Xerox Phaser 6300 Review
Xerox gets it right -- with some notes...
Friday, December 15, 2006 by Draginol | Discussion:
Stardock's love affair with Xerox Phasers goes back a long time to our original Xerox Phaser 850DX. When it died, we replaced it with the Xerox 8400. My review of it can be found here.
My main beef with the 8400 was that the quality had taken a bit of a hit from the 850DX. The 850DX was a 1200dpi printer, the 8400 (and now 8500) is a 600dpi printer. Of course, the price difference is pretty significant. But on printers, I'm not terribly price conscious, I want high quality even if I have to pay a premium.
As our office grew, we decided to go a different route. We picked up the Xerox Phaser 6300DN. We still have the 8400 and it's working like a champ. We use it as a general office printer now and in that role, it's print quality is fine.
The Phaser 6300 is a color laser printer with toner. The 6300DN prints very VERY fast. It's rated 26 pages per minute and it really definitely is doing that. Xerox also makes the 6350 which prints 36 pages per minute. That's over a page every other second. It's amazingly fast.
But the quality is very good too. At 2400 dpi, it gives very sharp results. So how good it it in practice? I mean, 2400 dpi, that should be photorealistic right? Well...
It is sharper than the Phaser 8400/8500. But not by the margin you'd expect. Moreover, the color matching capabilities of the Xerox's always seems problematic. Where the Phaser 8400 print outs tend to be muted, the Phaser 6300 images tend to be a bit too warm in some places. I don't like having to monkey around with color settings.
On a print out of an ad that was already shrunk on the page, I couldn't read the text of the ad that was printed out on the Phaser 8400 but could, barely on the Phaser 6300.
Xerox Phaser 6300DN
Xerox Phaser 8400DX
The Phaser 6300 was also much more accurate on the colors than the Phaser 8400/8500 series.
Xerox 6300DN
Xerox 8400DX
My bottom line is that the Xerox 6300DN is an outstanding office printer. It is better in quality in most respects over the Phaser 8400/8500. But it also does cost more. The difference in quality, however, is not nearly as good as its specifications imply. At 2400DPI I expect razor sharp pictures. Why isn't that advertisement's letters crystal clear? I don't know. In fact, the Canon CLC 1180 that we have, which has a much MUCH lower DPI than the Phaser is far superior in quality. It's not even close (and it's also a $20,000 printer so it better bloody be better). Don't let my whining dissuade you. The Xerox Phaser 6300DN is a great printer for any office environment. Just don't expect inkjet print quality on graphics and images. It's pretty good and its speed is great but don't let your expectations get the better of you. If I were to recommend an office printer to anyone, it would be the Xerox Phaser 6300.
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Reply #1 Friday, December 15, 2006 5:21 PM