OKI B2200 Personal LED Printer - OKI B2200

OKI claims up to 20ppm for this little machine, but we only saw half this, at a maximum of just over 11.1ppm for our text and graphics print. Unusually, this test print was slightly quicker than the straight, five-page, black text test piece, at 10.3ppm, which shows the time the software rasterisation takes.

The text print uses five separate pages, while the text and graphics page prints five copies of the same file, so only one page is rasterised. Our final test, the 15 x 10cm photo print, took just 17 seconds. All these speeds are very respectable for a personal printer.

Printed output from the B2200 is good in parts. Text print is crisp and dark, with even small font sizes reproduced accurately and with no blurring. Business graphics are also reasonably good, though you can see the 600dpi dot pattern in areas of greyscale shading.

This is, strangely, less noticeable in photographic prints and the fine resolution of 600 x 1200dpi does a fair job, though there is still visible banding across the image. Mono laser printers never excel at printing photo images, so you wouldn't want to use them for publicity materials. The B2200 would be fine for giving an indication of the placement of photos in a document, though.

There are two consumables to consider with the B2200, though the drum only needs replacing after 15,000 pages, so for some customers it may last the service life of the printer. The toner will need replacing after 2000 pages, though, so working out the costs of both parts gives a print cost per page, including 0.7p for paper, of 2.41p.

This is a bit on the high side, compared with personal laser printers we've tested recently. The Samsung ML-3050, for example, came out at 1.66p. If you can buy toner and drum cheaper than we could find them, of course, the page cost drops.

Verdict

Even with the paper tray sticking out the back, this is a neat little personal printer. It's easy to set up and use, requires little maintenance and produces high-quality, black text print. Graphic and photographic output is not quite so good and running costs are a little higher than the norm. Overall, you should compare it with other printers in the same price bracket before making a final decision on the best machine for your needs.