- Solid ink technology, an alternative to laser printing
- 2,400 FinePoint, 600 x 600 dpi resolution
- Up to 24 ppm in fast color and black, first page out in 6 seconds
- 500 MHz PowerPC processor, optional hard disk with 20GB storage
- 10/100BaseTX Ethernet, bidirectional parallel, USB 2.0 interfaces
Everyone else has already covered the basics, and I shall not further beat the horse to glue. Here are the realities to happy 8400 ownership, and ignore them at your own peril :
1. Use the highest quality paper you can get. High quality is defined as at least 24 lb. paper, at least 94 briteness. Yes, the 8400 makes any crappy piece of paper look good, but you have a fantastic COLOR printer, so go the very little extra and get the paper to really make the color shine.
2. Never EVER shut the power off. The dirty little secret of the 8400 is how much ink it will suck down if you try to save on electricity and power it down overnight. Wrong move. It will eat ink like there is no tomorrow if you do. Preferably, set the 8400 for the longest sleep setting there is 240 minutes. Once you plug it in and configure it, then leave it alone.
3. Most of the time the lower (or even lowest!) quality settings will MORE than suffice, and save you a bundle on ink. Did I say run it there all the time? No. Use the print settings in whatever program you are using to ramp up the quality if you need eye-popping color. Most of the time, however, you and your wallet will be more than pleased with the 8400 parked in the lower settings.
That''s about it.
This is a fantastic printer for the money. Feed the 8400 great paper, keep it turned on, and take advantage of the lower quality settings and it should be a stellar performer for any SO/HO.
Buy Xerox Phaser 8400/N Solid-Ink Color Printer Now
The cleaning cycle on this machine scrapes off piles of melted ink everytime the machine is rebooted. Xerox advises you to keep the machine on all the time. That helps only if you don''t have power outages or other problems that require you to reboot the printer.
Since last year... and I''ve measured the weight of the waste on a postal scale... I''ve discarded the equivalent of 8 blocks of ink at about $30 each. Considering I''ve purchased and loaded 64 blocks of ink since August, that''s a considerable loss.
In addition, color is very important to my work as I''m a graphic designer who does short runs for my clients. The color color has become faded over time, especially the blues.
Also, if you print on coated photo paper, the color peels off.
Read Best Reviews of Xerox Phaser 8400/N Solid-Ink Color Printer Here
Maybe I''m a printer-holic: I have an Epson Photo R200 for photos. I have a Primera Signature Z6 for CDs (fantastic printer, by the way). But I needed a fast, reliable printer for handouts and training materials. I work in Illustrator and InDesign, and PostScript Level 3 was critical. This printer is genuine Adobe PostScript (not "PretendScript" like other printers), and it shows. But, beyond that, the entire experience is superior: the manufacturing standards are splendid (great fit and finish!), and the set-up guide is perfect--you can''t go wrong. The little ink sticks are shape-coated so that even a trained squirrel could load them. The "walk-up installation" that finds Windows boxes and says "hello" automatically is wonderful. It''s speedy, sharp and chock full of great features I didn''t know I''d love. I highly recommend this printer!
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I have had this printer for a number of years now and must say that it was fantastic at first, but over time it has become pretty disappointing. Key points to mention are:
The amazing color on printouts really jumps out at you at first. Much like inkjet printers though, print quality deteriorated rather quickly. The printer quickly started to develop white lines on printouts that required cleaning cycles to get rid of. Eventually, cleaning cycles no longer helped. Most everyone who has any model in this printer line has this problem.
At 10000 pages you have to buy an expensive maintenance kit otherwise the printer will refuse to continue printing.
At around the 5000 page mark, the manual pickup roller routinely started to grab multiple sheets and then jam.
At around the 10000 page mark, the cheap plastic bits that hold the manual printer tray flat literally shook themselves to pieces and broke off. The problem stems from what I consider a design flaw whereby a spring mechanism causes the tray to shake violently every time a page is picked up. A piece of wood now holds up my tray.
Like others said, the unit must NEVER be turned off otherwise you will quickly realize that all your ink is gone. I put mine on a UPS because our electricity flashes every once in a while. All it takes is one second without power and the machine will waste loads of ink just to reboot and ''reheat'' itself.
Ink is still expensive. I almost always print in black but it somehow still manages to use more expensive color ink.
The machine does indeed smell like crayons when it warms up. It is not a horrendous smell but it is noticeable.
I just bought a Phaser solid ink printer. It smells like crayons. I will have to return it because everytime it goes on it aggravates my asthma. Do not buy this for a small office or one without constant ventilation.
