The best thing about the Dell 3110cn color laser printer may be the price. The upfront cost is reasonable, and the per-page printing costs are relatively low. It isn't the world's greatest laser printer, but the 3110cn can certainly handle the workload of a small business while remaining easy on the wallet.

Set-up is a snap. The 3110cn has built-in network support (10/100 Ethernet), as well as a USB 2.0 port and a parallel port, so it can function with older computer systems as well as newer ones. Optional wireless connectivity is also available for $149.

The 3110cn ships with 128MB of memory, which is upgradeable to 1,152MB, for large or complex print jobs. The default paper capacity, consisting of a 250-sheet standard paper tray and a 150-sheet multipurpose tray, is a little skimpy for business use, particularly if the 3110cn will be shared. If you need more paper capacity or duplex printing, you can add a 550-sheet drawer or a duplexer for $229 and $199, respectively.

We were pleasantly surprised to find that the 3110cn ships with standard toner cartridges. High-yield cartridges are also available, and the Dell Toner Management System lets you know when toner is getting low.

Print speeds were a mixed bag. Monochrome printing was generally quite fast, but we found color printing to be on the slow side. Output quality was also somewhat hit-or-miss. Monochrome text was usually crisp, although we noticed that small text was sometimes a little blurry. Grayscale images and some color images displayed noticeable banding, and blacks were occasionally dark gray rather than rich black. Overall, the print quality was satisfactory for general business use, but it might not hold up to scrutiny for graphics-heavy documents like newsletters and sell-sheets. Considering the low upfront price and the low per-page printing costs, this isn't necessarily a bad trade-off.

The Dell 3110cn color laser printer can easily stand up to the heavy demands of small business and home office use.


Pros:  Budget-friendly price, fast output for monochrome documents, low per-page printing costs for both monochrome and color, expandable memory and paper capacity
Cons:  Out-of-the-box paper capacity is a small for business use, somewhat slow color print speeds, quality of grayscale and color images could be better, large footprint takes up extra desktop space

Warranty
1 year