There are now more affordable color laser printers than ever, ranging from discounted old printers to newer and smaller models. Every small office or working group can now use a high-volume laser printer instead of an ink jet printer. Many different vendors now offer color laser printers that are so inexpensive that even individual users can afford them.

Phaser 8400 ink doesn’t utilize laser technology. It utilizes ink to make stunning color copies very rapidly. It is also compatible with PostScript, and you can adjust color settings in a way that’s not possible with a low level laser printer. Of course, you have to give up something. It won’t run tons of black & white copies like a laser printer, and it’s no competition for an inkjet when it comes to the quality of its images, but it’s still pretty terrific.

The Phaser 8400, also known as phase-change printer, works almost like an offset printing press. Its ink comes in four colors, yellow, cyan, magenta, and black. The ink, however, comes as chunks of wax or small drop-in shapes, unlike the usual liquid or powdered form. This why it is also known as a wax-jet printer. There are slots below the hood of the printer, where, these shapes of wax, almost toddler-toy like in appearance, can be lodged.

Accustomed to conventional ink and toner cartridges, it was slightly unnerved that the Phaser’s front-panel LCD and software driver don’t offer an ink-remaining gauge though the former does display a low-ink warning; instead, you simply lift the hood and look. You can top off or add ink anytime, such as before starting a big print job, with no more wondering whether an installed cartridge will go the distance.

Phaser 8400 ink is friendly to the environment because there are no waste tanks or consumable cartridges to discard. Instead, a single plug-in imaging-drum lubricator or plug-in maintenance kit supplies all the ink that the printer will use for 10,000 to 30,000 pages. There is also a waste tray that needs to be occasionally emptied and replaced.

Solid ink printers utilize heat and pressure to make an image on paper. The printer melts a small portion of the desired color(s) and sprays the ink onto a heated, rotating drum which transfers the image to paper. The Xerox Phaser 8400 printer has distinct environmental advantages over most low priced printers. Using only 1500 watts of power, the Phaser 8400 uses a fifth less electricity than liquid ink printers and the 600 X 600 dpi (1236 individual nozzles) print head transfers the image in a single pass (four is standard).

The ink sets within seconds on the page, unlike the seeping or blotting that happens when you use an inkjet. You can get the ink off only by scratching with a fingernail as it does not even smudge if you run a damp finger over it. The end result, though dry, still looks almost damp. Color printouts appear with a definite banding in an inkjet printer and a laser printer too has a mild banding effect, but here, even solid-color areas look glossy enough to believe they were painted.

Phaser 8400 ink doesn’t utilize laser technology. It utilizes ink to make stunning color copies very rapidly. It is also compatible with PostScript, and you can adjust color settings in a way that’s not possible with a low level laser printer. The Phaser 8400 is a solid ink printer. Instead of using liquid or powdered inks, the Phaser 8400 solid ink printer utilizes small solid blocks of yellow, cyan, magenta, and black ink that are specially shaped to be held and used by the printer. The Xerox Phaser 8400 is revolutionary.

- Ben Pate