complete printer, loaded with the intelligent features you expect from Xerox - two sided / duplex printing, clever printer tray selection, Watermarking, auto fail mono printing and more. Check Xerox's own color laser printer specifications and comparisions via the links at the end of this review.
A Fully Featured Color Laser Printer
The phaser's control panel continues on where the 6200 left off making the 6250 the easiest color laser printer to use we've seen. As with most xerox products support for operating systems other than windows is strong - Macintosh and Linux users are well catered to.
The 6250's print quality is excellent even when in draft mode. The printer's color calibration does a great job - reproducing photos perfectly. colors are rich and well defined even on our cheap office printer paper and color gradients are smoothly blended across the color spectrum. The 6250B is the only model no to have 'Photo mode'and its a shame it really does make a visible difference. The difference between the 6250B and the 6250N is a network print server, double the printer memory, photo mode and you can't add a hard disk to the 6250B.
Xerox Phaser 6250 Color Laser Printer Specifications
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The 6250 family offers extensive paper handling options and its printer paper trays will take up to 1500 pages. The 6250B comes with a 500 sheet printer paper tray and a 100 sheet multi purpose printer tray as standard.
- Cost : $2000 including $300 printer rebate
- Black & White : 26 PPM / 2400*600 DPI
- Color : 26PPM / 2400*600 DPI - 8PPM A4 Color Photo Printing
- First Page Out Time : 12 seconds
- Media Capacity : 500 + 100 MP Tray. Optional 1000 Sheet High Capacity paper sheet feeder
- Monthly Volume : 100,000 pages
- Operating Systems : Windows 95/98/Me/NT 4/2000/XP, MacOS 8/9/X 10.1, NetWare 3-6.x UNIX (Linux 5.2+, Sun OS 4.x Sun Solaris 2.4+, DEC, HP/UX 11.x, IBM AIX 4.2+, SGI, SCO)
- Width: 17.3 in. (439 mm), height: 17.5 in. (445 mm), depth: 23.2 in. (590 mm), weight: 80 lb. (36 kg)
- Connectors / Ports : USB 2.0, Parallel Printer port, 10/100 Ethernet network print server port 6250N+
- Xerox Printer drivers : Windows 95/98/Me, Windows NT 4.x, Windows 2000/XP, Windows Server 2003, MacOS 9/X versions 10.1 and 10.2, Novell NetWare .x/5.x/6.x, UNIX (Linux 5.2+, Sun OS 4.x Sun Solaris 2.4+, DEC, HP/UX 11.x, IBM AIX 4.2+, SGI, SCO), Xerox Walk-Up Printing Driver.
Xerox 6250 Laser Toner Cartridges
Xerox Phaser 6250
Laser Printer Cartridge
the 6250 uses cyan yellow magenta and black toner cartridges and like the 6200 series Xerox 6250 toner cartridge are available in normal and high capacity models. While 6250 phasers have a monthly workload rating of 100,000 pages per month the Replacement Imaging Units, Rollers and Fusers are more expensive than some of the other color laser printers out there.
Be sure to make use of the 600DPI draft laser printing mode when you can or you'll chew thru consumables and cash.
Xerox 6250 Consumables Costs
- Black Toner Cartridge : $30 - 4000 Pages at 5% Coverage
- Cyan / Magenta / Yellow Toner Cartridge : $105 - 400 pages at 5% Coverage
- High Capacity Black Toner Cartridge : $50 - 8000 Pages at 5% Coverage
- High Capacity Cyan / Magenta / Yellow Toner Cartridge : $180 - 8000 Pages at 5% Coverage
- Xerox Phaser 6250 Imaging Unit : 30,000 Pages $270
- Xerox Phaser 6250 Transfer Roller : 15,000 Pages $40
- Xerox Phaser 6250 110V Fuser : 60,000 Pages $200
A Fast Color Laser Printer
The Xerox Phaser 6250 is a fast single pass Color laser printer both in terms of pages per minute and first page print time. Xerox rate it at 26 pages per minute in color / black & white print modes - 10 pages faster than the 6250 Phaser it replaces. Xerox claim a first page print time of 12 seconds but that doesn't include a few seconds of warmup from standby mode. The 6250 is powered by a 700mhz printer processor, one of the fastest available in the home / small office workgroup laser printer market.
The Xerox 6250 Phaser is Expandable
The 6250 family has an impressive range of options with five models to choose from. We tested the 6250B but unlike the 6200 family there is no difference in print quality across the range.
Xerox have stuck with the same four base models from the 6200 range and added the 6250DT. You can add the usual hard disk to all printers apart from the 6200B we reviewed and all models can expand their printer memory up to 512mb. If you require two sided / duplex printing then you'll need the 6250DP, 6250/DT or 6250/DX.
With the Phaser 6250DT, Xerox have realised there is a market for high end color laser printers that aren't as big as bathtubs. Xerox have packed the 6250DT with an impressive 512mb of printer memory and 500-sheet paper tray while keeping the printers size down. We can't wait for the DT to drop in price by a few hundred pounds more.
Good Printer Support & Service
Xerox Color Laser Printers are well documented and supported. Though the Phaser 6250 is a new entry in the color laser printer market, Xerox has an excellent reputation for solid drivers across all major platforms from AIX to Windows XP. The Xerox suite of printer drivers, software and utilities are very similiar to the 6200 Phaser family. The Phaser 6250 has a one year free onsite support and service warranty.
One of the best Color Laser Printers We've Reviewed
Fast Processor combined with 128MB of printer memory makes light work of large print runs. Rated for up to 100,000 pages per month making it ideal for the small business printer buyer looking for a medium sized workgroup color laser printer.
If you're lucky you'll be able to track down the Xerox 6250 for $1900 not including any shipping charges. It offers great value for money at that price and will force some changes in the color laser printing market. I only hope that the other laser printer manufacturers don't respond with a flurry of printer rebate offers! The 6250 sets a new benchmark for fast color lasers with high quality, fast color printing and is thoroughly recommended.