Review of the Xerox Phaser 6130 Color Laser Printer

The Phaser 6130 is a color laser printer that packs a lot of printer into a small package. The best part is that the 6130 costs less than $500. The Phaser 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, the Phaser 6130 is still a little large as a true desktop printer .

Something to consider with any printer is not just how much it costs up front, but how much the ink or toner costs . The 6130 toner cartridges are rather expensive. You can save a lot by buying off-brand toner . Our testing on the 6130 using Discount Phaser 6130 ink

Configuring the 6130 is easy even for a novice . Since the Phaser 6130 is so compact, you should be able to set up this device without assistance . Just snap the toner cartridges in place. Then all you have to do is hook it up to your computer using the proper cable, power it up, and insert the included software CD to install the printer driver .

Xerox’s network installation is as easy as it gets. Complete network installation took just three mouse clicks .

The speed of Xerox’s 6130 over a 10/100 Base-T Ethernet connection was no better than other printers in this class. It took more than 20 seconds to print a single Word document, about a minute to print a ten-page Word document , just under 2 and a half minutes to print a full color photo , and about a minute to print four pages from a PDF.

One of of the idiosyncracies of the 6130 is that if the printer driver is set for color, the 6130 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.

The Xerox 6130 was also an average performer in terms of quality . We give the printer’s color-photo quality a 5 out of 10 rating because colors appeared very faint and the overall image lacked detail compared to our control photo. In graphical printing areas , the Phaser 6130 scored above average . The color ratings printed identically whether we used the included OEM toner or in a machine where we installed replacement 6130 color toner cartridges .

The Phaser 6130 tested impressively in its ability to print sharp, clear grayscale text . Ultimately, the Phaser 6130 handles any text it encounters and print quality of the text was above average . Printed text was legible and well formed as low as 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 at all printed legibly at 12 points. We had no trouble producing the same textual clarity with the compatible Xerox Phaser 6130 black toner .

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