Xerox Phaser 6130 Review

Xerox has always been known for their reliable printers and copiers, both for office and production/commercial use. This time around I will be reviewing the Phaser 6130, an office printer. Like every other product it's reliable and powerful, and with a low price tag of only $449 (without any extras). But let's see if it's the right printer for you.

Number one, as an office machine you may be a little disappointed with this model. It's printing speeds are rather quick, and the quality is great, but what I am talking about is functionality. The Phaser 6130 is only a color printer (yes, it can print B&W as well). So those of you looking for a phone, fax, and/or copier as well may find it better to look at their other, more expensive models. Since most offices would require more than just a printer, I would say look more, but if you do want just a printer than keep reading on to see what else the Phaser 6130 offers.

The printer's Page Per Minute speed (PPM) listed on the Xerox site is 12 for color and 16 for B&W. Now, for the price you are paying those speeds are actually pretty good. At an office, or at home, you probably are not looking for the much higher speeds of their commercial machines such as the Docucolor 242 (which can do around 40 PPM for color). So the speed I would say is adequate for those purposes. If, however, you are one of those entrepreneur types attempting to make a printing business in your own home, you will need a more powerful model. It all depends on what you want to use it for.

The paper tray allows a capacity of 250 pages, which is considerably large. So refilling will be infrequent and convenient.

Another thing I don't like about this printer is that duplexing is "manual." If you found this on the Xerox home site, you may be wondering 1) what duplex means and 2) how is it manual? I'll break it down for you.

Duplexing means printing on both sides of a sheet, the opposite of which is simplex. Manual means after you print out one side, you would have to take the sheet, flip it over, and place it back in the printer. This is a pain if you want to print out more than a two paged document, also it is difficult to judge which is the correct way to place it in.

My suggestion is that you print out four of a document, then place them in the printer at different angles until you figure out which is correct. After that, write a sticky note on the printer so you will never forget how. There is nothing worse than trying to duplex manually and doing it wrong.

So while the Phaser 6130 is a little low end, you will find that for most home and office uses it is ideal. It is small and lightweight, has quick PPM for it's price, has the printing capacity of toner since it is a laser machine, and has a high capacity tray. While there are problems associated with the machine, as I brought up, you will find that unless you are willing to spend the high prices for commercial machines that these problems exist for most low end machines.