Xerox WorkCentre 6605DN review

Xerox has also worked hard to make the Xerox WorkCentre 6605DN one of the easiest-to-use business MFPs you’ll find, thanks to a large colour touchscreen and options such as the ability to print from and scan to USB flash disks and network locations.

The installation disc gives you the simple option of installing printer and scanner drivers for the MFP, but if you’re using a USB connection, you’ll first have to connect the MFP and wait for Windows to register it so the installer can pick it up when it searches for compatible local or network devices.

The 6605DN can be connected to your LAN via its Ethernet port, but doesn’t have built-in wireless networking; an expansion board is available if you require this feature. As long as the MFP is connected to your network, you’ll be able to use the Xerox Print Portal app for iOS and Andoid to send images and documents to it from your smartphone or tablet, too.

During installation, you’re given the option of downloading the latest version of the driver rather than using the one on the disc, which is always advisable. The MFP also comes with a second disc that includes a copy of Nuance OmniPage SE 18 OCR and PDF converter and Nuance Cloud Connector, which makes it easy to link your document management program to cloud storage services including Google Drive and Microsoft SkyDrive.

While OmniPage’s interface looks dull and daunting at first, scanning your documents for OCR is as simple as clicking a button, and the quality of document analysis and text recognition is second to none. The software didn’t blink when pulling the text from a magazine page using multiple columns, fonts and headers, automatically spitting out a file of either formatted or unformatted text. Unfortunately, this version of the software can’t output PDFs, and there’s no print option.

The 6605DN defaults to duplex printing. Single-sided printing is a little slow compared to many other colour lasers, coming in at 9.4ppm for single-sided colour, but 9ppm for duplex is much more impressive, as many printers take twice as long when printing duplex. When using the 6605DN, you’re definitely best off sticking to the default duplex mode, as it’s almost as fast as printing one-sided and the end result saves paper.

The MFP’s colour print quality is among the best we’ve seen from a laser printer, with a glossy finish, sharp text and smooth shading. Contrast in dark areas is a little weak, but not so poor as to have an adverse effect on the appearance of any of our documents. Some images in our photo printing tests looked a little dark, but there were no unnatural-looking colour casts.

We’ve no complaints about mono print speeds; the MFP turned out sharp text at 28.3ppm, which is 25 pages in 53s. The 6605DN is also a capable photocopier, producing a single-page colour copy in 17s, a one-page mono copy in 11s and a 10-page mono copy fed in via the ADF in 37s. There aren’t separate buttons for colour or mono copies; you have to choose which you want via an option on the touchscreen menu. That adds a slightly annoying extra step if you want to make cheaper mono copies of low importance documents, for example, but it’s easy enough to leave it configured for your preferred copy type.

The scanner and its somewhat basic Windows interface are both quick and effective, although its reproduction of both pale and dark low-contrast areas leaves something to be desired and scans look a bit grainy. This is made up for by natural-looking colours and highly readable 300dpi document scans. Remarkably, all our scan tests, from preview to 300dpi A4 document scans, took 13s. A 600dpi photo scan took 14s, so whatever you need to scan, you can rest assured that it won’t take long. The duplex ADF can take up to 50 pages, which is ideal for scanning your utility bills or business documents into OmniPage.

The MFP is a little more expensive to run than some of its rivals, particularly when it comes to colour printing: a mono page is a fairly reasonable 1.6p, but a mixed-colour page adds up to 10.3p. That’s assuming you buy high-yield toner cartridges, but you won’t need to replace any other consumables regularly. Over three years, the MFP’s Total Cost of Ownership doesn’t add anything to the purchase price for light users, who won’t get through the starter toner, while medium and heavy users will see middling costs of £1,887 and £4,847 respectively.

This MFP can’t compete against the Kyocera Ecosys FS-C2026MFP+ for low running costs or colour speed, but the 6605DN’s quality and ease of use both shine. Only its high purchase price keeps it from an award.