Issue #0534/4 - Phaser 6120
Xerox states that the Phaser 6120, its newest colour laser printer, “offers legendary Phaser colour”.
This is not technically true – I was told by Xerox staff at a recent Xerox event that the Phaser 6120 does not use a Phaser controller, meaning that it cannot offer ‘Phaser Colour’ because ‘Phaser Colour’ relies on a Phaser controller. Instead it uses a generic controller, which may mean that it uses the same controller as the Konica Minolta magicolor 2430DL and 2450, which use the same engine (supplied by Konica Minolta) as Xerox uses in its Phaser 6120.
Xerox Phaser 6120Why Xerox has used this engine for its new low-end machine is a bit of mystery in itself when Fuji Xerox has an engine that has been sold to Dell for the past year (used in the Dell 3000cn and 3100cn). This engine has probably paid for itself following 12 months of OEM sales to Dell so, although manufacturing has to be paid for, Fuji Xerox could be using the engine to pay for future engine development while Xerox gets a low cost engine allowing it to tackle the low end of the market with a home-grown engine.
As it is, printer users will go away with the impression that Xerox is incapable of developing a low end engine and has to buy one in. To have used its own engine would have allowed Xerox to make use of a true Phaser controller and offer users true ‘Phaser Colour’.
So, as a Konica Minolta printer, the Phaser 6120 shares most of its basic physical features and characteristics with the two magicolor models: 5ppm colour and 20ppm mono printing; duty cycle of 35,000 pages per month; 200-sheet standard paper tray – lower even than the new Hewlett-Packard and Lexmark machines – plus 500-sheet optional tray. In terms of specific configurations it is closer to the magicolor 2450: USB 2.0, 10/100Base-TX Ethernet and Parallel interfaces; 128MB RAM; and PostScript 3, PCL 5c / PCL 6 / PCL 5e emulations.
Konica Minoltamagicolor 2450
There are several minor differences between the printers from the two brands however. For instance: Konica Minolta offers automatic duplexing as standard in the 2450 and both Konica Minolta models are equipped with a PictBridge port that is not available from Xerox.
It is in the software capabilities that the two models are distinguishable. Apart from the different suites of installation and management software and utilities, Xerox offers its usual range of advanced print functions, such as: booklet printing, watermarks, custom page sizes, scaling, scale-to-fit, forms printing and n-up printing.
Additional functionality includes: remote monitoring of toner levels; built-in support links; job retention features; and PrintingScout Alert Notification – some of which rely on having the optional hard disk installed.
Xerox Phaser 6120with second paper tray
Xerox’s handling of pricing differs from other manufacturers. Whereas Hewlett-Packard introduced a low-end single-pass model six months ago at a significantly lower price than its four-pass model, but with a much higher Cost Per Page, and Lexmark’s new C522n, although costing more than the C510n (21%), has a correspondingly high CPP, Xerox has maintained a much stronger pricing stability by slightly reduced both elements - purchase and CPP. It is also interesting that Lexmark’s higher level machine, C524n, comes in with a very much higher purchase price (60%) but competitive CPPs.
Xerox’s purchase price for its new Phaser 6120 falls in the middle (just above centre) of the competitive grouping, as does its mono CPP, but with a colour CPP that is sufficiently high to push its long term CPP towards the top end of the group.
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