Finishing second overall in our roundup the Epson EPL-6100 was edged out of first place by the HP 1300 and the OKI C5100, with its incredible range of features. However, this is not to say that the Epson EPL-6100 doesn’t have a wide range of functions. On the contrary, it boasts some innovative design and logical technological functions. Its large 250 page input tray makes it ideal for bulk printing, although it shares the same much smaller volume 100 page output tray capacities as both the Lexmark E321 and Minolta-QMS PagePro 1200W models.
Epson has a distinct advantage in the absolute breeze with which you load and remove the toner cartridge -- as simple as pressing the lid open button the left hand side of the unit, grabbing the easily accessible handle on the toner roll and lifting upwards. No manoeuvring an obstacle course of pegs and rails, just a simple upwards pull will bring it free, also making for easy paper jam removal should the situation arise.
Another thing going for the 6100 is the fact that it’s not beige and boring; it was the only mono printer this month to cast off the shackles of uniformity in the housing department with an attractive grey shell. Trivial we know, but beige is traditional and outdated.
USB and parallel connectivity options makes for easy connection to older machines, while software scaling all the way back to Windows 95 and Mac OS 8.1 and above makes for seamlessly easy multiplatform integration into a SOHO.
The front loading paper cartridge is easy to load courtesy of a flap which drops, eliminating the need for cartridge removal to add more paper, fast and simple.
Sitting around the middle of the pack for initial purchase price, over the term of ownership TCO remains steadily around the middle of our cost projection graph, making it a great buy now and over the lifetime of the printer for frequent but non bulk SOHO mono printing purposes.