The OKI MC560 is a colour LED all-in-one printer (similar to a colour laser MFP) that creates fantastic looking text pages with an affordable toner.
Even so, the massive Oki MC560 has a high price tag and needs too much special attention to be worth your while.
Setting it up is somewhat complicated. The printed setup poster and setup guide cover the hardware stage sufficiently, however when you get to the software stage, the instructions suddenly become sketchy. Oki doesn't have a on-screen routine, which means that you will need to depend on Windows hardware installation wizard.
We survived that ordeal only to get stuck at the step of installing the Twain driver; the instructions didn't match what we were experiencing. When we queried Oki, the vendor said that it expects most users to download the drivers from its website instead of using the ones provided on the included CD. The documentation doesn't mention that expectation.
After the successfull installation, the Oki MC560 worked really well in our speed tests, with above average results on all steps apart from the scanning test; but, none of the results came up near to Oki's advertised 32 pages per minute for black text output and 20ppm for the colour graphics.
The text as well as the line art print results from the Oki MC560 were fine but the colour images looked dark and oversaturated. The scan results tended toward the complete opposite extreme, looking washed-out and showing visible moiré patterns in some instances.
The Oki MC560 includes a few interesting though suspect design elements. The 50-sheet multipurpose plastic tray feels light. After the media is perfectly positioned on the tray, you have to press the over-size blue button beside it to lift the media up towards the input slot - a strange additional step.
As is typical in MFPs, the flatbed scanner and the automatic document feeder loom above the printer chassis. You have to raise the scanner/ADF assembly then the printer's top lid to get to the toner cartridges. If you only raise the Oki MC560's lid, it hits the scanner/ADF unit.
The toner cartridges are not keyed; and once we intentionally switched 2 colours, the Oki MC560 failed to detect the situation - it just printed bizarre-coloured output. Oki acknowledged the design and indicated concern that our research might harm the printer - but if that's a risk, why didn't Oki do something to avoid it?
The Oki MC560 best features is its very affordable toner, this machine is released along with starter-size (2,000-page) black and colour OKI toner cartridges. The replacement toner cartridges for the Oki MC560 are rated at 8000 pages for black and 6000 pages for the three colour cartridges. The black cartridge is available for about £90 and the colours for £150, this present price can be lowered by purchasing compatible cartridges and this move would half your printing costs.
The Oki MC560 has some nice attributes, especially its low-cost toner. But it has too many problematic aspects for us to recommend it.
Oki MC560 toner cartridges are to be found here.
Even so, the massive Oki MC560 has a high price tag and needs too much special attention to be worth your while.
Setting it up is somewhat complicated. The printed setup poster and setup guide cover the hardware stage sufficiently, however when you get to the software stage, the instructions suddenly become sketchy. Oki doesn't have a on-screen routine, which means that you will need to depend on Windows hardware installation wizard.
We survived that ordeal only to get stuck at the step of installing the Twain driver; the instructions didn't match what we were experiencing. When we queried Oki, the vendor said that it expects most users to download the drivers from its website instead of using the ones provided on the included CD. The documentation doesn't mention that expectation.
After the successfull installation, the Oki MC560 worked really well in our speed tests, with above average results on all steps apart from the scanning test; but, none of the results came up near to Oki's advertised 32 pages per minute for black text output and 20ppm for the colour graphics.
The text as well as the line art print results from the Oki MC560 were fine but the colour images looked dark and oversaturated. The scan results tended toward the complete opposite extreme, looking washed-out and showing visible moiré patterns in some instances.
The Oki MC560 includes a few interesting though suspect design elements. The 50-sheet multipurpose plastic tray feels light. After the media is perfectly positioned on the tray, you have to press the over-size blue button beside it to lift the media up towards the input slot - a strange additional step.
As is typical in MFPs, the flatbed scanner and the automatic document feeder loom above the printer chassis. You have to raise the scanner/ADF assembly then the printer's top lid to get to the toner cartridges. If you only raise the Oki MC560's lid, it hits the scanner/ADF unit.
The toner cartridges are not keyed; and once we intentionally switched 2 colours, the Oki MC560 failed to detect the situation - it just printed bizarre-coloured output. Oki acknowledged the design and indicated concern that our research might harm the printer - but if that's a risk, why didn't Oki do something to avoid it?
The Oki MC560 best features is its very affordable toner, this machine is released along with starter-size (2,000-page) black and colour OKI toner cartridges. The replacement toner cartridges for the Oki MC560 are rated at 8000 pages for black and 6000 pages for the three colour cartridges. The black cartridge is available for about £90 and the colours for £150, this present price can be lowered by purchasing compatible cartridges and this move would half your printing costs.
The Oki MC560 has some nice attributes, especially its low-cost toner. But it has too many problematic aspects for us to recommend it.
Oki MC560 toner cartridges are to be found here.
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