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Dell C2665DNF review

Our Rating :
Price when reviewed : £366
inc VAT

Great print quality, but this MFP's high running costs are a let down

Specifications

single-pass colour laser, 27ppm print speed, USB, 10/100/1000 Ethernet, 558x439x530mm

http://www.printerland.co.uk

The Dell C2665DNF is a colour laser multifunction printer that’s designed for moderate use in a small business or workgroup. It’s a medium-sized device with all the essential features a small business needs, such as printing, scanning, copying, faxing and network connectivity. With a 50,000-page maximum monthly print volume, it’s clearly built to withstand office use, and it feels well made.

Dell C2665DNF

The C2665DNF has two paper trays, but together they hold only 400 sheets; an additional 550-sheet paper tray is available as a £200 option. Conveniently, the printer and scanner can handle automatic duplex operation, so you can make double-sided copies of double or single-sided originals, which saves paper.

Dell C2665DNF

The C2665DNF is controlled through a huge colour touchscreen, which provides access to Dell’s Document Hub, a neat arrangement that lets you access a range of online services directly from the printer. These services include Dropbox and Microsoft SharePoint, but not Evernote. Dell provides additional features of its own, such as optical character recognition (OCR) in the cloud, although the free introductory period expires at the end of March 2014.

Dell C2665DNF

The C2665DNF also supports NFC (near-field communication), but at present it only pairs the printer with compatible devices running Windows 8.1. You can’t use NFC to print from smartphones. This seems like a missed opportunity, but Dell told us that it plans to broaden support in the future. Sadly, Dell’s touchscreen control didn’t seem as intuitive or responsive as rival systems we’ve used.

Opt in to duplex

The installer will enable duplex printing by default, but you can opt out

Dell’s software installer takes a while to finish, but it lets you choose whether duplex printing is the default and whether to install a colour driver. Despite the availability of a 6,000-page black toner and 4,000-page colour items, running costs in toner alone work out to be 2.2p for a black page and 11.1p for colour. Factor in long-term consumables such as the drums (55,000 pages), waste toner bottle (30,000) and a 100,000-page maintenance pack and these rise to 2.4p and 11.3p respectively. The equivalent costs for the Kyocera Mita FS-C2026MFP+ are 1.3p and 6.4p respectively.

Scan Interface

The scan interface is pretty good, although there’s no automatic marquee selection

These high costs overshadow this MFP’s other strengths somewhat. Print quality was very high, with sharp outlines and strong colours free of grain and other flaws. Scans were also good, and performance was quick overall. At 12.9ppm, our graphics-rich colour test was some way short of the claimed 27ppm, but still competitive for an MFP at this price. The C2665DNF is a good MFP, but its controls, running costs and NFC support could all be better.

Basic Specifications

Rating ***
Maximum native print resolution 600x600dpi
Max optical resolution 1,200×1,200dpi
Output bit depth 24-bit

Quoted Speeds

Quoted speed, mono A4 27ppm
Quoted speed, colour A4 27ppm

Tested Print Speeds

Time for two 10x8in photos 1.0 44s
Time for six 6x4in photos 1.0 55s

Physical and Environmental

Standard printer interfaces USB, 10/100/1000 Ethernet
Optional printer interfaces £120
Size 558x439x530mm
Weight 32.6kg
Duty cycle 50,000 pages (max)

Paper Handling

Maximum paper size A4/legal
Maximum paper weight 216gsm
Standard paper inputs 2
Standard paper input capacity 400
Maximum paper inputs 3
Maximum paper input capacity 950
Duplex (code, cost if option) Yes

General

Printer technology single-pass colour laser
Language(s) PCL 6, PostScript 3
Supported operating systems Windows XP/Vista/7/8, Mac OS X 10.5 or later, Novell NetWare, various Linux distributions
Maximum printer memory 1.00GB
Other laser features and options 10.9cm colour touchscreen

Buying Information

Price £366
Price per colour A4 page 11.3p
Price of 2nd paper cassette £202
Warranty one year onsite, next business day
Supplier http://www.printerland.co.uk
Details www.dell.co.uk

Tested Scan Speeds

Full scan area preview 12s
A4 document at 150dpi 12s
A4 document at 300dpi 25s
6x4in photo at 600dpi 24s
6x4in photo at 1200dpi 1m 16s
Single 35mm negative at 2400dpi N/A

Tested Copy Speeds

Time for single A4 mono copy 1.0 14s
Time for single A4 colour copy 1.0 16s
Time for 10 A4 copies using feeder 2.0 56s

Copy Features

Maximum number of copies 99
Copier zoom range 25-400%
Max mono copy resolution 600x600dpi
Max colour copy resolution 600x600dpi

Fax Features

Fax modem speed 33.6Kbit/s