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Xerox WorkCentre 6605DN review

Our Rating :
Price when reviewed : £581
inc VAT

Its print speeds may be middling, but this expensive MFP's print quality and touchscreen interface are among the best we've seen

Xerox has also worked hard to make the Xerox WorkCentre 6605DN one of the easiest-to-use business MFPs you’ll find, thanks to a large colour touchscreen and options such as the ability to print from and scan to USB flash disks and network locations.

The installation disc gives you the simple option of installing printer and scanner drivers for the MFP, but if you’re using a USB connection, you’ll first have to connect the MFP and wait for Windows to register it so the installer can pick it up when it searches for compatible local or network devices.

The 6605DN can be connected to your LAN via its Ethernet port, but doesn’t have built-in wireless networking; an expansion board is available if you require this feature. As long as the MFP is connected to your network, you’ll be able to use the Xerox Print Portal app for iOS and Andoid to send images and documents to it from your smartphone or tablet, too.

Xerox WorkCentre 6605DN

During installation, you’re given the option of downloading the latest version of the driver rather than using the one on the disc, which is always advisable. The MFP also comes with a second disc that includes a copy of Nuance OmniPage SE 18 OCR and PDF converter and Nuance Cloud Connector, which makes it easy to link your document management program to cloud storage services including Google Drive and Microsoft SkyDrive.

While OmniPage’s interface looks dull and daunting at first, scanning your documents for OCR is as simple as clicking a button, and the quality of document analysis and text recognition is second to none. The software didn’t blink when pulling the text from a magazine page using multiple columns, fonts and headers, automatically spitting out a file of either formatted or unformatted text. Unfortunately, this version of the software can’t output PDFs, and there’s no print option.

Xerox WorkCentre 6605DN

The 6605DN defaults to duplex printing. Single-sided printing is a little slow compared to many other colour lasers, coming in at 9.4ppm for single-sided colour, but 9ppm for duplex is much more impressive, as many printers take twice as long when printing duplex. When using the 6605DN, you’re definitely best off sticking to the default duplex mode, as it’s almost as fast as printing one-sided and the end result saves paper.

The MFP’s colour print quality is among the best we’ve seen from a laser printer, with a glossy finish, sharp text and smooth shading. Contrast in dark areas is a little weak, but not so poor as to have an adverse effect on the appearance of any of our documents. Some images in our photo printing tests looked a little dark, but there were no unnatural-looking colour casts.

We’ve no complaints about mono print speeds; the MFP turned out sharp text at 28.3ppm, which is 25 pages in 53s. The 6605DN is also a capable photocopier, producing a single-page colour copy in 17s, a one-page mono copy in 11s and a 10-page mono copy fed in via the ADF in 37s. There aren’t separate buttons for colour or mono copies; you have to choose which you want via an option on the touchscreen menu. That adds a slightly annoying extra step if you want to make cheaper mono copies of low importance documents, for example, but it’s easy enough to leave it configured for your preferred copy type.

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Basic Specifications

Rating*****
Maximum native print resolution600x600dpi
Max optical resolution1,200×1,200dpi
Output bit depth24-bit

Quoted Speeds

Quoted speed, mono A435ppm
Quoted speed, colour A435ppm

Tested Print Speeds

Time for two 10x8in photos 1.046s
Time for six 6x4in photos 1.01m 13s

Physical and Environmental

Standard printer interfacesUSB, 10/100/1000 Ethernet
Optional printer interfaces£95
Size560x430x528mm
Weight32.5kg
Duty cycle80,000 images per month

Paper Handling

Maximum paper sizeA4
Maximum paper weight216gsm
Standard paper inputs2
Standard paper input capacity700
Maximum paper inputs3
Maximum paper input capacity1,250
Duplex (code, cost if option)Yes

General

Printer technologysingle-pass colour laser
Language(s)PCL5c, PCL6, PostScript 3, PDF emulation
Supported operating systemsWindows XP/Vista/7/8, Mac OS X 10.5+, Linux
Maximum printer memory1.00GB
Other laser features and options£174 each

Buying Information

Price£581
Price per colour A4 page8.7p
Price of 2nd paper cassette£271
Warrantyone year onsite
Supplierhttp://www.printerland.co.uk
Detailswww.xerox.co.uk

Tested Scan Speeds

Full scan area preview13s
A4 document at 150dpi13s
A4 document at 300dpi13s
6x4in photo at 600dpi14s
6x4in photo at 1200dpiN/A
Single 35mm negative at 2400dpiN/A

Tested Copy Speeds

Time for single A4 mono copy 1.011s
Time for single A4 colour copy 1.017s
Time for 10 A4 copies using feeder 2.037s

Copy Features

Maximum number of copies99
Copier zoom range25-400%
Max mono copy resolution600x600dpi
Max colour copy resolution600x600dpi

Fax Features

Fax modem speed33.6Kbit/s