Xerox ColorQube 8700/X

The Xerox ColorQube 8700/X ($2,799 direct, 3.5 stars) is the latest color printer to utilize the company?s solid ink technology. The 8700/X?a multifunction printer (MFP)?doesn?t offer the phenomenally low ink costs for color printing that Xerox claims for the single-function ColorQube 8870DN ?($2,499 direct, 3.5 stars) but adds copying, scanning, and faxing capability for not too much more than you?d pay for the 8870DN. It also has a secret weapon: in its PostScript driver are some advanced color-correction features, including Color by Words, which lets you make color changes in plain language during the printing process.

As a solid-ink printer, the 8700/X utilizes blocks of black, cyan, magenta, and yellow ink. The printer melts the ink, and then prints by spraying the ink on a drum and rolling paper against the drum to transfer the ink to the paper. Solid ink printers are considered laser class, as they are generally similar to lasers in speed. One downside is that you?re best off keeping the printer on all the time; it takes power to melt the ink and a long time for the machine to warm up when turned on, plus it uses up ink in the startup process.

The ColorQube can print, scan (to email, to a USB thumb drive, to a Folder on the computer or over the network, to Internet Fax, and more), copy, and fax.? It includes a 50-sheet duplexing automatic document feeder (ADF) for copying, scanning, or faxing multi-page two-sided documents.

The blue-and-white ColorQube 8700/X is both cubic (23.8 by 23.4 by 24.2 inches, HWD) and massive (102 pounds); it took 3 people for us to move it into place on our test bench. It has a standard paper capacity of 650 sheets, split between a 525-sheet main tray and 100-sheet multipurpose tray?commensurate with its 120,000-page maximum monthly duty cycle?and an automatic duplexer for printing on both sides of a sheet of paper is standard. In addition, an 1800-page tray ($1,249) and up to two additional 525-page trays ($299 each) can be added, for a maximum paper capacity of 3,475 sheets. An optional finisher (with stacker and sorter) is available for $699.

Other standard features include an 80GB hard drive; and a 7-inch color touch-screen LCD for controlling network and MFP functions.

Xerox offers two other models in the ColorQube 8700 series. The ColorQube 8700/S ($2,500 street) is the same as the 8700/X but lacks fax capability, while the 8700/XF ($5,000 street) expands on the 8700/X by including all the paper tray options plus finisher, saving $350 over buying them all as separate options.

Testing

The ColorQube 8700/X offers USB 2.0 and Ethernet (including Gigabit Ethernet) connectivity, with optional WiFi capability ($219). I tested it on a wired network with drivers installed on a computer running Windows Vista. During installation, one dialog lets you choose printer drivers. PostScript is pre-checked and as listed as the recommended driver. You can also add PCL 5, PCL 6, and XPS drivers, though PostScript still installs as the default driver. You don?t want to uncheck PostScript, as it has a color-control feature unique to select Xerox printers.

All the 8700/X?s drivers have 2-sided printing (duplexing) set as the default. This provides paper savings, and one can always switch to 1-sided (simplex) printing when desired. In testing, we try to imitate the user experience as best possible, which means most of our testing is done using default settings. Thus, we did our official testing of the 8700/X?s print speed in duplex mode (as we have with Canon lasers since that company switched to duplex printing as its default last year). Duplex speeds tend to be somewhat slower than simplex for the same multi-page documents, so I also tested the 8700/X in simplex mode for comparison.

Printing Speed

I timed the 8700/X on our business applications suite (using QualityLogic's hardware and software for timing), at an effective 4.3 pages per minute (ppm) in duplex mode; it tested at 5.3 ppm when I switched to simplex. Either way, it?s a bit on the slow side for its 44-page-per-minute rating (for both color and monochrome) that?s based on printing text documents without graphics or photos. The Editors? Choice Lexmark X548dte ($1,599 direct, 4 stars) finished the same tests at an effective 7.0 ppm (in simplex mode) despite a rated speed of only 25 pages per minute, while the Brother MFC-9970CDW ($700 street, 4 stars), rated at 30 ppm, ran through the tests, once again in simplex, at 6.6 ppm.

Output Quality

The 8700/X?s text quality was average, making it suitable for anything short of demanding desktop publishing applications using very small fonts. ?Graphics quality was slightly above average for a color laser, good enough for standard business uses including PowerPoint handouts, as well as basic marketing materials.

Following our standard test procedures, I conducted our photo tests using the high resolution and automatic color settings in the 8700/X?s PostScript driver. Photo quality was slightly sub-par for a color laser. The main issue was dithering?visible dot patterns in some images, often in the form of spurious flecks of color (resembling noise in a digital camera image). For instance, the blue sky in one test image appeared speckled with purple, even when held at arm?s length.

Color by Words

I also did considerable ad-hoc testing of the driver?s custom color features: Color Correction, Color Adjustment, and especially Color by Words. Color Adjustment lets you choose between a range of color profiles such as sRGB Display, Black and White, Commercial, or Euroscale Press. Color Correction utilizes sliders to let you tweak lightness, contrast, saturation, and color cast (hue).

Color by Words lets you choose adjustments to color in plain language from a drop-down menu. One specifies three things: the color to be changed (from individual colors to ?all colors?, ?all sky-blue colors?, ?all foliage-green colors?, or ?all skin-tone colors?; the amount of change, from ?much less? to ?completely?; and what it?s to be changed to (for example, ?bright?, ?hazy?, ?warm?, or a particular color). For instance, you could specify changes to ?Make all foliage-green colors bright?.

Photo colors using the driver?s automatic color setting were reasonably true, so no real adjustment was necessary, but I did try a variety of changes. Indeed it can make color changes, from subtle to dramatic, and by and large it did well. However, I did not find a way to get rid of the color speckling in the bright areas without affecting unwanted changes to the rest of the print.

The Xerox ColorQube 8700/X is a formidable solid-ink color MFP that makes it easy for users to tweak colors during the printing process. While it doesn?t provide the savings in running costs that some Xerox solid-ink printers have, it has a lower initial cost. This MFP is well worth consideration by businesses seeking easy and precise control over color in the printing process.

However, impressive as Color by Words is, even that wasn?t enough to resolve a basic problem that cropped up in its photo printing. Although the Editors? Choice Lexmark X548dte lacks the ColorCube?s color control, it is faster, produces high-quality graphics and photos (making it suitable for printing marketing materials), and costs $1,100 less than the ColorQube.

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