The Printer That Thinks It's a Copier

Home Office Computing, May, 1999 by Joey Latimer

Xerox WorkCentre XD100

Score: 7.7
V    7
P    8
E    8
S    8

Requirements       Win 3.X/95/98, 16MB of RAM, 45 MB of hard
                   disk space, parallel port

Est. Street Price  $600

Manufacturer        Xerox Corp., 800-TEAM-XRX, www.xerox.com

IF YOU'RE SETTING UP AN office and plan to buy a laser printer and decent high-speed copier, take a look at the Xerox DocuCentre XD 100. The XD 100 combines an eight-page-per minute, 600dpi laser printer with a 10-page-per-minute digital copier in one $600 package. Besides saving footprint space in your office, you would also save enough money to get an additional color printer and a flatbed scanner.

Setting up the XD 100 is as easy as it gets. Unpacking the unit, installing the toner cartridge, hooking it to our test PC, and setting up the software took about 15 minutes--and there were no surprises. Printing was fast in both text and graphics formats, and the quality of the output was continually high. Graphics prints displayed smooth transitions between various shades of gray, and text prints looked sharp and professional, even under our magnifying glass.

The XD100 has a 250-sheet paper drawer and is capable of handling up to a 10 by 14-inch document. With easy-to-operate document reduction and expansion controls, you can scale copies on the fly to exactly the size you want. The XD 100 lets you make up to 100 copies at a time, unlike the Brother MFC P2000, which allows a maximum of nine. With a duty cycle of up to 1,600 copies/prints a month and a three-year warranty, the XD 100 is built to last.

The only problems we ran into were occasional paper jams that occurred where the XD 100's paper path makes a sharp turn. We reduced this by avoiding both cheap copy paper and thick card stocks, stacking the paper very precisely into the feeder, and making sure the unit was positioned on a level surface.

Buying a Xerox WorkCentre XD 100 is an excellent way to take care of two important office purchases simultaneously and be confident you won't have to replace anything for at least three years. Where else can you get that kind of assurance these days?

RATINGS

HOME OFFICE COMPUTING'S
product scores are weighted
averages of 1- to 10-point
ratings for: Value (30 percent
of total), Performance (30
percent of total), Ease of Use
(20 percent of total), and
Suitability for Home Office
Use (20 percent of total).

KEY

V = Value
P = Perfomance
E = Ease of Use
S = Suitability for Home Office Use

PROS Fast and easy 600dpi copier/printer in one unit

CONS Paper jams and problems with thick paper stock