Okidata breaks the $500 printer barrier - Okidata's OL400e LED Page Printer - Hardware Review - Evaluation

Home Office Computing, Feb, 1994 by Emerson Andrew Torgan

Rating: * *
Okidata OL400e LED Page Printer
List Price: $699
Average Street Price: $469
Manufacturer: Okidata, (609) 235-2600, (800) 654-3282
  WIN/DOS

Okidata, the company that instigated the laser printer price wars in 1990 with the introduction of the OL400 (which had a street price under $1,000), has again raised--|r lowered--the bar. Available at an average street price of $469, the Okidata OL400e is a four-page-per-minute (ppm), LED/laser printer that offers a print resolution of 300 dots per inch (dpi). Smaller than most four-pprn laser printers on the market, this compact unit weighs just 17 pounds and has a footprint of 9.5 by 12.6 by 19.5 inches (HWD). The universal paper tray holds 100 sheets, and the manual feed accepts labels, envelopes, and legal paper. Designed as an alternative to ink-jet printers, the OL400e provides laser-quality output at a low price. In tests, both text and graphics printed crisply--and quite fast. This enhanced performance is due to Okidata's Enhanced Memory Management (EMM) technology, which allows the printer to function as if it carried 1 MB of RAM. Memory can be expanded to a maximum of 4.5MB, and installation of the memory expansion board is a painless process that takes approximately one minute.

Unfortunately, during the course of the evaluation, I encountered occasional paper jams and found it difficult to feed envelopes through the paper path without some minor degree of twisting. But based on its low price and small footprint, the Okidata OL400e is an acceptable choice for any light-duty business environment.

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