Okidata C7400 Toner
Oki C7400 Toner Cartridges

Okidata C7400 Printer Review

The Okidata C7400 color laser printer is designed for the small or medium office environment. Its focus on high-quality color printing is impressive, though its printing speeds could be faster. High toner costs are also a problem, more expensive than competitors like Brother HL-4070 toner.

The Oki C7400 color laser printer is available in three models. The C7400 is the base model, the C7400n adds ethernet networking, and the C7400dxn adds networking, automatic duplexing, and extra paper capacity. Since most office environments will be using it as a shared network printer, the majority will go for at least the C7400n model, which makes it easy to connect to a network. Each option is also available as an upgrade, so users who don't have a need for duplexing at the moment can always add it later.

An all around upgrade from the Okidata C5150 toner printer, paper capacity is 600 sheets, divided among a 500-sheet main drawer and 100-sheet multipurpose tray, which holds alternate media. Users can expand the paper capacity to a maximum of 1,690 sheets by adding optional paper trays. Its 256 MB of memory can be expanded to a maximum of 1 GB of RAM, and users can even add an optional 5 GB hard drive, for archiving or storing print jobs to be accessed later.

Okidata C7400 toner cartridges come in two sizes. The standard color laser toner cartridge capacity is 10,000 pages, as is the standard black printer toner cartridge. High-yield cartridges are also available, with capacities of 30,000 pages each. Toner costs are higher than competing units, such as the Dell 3100cn toner printer, giving it a higher cost of ownership, but also yielding more prints.

Print quality is excellent. The focus is on high-quality color prints, and it delivers. Text is also very sharp, and remains readable even at small font sizes. Print speed is slower than average, at 20 pages per minute black and 12 pages per minute in color.

Overall, the Oki C7400 is a solid performer with excellent color printing quality. Its high cost of ownership and slower printing speeds might give buyers pause, however.