Labs

Dell's Entry-Level colour laser printer is a little bit cheaper than most others, and in some ways it feels it. On the plus side, this is the most compact printer of the group, and its vertical orientation means it takes up the least desk space. Like most Dell kit, it's finished in black, a welcome respite from the usual grey-beige spectrum, and looks classy. Weighing in at a modest 17kg, the 1320c is less daunting to move around than its competitors

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and friendlier to your furniture, but it feels more plasticky too.This is particularly true of the paper tray, which is the flimsiest here. And with no LCD display, the only information about the printer's status you can glean from looking at it comes from the four LED lights that tell you when each of the toner cartridges needs replacing.

All that might be forgivable if the Dell's output had been up to scratch. We found it mixed. Our 50-page text document looked crisp and black without making the text appear too heavy, but it did take four-and-a-half minutes to appear. That's more than twice the time of our two fastest printers, the Epson and the Xerox. Even a single page took 19 seconds to emerge. Photos weren't awful, showing fairly saturated colour and good definition, but were dogged by faint banding, which typically indicates poor motor control as the pages move through.

The 1320c is reasonably priced for a colour laser, but not the cheapest, and some of the advantages over inkjet have been compromised.