Stephen Withers17 February 2008, 9:07 PM
A monochrome A4 printer that unusually lives up to its print-speed claims.
The B6500n is a monochrome A4 printer for workgroups. It’s capable of 1,200 x 1,200dpi and comes with 10/100M Ethernet, USB 2.0 and parallel interfaces as standard.
OKI quotes a printing speed of 43ppm, with the first page emerging in 8 seconds. Unusually, the B6500n lived up to that claim: we recorded 8 seconds click-to-drop for the first page, with the second page dropping into the tray consistent with the rated speed. Print quality was very good, with characters appearing smoothly formed even under a magnifying glass. There was no visible difference in text printing at 600dpi or 1,200dpi. An all-black page resulted in a smoother than average appearance and revealed non-printing margins of between 3 and 5mm on the various edges of A4 paper. Business graphics came out well, and the B6500n produced reasonable photo prints, although not a primary use for a laser printer.
The B6500n seems a solid choice for a workgroup. In common with many other laser printers it is fairly noisy when operating, but does turn out fast, quality prints. PCL and PostScript drivers are provided, along with Windows utility. Only a driver is provided for Mac OS X.
The front panel LCD and buttons provide a limited UI so the printer’s web interface is much more convenient once the initial network configuration is complete. It allows interrogation of status information and control over IP address filtering, protocols (TCP/IP, EtherTalk and NetWare), and other settings and features.