Xerox DocuPrint N32

Busy workgroups and departments that want fast print speeds at a decent resolution have always been limited to laser printers offering up to 24ppm. For higher speeds you had to be prepared to take a slight drop in quality and pay a premium for it. Until now, that is. Rank Xerox has broken the mould with its DocuPrint N32 mono laser printer, which offers an amazing 32ppm and a top resolution of 600dpi for a remarkably low outlay.

Even more surprising is the number of standard features included in the price. The basic printer comes with 12Mb - we were supplied with the 28Mb model - expandable up to 128Mb. Processing power is supplied by a 66MHz Intel i960 chip, and both PCL5e and PostScript Level 2 printer languages are supported as standard. Network support is also included with an Ethernet card providing 10Base2 and 10BaseT ports.

Considering its print speed, the DocuPrint N32 is surprisingly compact. It measures just 486 x 642 x 523mm and tips the scales at 43kg. You get two main input paper trays, both capable of holding up to 500 sheets of A3 paper. Another flip-down panel at the side provides an input capacity for a further 50 sheets of heavier print material, and output can be directed either to the main 500-sheet capacity bin on top of the printer, or a smaller side-mounted tray.

Capacity can be boosted even further by adding an optional 2,500-sheet feeder base unit (£924). This offers three extra trays with the top section holding 500 sheets of paper up to A3, while underneath, another two compartments can each hold 1,000 sheets of A4. In fact, if you go for all the options, the DocuPrint N32 can hold a massive 3,550 sheets of paper.

Finally, there's an optional duplex unit (£479) which can be fitted to the side of the printer, and increases the width by a modest 90mm. It also has an unusual method for turning the paper over. Instead of reversing the paper internally, the paper is fed out onto the selected output bin and snatched back for printing on the opposite side.

As well as being cheap to buy, the N32 won't cost the earth to run. Toner costs £216 per cartridge and lasts for 23,000 sheets at five per cent coverage. A maintenance kit, which consists of a fuser cartridge, transfer roller and paper feed rollers, and costs £508 will also be required, but only every 300,000 pages. Overall printing costs work out at 1.1p per page - only just higher than Lexmark's 16ppm 1650S (reviewed issue 35, p151).

The question is whether the DocuPrint N32 really can deliver 32ppm. To test this, I connected the DocuPrint N32 via its parallel port to a Dell XPS D266 Pentium II-based system. The printer had little difficulty living up to the claims. A 32-page Word document containing basic text and simple formatting was delivered promptly in only 58 seconds. Duplexing was just as impressive with the same document completed in one minute 32 seconds, which works out to an impressive 20ppm.

However, the printer did falter when dealing with documents containing heavier formatting. A 23-page document with plenty of fonts and graphics had the printer pausing every few pages, dropping print speed by a considerable margin down to only 9ppm. Considering the 28Mb of memory that came with the test machine, this is disappointing.

All this is very well, but high speed is often accompanied by a drop in output quality. This isn't the case with the DocuPrint N32. At the top resolution of 600 x 600dpi, text is crisp and sharp with no signs of smudging. In fact, it's as good as any 24ppm printer I've seen. Graphics are also handled well with virtually no banding evident. Charts and graphs look especially impressive, different shades of grey are clearly discernible and cross-hatching is kept to a minimum.