Dell C2665dnf – Print Speeds

The C2665dnf is rated at 27ppm for both mono and colour print and while we didn’t see this speed, the review machine did manage 21.4ppm on our 20 page test and 14.3ppm for a five-page colour print. More impressively, it also managed 15.6 sides per minute printing duplex.

A five page copy from the ADF completed in a handy 22s, though a 10-side duplex copy took 1:27, due to the single-head duplex scanner. A 15 x 10cm photo at best print quality hammered through in just 11s and a full page A4 print from USB drive took only 13s. Surprisingly quick.

Dell C2665dnf – Print Quality and Costs

Print quality is generally very good. Black text, at 600dpi, is dense and sharp and reversed text loses little detail. Colours are bright and solid and colour fills show no signs of dither patterns. Photos are also well reproduced and although some detail is lost in dark areas, there’s a sufficiently wide colour gamut to produce reasonably realistic prints.

The toner cartridges come in 6,000 page (black) and 4,000 page (colour) yields and at Dell’s prices give page costs of 2.9p for mono print and 13.8p for colour. This isn’t particularly cheap, when something like the similarly priced Samsung CLX-6260ND shows costs of 2.4p and 11.6p, respectively.

Should I buy a Dell C2665dnf?

The big USP for this printer is Dell’s Document Hub. The main rival to this collaboration service is HP’s Flow CM Professional, but this is aimed at enterprises and is generally a more complex and complete solution.

Document Hub could be a very useful storage and document management tool, but it has to be expanded, particularly to platforms other than Windows 8, if it’s going to deal with the problems it’s claimed to address.

Verdict

In other ways, the printer is a sturdy, workmanlike workgroup multifunction. The large touchscreen makes control easy and it’s both fast enough and prints well enough to earn its keep. For the money, however, you might expect a dual-head scanner, which would speed duplex copies, and wireless support as standard, which would enable Wi-Fi Direct print. At the moment, it doesn’t really fulfil its initial promise.