The Xerox Phaser 6120 is a versatile color laser printer that offers a number of attractive features. The performance often leaves something to be desired, but the Phaser 6120's affordability makes this much easier to live with, especially when you consider the current instant rebate program that further lowers the price.

The Phaser 6120 is compact and surprisingly lightweight, and set-up is quick and painless. It supports parallel, USB 2.0 and 10/100 Base-TX Ethernet connections, so you can use it as a standalone printer or link it to a home or office network, as well as use it with older computers that don't have USB ports.

This printer ships with a 200-sheet paper tray, which is small for general business use. An optional 500-sheet paper tray is available ($299) for a total capacity of 700 sheets. The main paper tray can hold letter or legal paper, while the optional paper tray can only hold letter paper. On the other hand, the Phaser 6120 comes with a relatively generous 128MB RAM, and it is upgradeable to 640MB.

Output quality is the exact opposite of many color laser printers. The quality of color photos and other color graphics is good to very good. However, the output quality of most text is barely average, appearing closer to an inkjet printer than a laser printer.

While the Phaser 6120 can produce monochrome documents at up to a respectable 20 pages per minute, it outputs color documents at a maddeningly slow rate of two to three pages per minute, although Xerox claims a top speed of up to five pages per minute. Fortunately, it offers enough features and options to make up for its lack of pep.

A Proof Print feature lets you print a single copy of a multiple-copy job, so you can proof it one last time. If you sometimes print confidential documents, the Secure Print feature will protect them by requiring a password before printing. The Watermark feature can print background text of your choice, such as Draft Copy, on each page of a document. The Booklet printing feature can automatically assemble booklets, although this requires an optional (and expensive) duplexing unit. A built-in PrintingScout alerts you when there's a printing problem, and it provides suggestions on how to fix it.

The Xerox Phaser 6120 offers ease of use and a number of attractive and uncommon features at a price that is difficult to resist.

Pros: Budget-friendly price, above-average output for color photos and graphics, accepts high-capacity toner cartridges for lower per-page printing costs
Cons: Output quality of text is not impressive, slow output for color documents, duplexing unit is an expensive option

Warranty
1 year Quick Exchange, Xerox Total Satisfaction Guarantee