Lexmark C760

Although the photo doesn't show it, the C760 is the bulkiest printer on test by some distance. Everything about the C760 feels like it will last forever. The page yields quoted by Lexmark back this up - the engine life is quoted at 1 million pages, while the fuser should last for 200,000 pages. We're used to seeing transfer belt lives of about 25,000 pages, so Lexmark's estimate of 120,000 means less hassle.

However, long-life components don't necessarily make for a low cost per page. The image drums are integrated into the toner cartridges, which means prices are higher than average. Colour toner is expensive at £133 per cartridge, especially when it lasts for only 6,000 pages. It leads to a cost per colour page of 8.2p, while mono pages cost only 1.6p.

The C760 is no slouch though. The single-pass engine made short work of our mono and colour tests, printing both at 24ppm. Our 12-page Excel document printed in just 49 seconds. Though our PDF document slowed the C760 down, 17ppm should keep most people happy.

The quality of the business graphics was excellent. Our Excel spreadsheet is a complicated mixture of black text on yellow, white text on red and black text on grey, and some lasers can struggle to produce vibrant colour while maintaining the legibility of text. The C760 excelled, producing sharp text and grey areas with little grain.

Text quality was generally good, although we were shocked at how illegibly cyan text printed. Photographic quality wasn't the best - images had noticeable grain, but were redeemed by excellent colour reproduction. While mono images were printed using composite instead of pure black, the image quality was much better than many of the printers that used pure black.

Workgroup features were good for those who will attach the C760 to a print server or install the optional £148 10/100 Ethernet adaptor. The driver lets you send a document to the printer, but won't print until the user enters a PIN number through the front panel: useful for those working with sensitive documents.

Overall, the C760 is a reasonable colour workhorse, but this month the competition was just too tough. Although you can buy the C760dn, which adds networking and a duplex unit, it costs about twice the price. This means the C760 loses out to the TallyGenicom, which costs just £125 more, while the Kyocera Mita beats it all round.