OKIDATA C5550N COLOR TONER CARTRIDGES SET

OkiData C5550n MFP Review

Overview:

Offering high speeds and a substantive feature set, the OkiData C5550n is a color laser MFP suited best to the medium sized workgroup environment, offering a large number of functions and capabilities for a printer in a relatively small package. 

Pros:

The C5550n measures 19.7" by 23.6" by 26.4" and weighs a relatively lightweight 81.6 lbs, making it best suited to a dedicated piece of furniture such as a cabinet or credenza.

The printer produces sheets at a maximum speed of 20 pages per minute in color and 32 pages per minute in black and white, making it considerably faster than many other smaller color laser printers (which often offer speeds of under 20 pages per second in color and barely around 20 in black and white). Its time to first page is as fast as 11 seconds in color and as fast as 8 seconds in black and white, again making it comparable with most newer MFPs.

The printer produces documents at a maximum resolution of 1200 by 600 dpi, with built-in support for PCL 5e, PCL 5, PCL 6, and PostScript 3 to ensure compatibility with non-Windows operating systems and accurate reproduction of PDFs and other document formats. The printer interfaces with systems either via USB 2.0 or 10/100 Base-T Ethernet. Duplex printing is available via an optional add-on.

The MFP's copier produces copies at the same speeds as the printer, offering color documents at 20 pages per minute and black and white documents at 32 pages per minute. However, the first copy out speeds slow considerably; the copier produces first copies out at 23 seconds in color and 15 seconds in black and white. Its maximum resolution is 600 by 600, and scaling is available between 25% and 400% in 1% increments. The copier includes seven presets for scaling sizes and offers speed, text, and photo presets to determine image quality. The copier can produce up to 99 copies at a time.

The 5550n includes a color and black and white scanner, capable of processing documents through either a flatbed or a 50-sheet ADF. The scanner reads documents at speeds up to 3 seconds per page in black and 6 seconds per page in color, with a maximum resolution of 4800 dpi. It supports scan to PC, LDAP, scan to email, scan to FTP, CIFS, and TWAIN, and saves images in BMP, PDF, TIFF, and JPEF.

The 5550n's fax unit consists of a 33.6kbps Super G3 modem with a transmission speed of 3 seconds per page and a maximum resolution of 200 by 400 dpi. It includes a 10-location one-touch dial system, a 100-location, 20-group broadcast system, and a 100 page fax memory. The system supports broadcasting, delayed transmission, speed dial, auto redial, and activity reports.

The C5550n ships with 256 MB of RAM standard, which can be expanded to 768 MB if desired. A 40 GB hard drive is available as an add-on.

The C5550n supports paper sized between 4.1" by 5.8" and 8.5" by 14", with a multi-purpose tray capable of printing on documents sized between 3" by 5" and 8.5" by 47.24". The printer supports a standard input of 400 sheets, which can be expanded to 930 sheets by adding a 530-sheet optional tray. Supported paper types include letter, legal, banner, executive, A4, A5, B5, and A6, as well as C5, DL, Monarch, COM 9, and COM 10 envelopes. 

Cons:

Though this is a relatively higher-end MFP for workgroups, it lacks the sophisticated paper finishing options provided by many MFPs beyond duplex printing.

While it offers a convenience, the added hard drive option adds a potential failure point to the printer, which may lead to future inconveniences.