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Issue #0805/1 - With higher than expected purchase price and lower than expected running costs, Lexmark’s new X560n, four-function colour laser MFP looks to be more attractive as a multifunction device for small businesses and workgroups than we have come to expect from Lexmark. Pitched against Brother’s MFC-9440CN, Dell’s 3115cn, Oki’s C5550MFP and Xerox’s Phaser 6180MFP, the X560n stands its ground firmly and confidently.

Lexmark X560n

This is a very unusual move for Lexmark, as owner of its own colour laser technology, and perhaps indicates the extent to which the company is desperate to turn its dangerous financial situation around as fast as possible at whatever short-term cost. With only three 20ppm colour laser engines available, it may have been too much of a cost risk for Lexmark to start developing its own small business-oriented single-pass colour laser engine at this point in time, hence buying into an existing engine from Fuji Xerox.

One of the most interesting facts here is that there is no Hewlett-Packard machine to include in the group – one of the very few occasions when this occurs. Hewlett-Packard’s only single-pass colour MFP above the 8ppm of the entry-level CM10xx machines (apart from the departmental Colour LaserJet 9000 series) is the 30ppm CM4730 series. Hewlett-Packard finds itself partially hamstrung here by its reliance on Canon for engine development (hence no Canon machine here either).

That aside, the Lexmark X560n is interesting primarily in that it is not the least expensive to purchase (by 44%) but nor is it the most costly to run (by 17%). At small-office print volumes, it falls second only to Dell for economy (same engine). This is unusual in that Lexmark machines historically have tended to fall very much at the upper end of the cost scale.

Purchase Price

Total Cost of Printing

Note that for this level of machine, the mixed mono/colour CPP over three years shown in the accompanying table is calculated on the basis of 1,250 pages per month; 70% pages in mono and 30% pages in colour; is based on the use of maximum capacity supplies; takes into account any standard, or starter, supplies shipped with the device; and also includes the cost of purchase. All prices are manufacturer’s recommended prices without tax.

Ironically, but not unexpectedly, the Xerox version is the most costly machine in the group to run (by just over 10%) although not most expensive to purchase (by a significant 24%).

Brother MFC-9440CN

If we run a variable page volume analysis on the group, we find that the 1,250 pages per month used in the static analysis gives us a range of long-term Cost of Printing between the machines that is narrower than at any other print volume.

Dell’s 3115cn is essentially the most cost-effective throughout but Brother’s MFC-9440CN throws in a couple of surprises by being the least expensive overall at 500 pages per month and competing fairly well for much of the time.

Total Cost of Printing

So, because there are three machines in the group that share the same engine, there are three that share most of the same hardware specifications.

Dell 3115cn

Other than this though, all three devices have a 30ppm mono print speed; boast PCL6 emulation and real Adobe PostScript 3; and benefit from a high 950-sheet maximum paper input capacity, comprising 150-sheet multipurpose feed, 250-sheet standard feed and optional 550-sheet second feed that doubles as a floor stand with storage space.

In addition, they all have three interfaces: parallel; USB 2.0 and fast Ethernet.

All of the machines offer duplex either as an optional extra and/or as a separate duplex-ready model variant. All also come with 50-sheet ADF, the highest capacity of the engines on offer. Finally, all are equipped with a 33.6Kbps fax modem for the fourth function.

It is in the toner yield that the three Fuji Xerox-based machines vary significantly – a factor that contributes strongly towards the variation in Cost of Printing, allowing the three vendors to apply different pricing and marketing strategies without too much danger of close scrutiny of the pricing differences.

While Lexmark follows its usual strategy of providing very high capacity cartridges (all at 10,000 pages) at a high price, Xerox has opted for an 8,000-page black cartridge accompanied by 6,000-page colour cartridges. Dell has kept the equation simple with four 8,000-page cartridges at a low price.

Starter cartridges shipped with the machines vary as well. Both Dell and Lexmark ship their machines with 5,000-page black and 4,000-page colour cartridges while Xerox cuts capacity right back to only 3,000 pages in black and 2,000-pages in colour.

Some compensation for the high Xerox pricing and relatively low-yield cartridges is the fact that the Phaser 6180MFP features Xerox’s suite of productivity tools – very helpful in the small office environment.

Talking of low-capacity cartridges though, Brother’s MFC-9440CN has the smallest supplies of all (at 5,000 black and 4,000 colour) and ships with a mere 2,500 pages-worth of black and 1,500 pages-worth of colour toner.

Oki’s C5550

Oki’s C5550MFP, although equipped with cartridges only a little larger than Brother’s (at 6,000 black and 5,000 colour), does appear to ship with full cartridges at the same yield rather than smaller, starter cartridges.

In hardware terms, Brother’s MFC-9440CN only loses out in terms of; lacking a parallel port (no great loss); having a 35-sheet ADF instead of 50-page; not having a boosted mono print speed (same as colour at 20ppm); and having a slightly smaller maximum paper capacity (800 sheets), mainly because of the 50-sheet capacity of the multipurpose feed when the Fuji Xerox engines handle 150 sheets.

Xerox Phaser
6180 MFP

One unique feature of this machine, however, is the presence of a PictBridge interface that not only allows the direct connection of a PictBridge-compliant digital camera but also a Flash drive for direct print from USB and direct scan to USB – very useful. Like the Oki C5550MFP and Xerox Phaser 6180MFP, the MFC-9440CN ships with Nuance’s PaperPort for Document Management.

By comparison, the C5550MFP has a maximum paper capacity of 930 sheets (close to the 950 sheets of the Dell, Lexmark and Xerox MFPs) and benefits from a mono print speed that is even higher than these three machines, at 32ppm.

In the final analysis then, most of the choice in this category is on price and Cost of Printing, with Lexmark’s new machine faring much better than many of its stable-mates. Brother’s MFC-9440CN is a real contender, with the long term CPP rising up above some of the competition only at the critical point of having replaced the drum unit and all three colour toners close to end of life, while for those who are inclined towards buying Dell, the 3115cn can reduce print costs even further.

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This entry was posted on Friday, February 8th, 2008 at 12:03 am and is filed under Comparisons, Total Cost of Printing. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.