3 New Superfast Printers

We tested three speedy printers with powerful processors. Here are the results.

Courtesy Company

Tired of waiting at the printer? Now there are three speedier options: (from left) the OKI B730DN, the Xerox Phaser 4510/N, and the HP Color LaserJet Enterprise CM4540.

Tweet

More hardware companies are introducing superfast laser printers, capable of shooting out dozens of pages per minute, thanks to powerful processors. Just how fast are they? We tested three to find out.

Oki B730DN
The fastest model in our test group, this black-and-white printer is rated at 52 pages per minute, or PPM, but pumped out 54 copies of a simple text document in 60 seconds. A brochure with images printed at an impressive 47 PPM. Using an Ethernet connection, it took only seven seconds for the first page to come out after we hit Print. On the downside, print quality was disappointing, at a maximum resolution of 1,200 X 1,200 dots per inch, or DPI. Cost: $1,249

Xerox Phaser 4510/N
Coming in second, this black-and-white model is rated at 45 PPM. During our test, the machine printed simple text documents at about 43 PPM. A brochure with images printed faster, at 47 PPM. The machine took 20 to 28 seconds to process each job using an Ethernet connection, and print quality was less than stellar, at a maximum resolution of 1,200 X 1,200 DPI. Cost: $999

HP Color LaserJet Enterprise CM4540
HP's fastest printer, the Enterprise is rated at 42 PPM and prints in color or black and white. You can also use the all-in-one printer to scan documents and make copies. It printed a simple, black-and-white document at a rate of 37 PPM and a color brochure at 34 PPM. It took 11 seconds to process a simple document over Ethernet and 20 seconds for a color brochure. Print quality was outstanding, at a maximum resolution of 600 X 600 DPI. Cost: $3,799