We put a selection of high-capacity office printers to the test. We analyse what printer is best for your workplace and what dosn't work.

There are two areas to look at when testing laser printers: speed and print quality. We used a range of different documents to test the different aspects of each and weighted the results to give the Quality and Speed scores. More detail on each test is also provided online at www.pcauthority.com.au.

The system receives competition information from the Venue Results applications and distributes it to 15,000 media through more than 700 Fuji Xerox printers. At the competition venues, printed results

That presents a serious problem to the printing industry, which until now has not had to worry too much about the aesthetics of the devices it manufactures. Now the manufacturers are having to put a l

Rating exceptionally well in the TCO portion of our analysis, the PagePro 1200W scored almost twice the average for purchase price due to its incredibly low retail price. Don’t be fooled by the price tag though, this unit features plenty of qualities some other more expensive printers can only dream about.

TCO, or total cost of ownership, is virtually a mantra when it comes to volume printers. Unlike other peripherals, like monitors or scanners, the initial purchase price of a printer represents only a small proportion of its overall cost over its lifetime. Consumables, like toner and replacement image drums, add to the cost, and some printers with low initial purchase prices can easily turn out to be significantly more expensive than more pricey units, after a couple of years.

Canon's S820 has persistently fought off numerous challengers and remains one of the best photo printers on the market.

As digital cameras have improved, people have found that they can be used to produce more than just web quality images and, consequently, there is a growing demand for photo printers. While traditiona

Printer sales in Australia fell 12 percent in the fourth quarter of 2003 to 390,000 units, and are expected to fall another 13 percent for the full year 2004, IDC said.

One of the most impressive printers we received, it features plenty of well-thought out and logical technical features. One of only a handful of printers we tested that had an LCD for displaying print information and settings, the B4300 has eight single press buttons allowing you to view menu options, change values and cancel print jobs.

We originally debated whether or not to include a multifunction unit in this roundup as we feared it would not have been an apples with apples comparison, or that the print quality could not compare with the other printers on test. Given the performance of the SCX-4216F though, we were proven wrong.

It is all well and good selecting expensive printers based on the quality of the photo prints they produce, but the general home user often wants something that can do basic print jobs well, and make the kids' homework look good.

Epson has two current specialist photo printers and the model which takes care of the lower end is the $399 Stylus Photo 810.

Every office, whether it is a small, medium or large corporate environment, needs a printer for its day-to-day operations - this is a given. Despite the cliché that is the paperless office, streamlined electronic information exchange and the continued sales of inkjet and laser printers would suggest this is still not a reality and we think it may not be for some time.

Impressive print quality, a good turn of speed and decent features, but it simply costs too much to own.

Yet another solid HP laser, but it’s beaten by ?rivals in virtually every key area.

This month, the PC Authority Labs team looks at a colourful range of printers suitable for the small-medium office market.

One of the largest form factor printers in our roundup, HP’s Colour LaserJet 1500L has a giant footprint. Although not unattractive, with a purple ramp-like front cover, be prepared to sacrifice a reasonably sized piece of office real estate for this printer.

As most of the devices we tested consisted of inkjet units, we were interested to see how the laser printer in the MFC-4600 stacked up. Relatively lacking in features, the MFC-4600 is geared toward productivity, performing well in our speed tests.

There isn't much point, after all, in owning a network printer capable of printing thousands of pages per month at a ridiculously low price per page if the people that use it don't print out that much on a day-to-day basis.