When monochrome laser printing isn’t enough for your business demands, but inkjet technology can’t provide enough output, consider a color laser multifunction center such as the Canon imageCLASS MF8180C. The additional cost is great when compared with black and white units, as is the overall size and weight, but if your business demands a color printer with a huge duty cycle, color laser is the only way to go.
It is only recently that color laser technology has come down in price enough to be considered for small offices or even home use. The Canon imageCLASS MF8180C was one of the first printers to achieve that feat. Running at a clean 20 pages per minute in black and white, and 4 pages per minute in color, the unit is considerably fast. More notably though is the actual print quality. With monochrome or color laser output of up to 2400 x 600 dots per inch resolution, not only will your text come out clean, but color charts, graphs, and even images will too.
Other resolutions include 1200 x 2400 dot per inch scan resolution in a brilliant 48 bit color depth, and fax quality at up to 406 x 391 dots per inch. The document glass itself is only letter sized, so single pass scans of media other than standard sized paper is limited. However, thanks to a 50 sheet automatic document feeder, legal sized paper can be scanned mechanically.
A Super G3 33.6 kbps modem keeps scans moving quickly. Unfortunately, faxes are limited to black and white. 19 one touch speed dial buttons dedicated on the control panel allow for immediate auto dialing to multiple locations, and 100 additional coded dials can be programmed into the system’s phone book, and scrolled through via the LCD display.
PC fax is also an implemented feature in the Canon imageCLASS MF8180C; however, it is restricted to sent faxes only. Incoming faxes will have to be received at the machine itself. A fax/telephone auto switch mode is also selectable, along with a fax only manual, answering machine, and DRPD option.
First copy time suffers drastically with the unit, with monochrome at less than 22 seconds, and color at an amazingly slow 46 seconds. A toner save mode will help use less ink with little visible quality loss, making toner changes less frequent, which can be key with a color laser, as they operate on a four cartridge system. Other copy features include zoom resizing, with reduction and enlargement ratios ranging from 50 % up to 200 % in single percentage increments. Canon has also programmed five preset zoom increments for faster use.
An internal network card allows your entire office to link up to the hardware and gain access to the unique power and look of color documents, or, if your business doesn’t operate on a network, a USB 2.0 hi speed port is also included. Though the unit is Energy Star certified, power consumption is still set at a very high 1100W max with a 5W energy saver mode. That being said, the Canon imageCLASS MF8180C may be worth the extra cost per page.
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