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Epson Aculaser M2400DN review

Epson Aculaser M2400DN
Our Rating :
Price when reviewed : £174
inc VAT

This swift and well-specified printer is economical to run, but it's not class-leading and graphics prints are mediocre.

Specifications

mono laser, 35ppm print speed, USB, 10/100 Ethernet, 255x378x390mm

http://www.dabs.com

Epson’s Aculaser M2400DN is aimed at home users and small workgroups, and accordingly has a better specification than you’d see on an entry-level device. The 1,200dpi print resolution should help it deliver high quality graphics, while a quoted print speed of 35ppm is rapid at this price. The printer has an Ethernet port and built-in automatic duplex (double-sided) printing. Its other highlights are a robust 50,000 pages per month maximum duty cycle, and support for the PCL 6 and PostScript 3 print languages.

Epson Aculaser M2400DN

Few mono laser printers set the heart racing, but the M2400DN is smart-looking enough. It’s a reasonably compact device that’s light enough for most people to lift on their own, and is made from tasteful if bland white and grey plastics. Installing drivers from the supplied setup disk threw up compatibility error messages on our Windows 7 64-bit test PC: we had to visit Epson’s site to download more recent software. Once installed the printer is reasonably quiet in action, but we found that it transmitted a degree of rumble through the desktop. The cooling fan, while not annoying, takes a while to stop after each job.

During our first print tests, paper collecting in the 250-sheet output tray became untidy and spilled out, highlighting the importance of raising the flip-up paper stop. The printer proved extremely rapid, reaching 28.3ppm on our 25-page letter test, and dropping only to 27.7ppm when printing our complex 24-page graphical test – a particularly competitive result. Typically for a laser printer, photos printed at the highest resolution were a little slower, with longer job preparation times. Still, with two 10×8 inch photos taking only 17 seconds, the M2400DN is no slouch.

Unfortunately, while the quality of black text was predictably good, graphics were less impressive. Illustrations and PowerPoint slides looked good from a distance, but up close the dither patterns used to create different shades were quite apparent, and there was a degree of banding where toner had been laid down slightly unevenly. Photographs were worse, with our colour test images reproduced in greyscale with a pronounced, grid-like pattern of readily visible dots. Our black and white test photo didn’t suffer the same issue, but the printer seemed to have boosted the subject’s contrast, giving artificial-looking results.

The M2400DN compares much better when it comes to running costs, however, which at 1.6p per mono page are low for this class. Total ownership costs are reasonable, too: buying the printer with all the toner necessary to print 21,000 pages would cost a competitive £511. Overall, though, the M2400DN is outclassed by the Canon i-Sensys LBP6300dn. Canon’s printer is slightly slower, but it’s cheaper to buy and run and produces better prints.

Basic Specifications

Rating ***
Maximum native print resolution 1,200dpi
Maximum enhanced print resolution 1,200dpi

Quoted Speeds

Quoted speed, mono A4 35ppm
Quoted time to first page, mono 7s

Tested Speeds

Mono page from sleep time 1.0 20s
Letter, time to first page 1.0 12s
25-page mono document – total time 00:00:53
Time for 24 pages mixed greyscale 1.0 52s
Time for two greyscale 10x8in photos 1.1 17s
Time for six greyscale 6x4in photos 1.0 14s

Physical and Environmental

Standard printer interfaces USB, 10/100 Ethernet
Optional printer interfaces none
Size 255x378x390mm
Weight 11.5kg
Noise (in normal use) 55dB(A)
Duty cycle 50,000

Paper Handling

Maximum paper size A4/legal
Maximum paper weight 220gsm
Standard paper inputs 2
Standard paper input capacity 300
Maximum paper inputs 4
Maximum paper input capacity 800
Output tray capacity 250 sheets
Duplex (code, cost if option) Yes

General

Printer technology mono laser
Language(s) PCL 5e, PCL 6, PostScript 3
Supported operating systems Windows 2000/XP/Vista/7, Mac OS X 10.4.11 or later
Standard printer memory 64MB
Maximum printer memory 320MB
Other laser features and options Three-year onsite extended warranty

Buying Information

Price £174
Price of 2nd paper cassette £124
Capacity of supplied black toner 2,000 pages
Capacity of supplied drum(s) 100,000 pages
Estimated mono TCO – three years light £286.04
Estimated mono TCO – three years medium £510.80
Estimated mono TCO – three years heavy £1794.50
Warranty one year onsite
Supplier http://www.dabs.com
Details www.epson.co.uk

Tested Print Speeds

Time for two greyscale 10x8in photos 1.1 17s
Time for six greyscale 6x4in photos 1.0 14s