Product Reviews

The recent flood of 6ppm to 12ppm printers shows manufacturers have been concentrating their efforts on the small workgroup and single-user markets. Clearly, this is an area where demand is growing rapidly with everyone chasing a piece of the action. However this has been to the detriment of large departments for whom speed is a priority, as there's currently little to choose from. Hewlett-Packard's best offering to date is limited to the 24ppm LaserJet 8000DN (reviewed issue 45, p156), while Kyocera can boast 28ppm with its FS-7000 (reviewed issue 42, p163).

However, if you want even more speed, there's only one company that can help: Rank Xerox. Even ten months after its release, the 32ppm DocuPrint N32 (reviewed issue 40, p165) still has no competition, and the company's latest printer the N40 pushes the envelope even further. For a modest £2,460 you get an incredible 40ppm print speed, 24Mb of memory, PCL6 emulation plus Adobe PostScript Level 3 and an Ethernet network print server card.

The controller board is accessed at the rear and features an Intel i960HD 66MHz superscalar processor. Although most other high-speed printers have faster processors, this Intel chip sets the N40 apart because it can carry out three instructions per clock cycle. Other printer processors, such as the PowerPC 100MHz processor in the Kyocera FS-7000, have a higher clock speed but only process one instruction per cycle. Memory can be expanded to 128Mb, but unless you really want to pay £249 per 32Mb upgrade I'd recommend shopping around as the N40 takes standard SIMM modules.

The N40 looks almost identical to its commendably compact predecessor the N32. The only visible difference is the redesigned 50-sheet manual feed tray and face-up output bin on the left-hand side. The printer's total paper capacity is 1,000 sheets of up to A3-sized paper spread equally across two trays. This can be boosted substantially by a further 2,500 sheets by using the optional base unit (£924). There's plenty of other expansion potential too, with a duplex unit (£479) for double-sided printing,

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a ten-bin mailbox (£850) and an enormous 2,000-sheet finisher assembly (£1,599) that will arrange your documents into booklets and staple them together for you.

Network management options abound with CentreWare DP providing full control over IPX and TCP/IP protocols. CentreWare fully supports NDS (Novell Directory Services) and installation on a NetWare 4.11 network was simple. The printer's internal HTTP server allows access via a standard Web browser boasting the most impressive range of Internet management features I've seen. Also included is Xerox's unique PrinterMap software. This SNMP (simple network management protocol) based program allows any compliant printers on a network to be managed from the same console as the N40.

With a monthly duty cycle of 200,000 pages, the N40 is designed to take some punishment. It also has some useful features to ensure print queues are kept to a minimum. The N40 reduces pauses between jobs by processing one job while it's still printing another. Although many printers require an internal hard disk to accomplish this, the N40 can perform RIP (raster image processing) in standard memory. For multiple copies, jobs only need to be sent to the printer once. The printer then rasterises them once and prints them the required number of times, allowing your PC to be returned to active service quicker.

Running costs are commendably low. The massive toner cartridges last 23,000 pages, and a user-installable maintenance kit is required after 300,000 pages giving a cost per page of just 1.05p at five per cent coverage.

No doubt the burning question is whether the N40 can match its claimed speed. The answer is, most emphatically, yes. A 60-page Word document with minimal formatting landed in the output bin in 95 seconds. With the first page appearing in only five seconds, this gives a perfect 40ppm print speed. Printing on A3 was also impressive, with a 30-page print emerging in 96 seconds. Complex graphics and formatting do take a toll on speed though. The heavily formatted 23-page PC Pro printer test had the N40 pausing, occasionally dropping the speed to 26ppm.

Although the N40 features a maximum resolution of 600dpi, for a printer of this speed output quality is nothing less than amazing. Text is pin-sharp down to minute font sizes, while graphics revealed high levels of detail and only minor banding.

The DocuPrint N40 confirms Rank Xerox as the supremo of high-speed printing. The N40 is incredibly well priced for such a high level of specification; it boasts a hoard of optional extras and the output quality is excellent. If high speed is a high priority, there really is no competition.