Updated 1-5-01
Written: Nov 11 '00 (Updated Jan 05 '01)
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Product Rating:
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Pros: Cost effective. Clear text. USB and parallel.
Cons: Needs more memory. It could be faster. Graphics are not as good as a more costly printer.
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| drcns's Full Review: Xerox DocuPrintâ„¢ P8EX Laser Printer |
The printer is half the price of some popular competing printers (but prices are falling every day on the competition). I use this printer in the office for fairly heavy-duty text output. Although most output is text, there is a 10-20% portion of output that is graphical.
The printer is excellent for text and prints at the same speed as other printers in this price category (although it seems to not be as fast as rated). Graphics are almost as good but not as impressive. They are fine for most purposes, however.
The paper does not jam as it did in my previous HP printer. The only jam-like condition so far has been the pulling of two pieces of paper through instead of one at a time, only rarely, and only when five or so pieces of paper remain in the in-tray. Fortunately, I have never had a jam inside the printer itself.
When my previous printer (HP LaserJet 5: it was really good at the time) did not last as long as I would like it to have lasted, I had many options for a new printer. I had one functional HP remaining (this one also a good, reliable product but ancient and so slow), one NEC and then I bought this Xerox. I have since purchased another Xerox laser all-in-one because I was quite satisfied with the performance of the P8ex. That all-in-one printer (the Xe90fx also is a "lifesaver" unit for the price).
I also like the USB connection for this printer. I have the parallel port hooked to the desktop but have a USB cable that I plug into my laptop so I can print from both computers without transferring files from one computer to another and without changing the cable connections. There's nothing about this in the user manual, so I can't guarantee that such a connection won't fry all the components, BUT it is a great trick.
I have had it about one year now. There have been no problems.
Added 1-5-2001: I have noticed recently that large print jobs with graphics are more problematic with this printer than with my other printers, even those with the same amount of memory. After about 30 pages of graphics, the printer stops printing properly. This does not happen with text printing. Therefore, if you print jobs with heavy page cover that are over 30 pages or so, this might not be the printer for you. What I have had to do in these situations is do several prints: pages 1-20, 21-40, 41-60, etc. Again, this problem is related to heavy graphics use (no text on the page, everything represented as graphics) with print jobs over 30 pages.
Toner is not as costly for this printer as it is for my multifunction printer.
Recommended:
Yes
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Epinions.com ID:
drcns
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Location: San Francisco CA
Reviews written: 20
Trusted by: 6 members
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