Xerox WorkCentre 3315 review

This monochrome laser multifunction printer (MFP) from Xerox is aimed at workgroups and small businesses. Its features include a fax modem, network interface, automatic double-sided (duplex) printing, a high 31ppm print speed and a useful 3,000 pages recommended monthly duty.

It has a 250-sheet paper input tray that must be extended slightly to accommodate A4 paper, causing it to jut out at the rear. Above is a useful 50-sheet multipurpose feed.

The scanner sits atop the printer's 150-sheet output tray. The hinges allow for thick originals, but don't feel particularly strong. Both the print and ADF output trays have extendable plastic lips, but we didn't find these necessary to keep A4 pages tidy. The 3315 has a backlit, mono LCD screen and a selection of hard plastic buttons labelled only with icons. For the most part it's easy to use, but a couple of icons are hard to fathom.

Xerox's print driver is well laid out and simple to use, although we aren't sure why DL envelopes defaulted to portrait orientation and it took a few attempts before we were able to print one with the address the right way up. This is a quick text printer, producing a first page in just 11 seconds and going on to reach almost 27ppm over 25 pages. Graphical prints were quite a bit slower, however, with the printer falling just short of 14ppm on our greyscale test. The results were good, but graphics suffered from quite significant banding.

Scans were reasonably fast and exhibited sharp focus and good colour reproduction, along with a wide dynamic range that saw details preserved perfectly in very light regions, and quite well in the darkest areas. We were initially baffled by what appeared to be a scan interface with almost no options; in fact, a well-hidden button provides an easy and comprehensive interface. Copies were fast using either the scanner glass or the 50-page automatic document feeder, but the default contrast was far too dark.

Overall, the WorkCentre 3315 is only slightly above average, but low running costs help to make it more appealing: using Xerox's 11,000-page high-capacity refill, each page should cost just 1.3p or so. This, along with duplex printing, makes the 3315 a good choice for a small firm that prints up to six reams per month and wants to keep costs down.