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This is very nearly the perfect box shape at 43x43x42cm. It is quite heavy (28 kilos) so would need a very substantial desk to hold it or it could live on the floor. It has a proper tray for paper at the base of the unit, paper is inserted face up and delivered face down out of the top of the unit.

In mono it can produce 25 PPM for as long as there is paper in the tray. For colour this is a respectable 5 PPM. One of my normal tests is a rather large database that I produce at four pages per page and even with this the output was churned out at over 20 PPM.

See also: Laser printers

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You would not normally produce A4 photographs on a laser printer but the quality on PLAIN PAPER needs to be seen to be appreciated. If you take into account ink and special photo paper costs then the price per page for quite acceptable images wins hands down. Running costs for inkjets have always been the problem and while with a colour laser there are four of everything to purchase you are talking of many thousands of pages per refill. An inkjet may do low hundreds - if you are lucky - between replacements. I am not going to try to do the maths here but to work it out for yourself you need the cost of the machine, cost of inks/toner, cost of special paper/paper, then if you really want to go into depth cost of replacement heads/drums.

The face of the unit has two buttons and a four position wheel as well as a 7.5x1cm LCD display. The on/off button is at the back left of the unit, this would be ideal when it is a large high capacity unit that is normally left on all the time but less convenient for the small office/home office/soho user when it is likely to be turned on when required.

It can be used parallel or USB and these together with mains input are all on the rear at the bottom left of the unit.

During my whole review I never had a single paper jam, this may seem something you might expect not to have, but I use a range of weights and types of paper all mixed together and often this tends to make jams more likely. The simple layout of the paper input tray with no front restraint behind the door made me initially think this would be a problem but I was wrong. The input tray is stated to take 180 sheets.

This is certainly a solid unit, and like most other 'entry level' units it has benefited from the knowledge gained from earlier and certainly more expensive models this now funnels down and you the purchaser, are the one who gains.

No jams, good rapid print quality, images of all sizes printed on plain paper that look that much better than anything you would get with an inkjet on the same media. All those are plus points, help, am I reduced to saying the on/off switch could be better placed, I am afraid so. The price at www.dabs.com is £270.99 and you get a free inkjet Epson C66 by redemption if you buy before the end of march.
 

Link http://www.epson.co.uk/products/laser_printers/AcuLaser_C1100.htm