Panasonic KX-P6500 review

Panasonic has a reputation for its KX-P6 series of printers.

Most of their users are very, very happy with their kit, but we've heard some horror stories about repair costs after terminal injuries have been inflicted on the internals. Indeed, one Panasonic engineer, who pleaded anonymity, told us that repair costs can be so high, it's often cheaper to buy a new printer. That said, this series is solidly built and, given a reasonable duty cycle, should be fine for four or five years' use. In the appearance department, it's the odd one out. Unlike any other printer we can think of, the KX-P stands proudly erect, its angular lines shouting: ?k at me, I'm different!?he jury's out on that one.

There's three main selling points of laser printers over their inkjet alternatives - running costs, print quality, and speed. The Panasonic's running costs are perfectly reasonable for a laser printer, so no worries here. Print quality for text output, as we would expect, is flawless, with its 600dpi resolution producing edges as sharp as the naked eye can see.

Graphics output is always a bit more of a challenge for laser printers. We tested using two documents. Our newsletter contains photographic images, text and a two-tone masthead, consisting of a white headline and a graphic on top of a colour-matched tint box. Our report contains text, business graphics (such as charts), and line art.

The Panasonic came with a defect on its process drum, which left a light line through everything we printed. Though it produced accurate greys, the skin toning was not the best we've seen, and large areas of a single tone proved somewhat less than uniform. Likewise, its dithering was very stepped, which particularly affected photographic images, but didn't really detract from business graphics.

All kinds of claims are made by manufacturers regarding print speed, but they almost always concern the simplest of documents. Our test documents are designed to work the printers' engines to the full, with plenty of graphics and complex layout to slow them down. We print the files out from CorelDRAW!, and time the process from the moment we click the OK button to when the printout drops into the tray.

The Panasonic is a GDI unit, which means it's heavily dependent on your PC's processing power. If you're still struggling with a 486, this printer might prove to be a bit of a strain, both on your PC and your patience. On a modern PC, print speeds are adequate, if not astounding. Our graphics test sheets were produced in 75 seconds each, with subsequent copies falling into the output tray every ten or so seconds.

The Panasonic KX-P6500 is beginning to show its age, looking particularly iffy in the area of graphics quality. When a printer begins to look long in the tooth, it's time to drop the price. Unfortunately, Panasonic haven't done this enough, so it just looks like bad value.