Oki C822n review

Colour A3 laser printers usually carry a hefty price premium, but Oki’s C822n sets a new standard. It costs less than £700 – and a new design sees reduced dimensions over the older C821n, and a more modern look, with sleeker lines and a larger LCD panel.

Other improvements include easier access to consumables, with black toner sitting behind a flap on the front panel; colour cartridges are accessed by lifting the upper output tray. A new “deep-sleep” mode claims to reduce power consumption to 1W. We measured the printer drawing 15W in power-save mode and between 2 and 5W in sleep mode.

Colour and mono print speeds were bang on Oki’s claims at 23ppm for A4 and 13ppm for A3. A4 print speeds will depend on paper orientation: with the short side facing the paper path, a 23-page Word document averaged 18.5ppm; turning the paper through 90 degrees saw it delivered at a tidy 23ppm.

A3 speeds were also on the money, with the printer delivering the quoted 13ppm for all mono and colour prints, and the time to first page for all tests was never more than 15 seconds. Our 24-page DTP-style document was handled efficiently with a top speed of 23ppm at 600pdi. Swapping to the top ProQ setting, and its interpolated 2,400dpi resolution, didn’t harm speeds.

The C822n’s print quality proved disappointing. Text was still razor-sharp, but colour prints were too light and had a washed-out appearance. An A3 photo test print from the C821n was more vibrant and punchy. Prints from the C822n weren’t as glossy either, which is due to a fuser redesign.

Printing costs are good, though, with a colour A4 page costing 8.1p and a mono page costing 1.3p. There’s nothing on the market that can beat this printer on price either, making the C822n a good choice for A3 printing on a tight budget.

Author: Dave Mitchell