Verdict

Pros

• Very quiet when printing
• Good print quality
• Easy maintenance

Cons

• Very high consumable costs
• Occasional long first page out
• Vaguely old-fashioned styling

The first outings for Xerox’s latest LED print engine were in the https://www.trustedreviews.com/dell-1350cnw_Printer_review Dell 1350cnw colour printer and its https://www.trustedreviews.com/Dell-1355cnw_Printer_review 1355cnw all-in-one, both of which majored on their small size and low price. More recently Xerox followed with its https://www.trustedreviews.com/xerox-phaser-6010_Printer_review Phaser 6010 printer and now the Workcentre 6015V/NI multifunction, which includes fax and wireless connection and is marketed as a small office workhorse.

The white and deep blue machine is compact, but conventionally designed, with a 15-sheet Automatic Document Feeder (ADF) at the top, in front of which is a pretty comprehensive control panel. As well as a bitmapped, backlit LCD screen there’s a number pad for dialling fax numbers and eight, quick-access number buttons, too.

Four mode buttons switch between copy, scan, print and fax, with print mode giving access to a USB socket at the bottom of the front panel. The machine can print PDF and graphic files from USB drives, though it doesn’t support PictBridge camera connections.

A front panel cover folds down to become the main paper tray, which has a pull-out cover to protect the paper, if you leave it open. The top of this cover has a 10-sheet multipurpose feed built in. Paper feeds out at the top of the printer section and a large pull-out support prevents it sliding onto the desktop.

The right-hand side panel folds down to provide access to the clip-in toner cartridges, which are very quick and easy to fit. Barring any faults, the drum and fuser should be lifetime components.

The printer supports USB and 10/100 Ethernet connections, but the most convenient must be its wireless link. It supports WPS setup, which makes the whole procedure straightforward. Xerox provides a copy of Nuance OmniPage SE16, as well as separate scanning software and its own drivers for the machine.

Xerox claims the Workcentre 6015V/NI can print black pages at 15ppm and colour ones at 12ppm. Under test, we saw 5.2ppm on the 5-page black text print, increasing to 8.6ppm on the 20-page one.

This is not much more than half the specified speed, though the 5-page black text and colour graphics test returned 7.3ppm, surprisingly faster than the black text print. The main reason for the slower black text print is quite a bit of preparation before start of print. Over several print runs, we saw a maximum ‘fiddling’ time of 30s, which is long.

A single-page colour copy came through in 46s and our five-page black text document copied through the ADF in 50s, both of which are reasonable times and very similar to those of the Dell 1355cw. However, the photo print times of 40s and 30s for PC and USB, respectively, are both longer than from the Dell.

The quality of prints from the machine is above average, with clean black text; draft print is very similar to normal mode print, just lighter. Colour graphics are solid and bright and black text registration over solid colour is excellent, with no signs of haloing.

A colour copy was not so good, with patchy solid colours printed a lot lighter than originals, but photo prints were very good for this type of machine, with a reasonably large colour gamut, giving surprisingly accurate shades.

The main bugbear with the Workcentre 6015V/NI, as with its Dell counterparts, is the cost of the consumables. Each of the 1,000 page colour cartridges costs £50 and the 2,000 page black one is nearer £60, giving a cost per black page of 3.7p and a colour cost of a whopping 18.8p, both including 0.7p for paper. While both these figures are lower than for the Dell 1355cnw, they’re not lower by much and nearly 19p per colour page is much too high. For comparison, the colour print cost for the £280 https://www.trustedreviews.com/Samsung-CLX-3185FW_Printer_review Samsung CLX-3185FW is 13.7p and for the £220 https://www.trustedreviews.com/HP-Officejet-Pro-8500A-Plus_Printer_review HP Officejet Pro 8500A Plus, it’s just 4.7p.

Verdict
Xerox’s Workcentre 6015V/NI produces good print and is a well integrated multifunction. However, it proved to be slower than its Dell equivalent and, although 0.5p cheaper per black page to run, it still costs nearly 19p for each colour one. It also looks expensive, compared with the single-function Phaser 6010, which you can pick up for around £120. Buying a Phaser 6010 and a standalone scanner would be a cheaper solution.

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