Labs

We first reviewed Epson's four-pass AcuLaser C1100 in April 2005 (Shopper 206), giving it a Best Buy award, and it won our award for Best Printer in 2006 (Shopper 226). Since then its price has dropped to under £200, and although it's starting to show its age it still gave us the second-fastest mono print speed in the group, with 21.1ppm. It supports both network and USB Hi-Speed connections, and is one of only two printers in the test with a parallel port.

The C1100's installer doesn't provide any helpful prompts during setup to tell you when to plug in the USB cable, but otherwise installing the network and USB drivers was simple. Installing the toner cartridges is also a little more complicated than it is on most

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devices. The C1100's cartridges are held in a rotating carousel, which must move into the correct position before you can insert each colour. If you want to change a cartridge, you have to go through several levels of the printer's menu system and select it so that the printer rotates it into an accessible position.

Black text and greyscale images looked good at the printer's default settings, and there are many advanced colour settings hidden in the driver's configuration menus. These provide a great deal of control over the quality of printed colour images. We were particularly pleased with the effect this had on darker images, which we were able to make clearer and more detailed.

Despite its age, the AcuLaser C1100 can hold its own for mono print speed and colour print quality, and it produced a single page of mono text faster than any other printer in the group. The C1100's mono print costs are low, and colour printing costs are average for the group, thanks to its inexpensive, high-yield replacement toner cartridges. However, the photoconductor drum has to be replaced after 42,000 mono pages and is expensive at £160, so the AcuLaser is less economical for heavy long-term use. HP's LaserJet 3600 costs £53 more but is still better value overall, so it beats the C1100 to a Best Buy award.