Xerox WorkCentre 6605DN Color Multifunction Printer

The Xerox WorkCentre 6605DN Color Multifunction Printer ($1,099 direct) is a solid color laser MFP, geared to small workgroups, with a good feature set. It provides good output quality at lackluster speed when you use the default PostScript driver. The printer's PCL driver has to be installed separately, and although faster, it lags in output quality and you may be better off without it.

The 6605DN is identical to the Xerox WorkCentre 6605N Color Multifunction Printer ($999 direct, 3 stars), except that the latter MFP lacks an auto-duplexer for printing on both sides of a sheet of paper. If you need an auto-duplexer, or want to save paper, the $100 premium for the 6605DN is a small price to pay for this convenience.

The 6605DN can print, copy, fax, and scan. It has a front-facing USB port that fits a USB thumb drive that you can print from or scan to. You can scan to email or network folder, and it offers LAN faxing from your PC or walkup faxing using the printer's control panel. These functions are controlled with 4.3-inch color touch screen. A 50-sheet reversing automatic document feeder (ADF) lets you scan, copy, and fax multipage documents.

The MFP measures 20 by 16.9 by 20.8 inches (HWD), too large to share a desk with, and weighs 71 pounds. It prints on up to letter-size or A4 paper. It has a standard paper capacity of 700 sheets, split between a 550-sheet main train and a 150-sheet multipurpose tray. An optional second 550-sheet tray ($299 direct) is available, to bring the maximum paper capacity to 1,250 sheets.

PostScript and PCL Drivers
During setup, you're offered two printer drivers (PostScript and PCL6), with checkboxes next to them.? The PostScript driver is marked as recommended, and the box next to it is already checked. The PCL driver's box is empty; to install it, you have to check the box beside it yourself. If you install both drivers, the PostScript driver will be set as the default.

The 6605DN can connect via USB and Ethernet (including Gigabit Ethernet); an optional Wi-Fi adapter is available for $99 (direct). I tested this printer over a wired network with its drivers installed on a PC running Windows Vista.

Testing and Print Speed
I ran our official tests using the PostScript driver, as it is both the recommended driver and the only one that installs automatically. (We do our testing using default settings, as in our experience they are the ones that users are most likely to use.) That said, I also did some ad hoc testing using the PCL driver. As is typical for printers with those two drivers, the PCL was faster (I timed it in simplex mode at 9 ppm), but its output quality, for photos and especially for graphics, was inferior to the PostScript. Although the PCL driver may be suitable for quickly printing drafts of documents in situations where output quality is unimportant, Xerox clearly did the right thing in making the PostScript the recommended and default driver.

On our business applications test suite, ?I timed the WorkCentre 6605DN (in duplex mode using the PostScript driver) at an effective 4.8 pages per minute (ppm). Its rated speed, based on printing text documents without graphics or photos, is up to 36 pages per minute; our test suite combines text pages, graphics pages, and pages with mixed content. I timed the Editors' Choice Dell C3765dnf, rated at 23 page per minute for both color and monochrome duplex printing, at 8.2 ppm in duplex mode, and the simplex-only Xerox WorkCentre 6605N using its PostScript driver at 5.7 ppm. We tested the Editors' Choice Lexmark X548dte, rated at 25 pages per minute, at 7 ppm, in simplex mode.

Output Quality
The 6605DN provides overall above-average output quality, with text of average quality, above-par graphics, and slightly above-par photo quality. Text is fine for most any business use short of desktop publishing applications that require very small fonts. Graphics are fine for PowerPoint handouts, including ones intended for people you seek to impress, as well as basic marketing materials. Photo quality is fine for company newsletters, and perhaps for marketing materials, depending on how picky you are.

When I switched to the PCL driver, output quality for both photos and graphics suffered. It was no match for the PostScript output, and we've seen better graphics with the PCL drivers from many other color lasers (which are more typically the default drivers for such printers).

Xerox's claimed running costs for the 6605DN, including toner and other consumables, are 2.9 cents per monochrome page and 15.3 cents per color page. The Dell C3765dnf's claimed running costs, based on a similar set of consumables, are 1.5 cents per monochrome page and 10 cents per color page, while the Lexmark X548dte's claimed running costs are 1.6 cents per monochrome page and 11 cents per color page.

The Xerox WorkCentre 6605DN combines a good set of MFP features with good output quality, and is worth a close look by workgroups needing a color MFP for PostScript use, though its speed was unimpressive. If you don't need PostScript, there are faster choices, such as the Dell C3765dnf, that still provide good output quality. Although the 6605DN's PCL driver provided decent speed, it lagged in graphics and photo quality, and is best for draft mode if you choose to install it at all.

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