Expert's Rating
Pros
- Prints clean, legible text
- Easy setup
Cons
- Color prints look faint and lack detail
- Slow
Our Verdict
Xerox’s Phaser 6130 is a color laser printer designed for small workgroups or personal office use. At $449, the Phaser 6130 is a bargain, but in our testing, the Phaser 6130 was a subpar performer and color prints looked unappealing. In summary, for a less-than-average price, you get an average printer with the Phaser 6130.
Setting up the color laser is simple. Weighing 37 pounds and measuring about 15 inches deep, the Phaser 6130 is relatively small compared to many laser printers; you should be able to set up this device safely without assistance. Once you lock the toner cartridges in place, all you have to do is connect the printer via USB or Ethernet, power it up, and insert the included software CD to install the printer driver.
We tested the Phaser 6130’s speed over a 10/100 Base-T Ethernet connection, and the results weren’t impressive. It took 22 seconds to print a one-page Word document, 55 seconds to print a ten-page Word document, 2 minutes and 26 seconds to print a 22MB Photoshop image, and 1 minute to print a four-page PDF. Our top product in the color laser printer category took, respectively, 13 seconds, 29 seconds, 33 seconds, and 1 minute and 6 seconds to perform the same tests.
The Phaser 6130 was also an average performer in terms of quality. Our panel of experts gave the printer’s color-photo quality a Fair rating because colors appeared very faint and the overall image lacked detail compared to our control photo of a picnic. The Phaser 6130 scored a Good rating in our Graphics, Fine Lines, and Gradients tests: We saw visible banding in gradients, fine lines looked bent, and graphics lacked detail overall. The Phaser 6130 was impressive only in its ability to print very clean, legible grayscale text.
Timed Trials: Print
| 10-page Word test | 0:55 |
|---|---|
| 1-page Word test | 0:22 |
| 22MB Photoshop image | 2:26 |
| 4-page PDF | 1:00 |
Scale = Minutes: Seconds
Jury Tests: Print
| Graphics: Fine Lines and Gradients | Good |
|---|---|
| 22MB Photoshop image quality | Fair |
| Text Quality | Very Good |
Scale = Superior, Very Good, Good, Fair, Poor
How We Tested: We ran all tests with the printer connected via 10/100BaseTX Ethernet to a 2.66GHz Mac Pro with Mac OS X 10.5.2 installed and 1GB of RAM. We recorded the time it took the printer to print a one-page Word document and a ten-page Word document, as well as the time it took to print a 22MB Photoshop image and a four-page PDF. A panel of experts examined sample output of the printer to rate its print quality as either Superior, Very Good, Good, Fair, or Poor in comparison to the output of past ink-jet printers we’ve tested—Macworld Lab testing by Brian Chen and Blair Frank
Specifications
| Print Resolution | 600 x 600 x 4 bits dpi |
|---|---|
| Connections | 10/100 Base-T Ethernet, USB 2.0 |
| Paper Sizes | up to 8.5×14 |
| Cost to Replace Toner | $312 ($75 for black; $79 each for cyan, magenta and yellow) |
| Weight (in pounds) | 37 |
| Dimensions (height x depth x width in inches) | 15.3 x 15.51 x 15.75 in. |
| Paper Capacity | 251 sheets |
Macworld’s buying advice
Though the Phaser 6130 is inexpensive, there are better options in the same price range. For $50 more, you can buy Brother’s HL-4070CDW (), a much faster, higher quality color laser printer that includes wireless networking and duplexing.
[Brian Chen is a Macworld associate editor.]