Xerox 8500 Ink
Phaser 8500 Ink Sticks

Xerox 8500 Printer Review

The Xerox Phaser 8500 solid ink printers are designed to fit the needs of a small to medium office environment. Its speed and functionality are excellent, but print quality does not measure up to competing laser models.

While solid ink technology has been around for many years, it is still new to many. Xerox ink models use solid blocks of ink which are melted and then sprayed onto the paper, as opposed to laser models which use a laser to fuse the ink onto the page. Solid ink has many advantages over lasers, including speed, reduced waste, and easier ink replacement. Phaser 8500 ink sticks are very affordable, especially when comparing the per-page costs to those of laser printers. Xerox 8500 ink sticks are the same as Xerox 8550 ink and Xerox 8560 ink at keeping costs down.

The unit comes in three models. The 8500 is the base model, the 8500N adds ethernet networking, allowing it to be easily shared across a networking, and the 8500DN adds automatic duplexing, or two-sided printing.

Unfortunately, print quality is not always on par with laser printers, as is the case with the Phaser 8500. Text quality is good, but can be less sharp and fuzzier than laser prints when inspected closely. Graphics printing is supposed to be better on a solid ink printer, but it is not noticeably better on this model, and in some cases can be worse than a comparable laser. Print speed is good, at 12 pages per minute black and 11 pages per minute in color.

The front panel features a backlit LCD screen and an array of buttons which let you access most functions directly on the unit. The included software is well-designed and allows even more tweaking and options. The unit includes USB and ethernet connections, allowing it to be easily networked. It also includes a SIM card, a fairly unique feature, which stores configuration settings and can be inserted into another unit to retain configuration settings if it needs to be replaced. This saves users from having to reconfigure a new unit.

Overall, the Phaser 8500 is a very well-designed solid ink printer with good speed and decent print quality. While its quality may not be quite on par with some lasers, it may appeal to some buyers with its reduced waste, ease of ink replacement, and low operating costs.