Review

Created: January, 2000

Xerox WorkCentre XK35C

By Lowell Conn, Cyberwalker Media Syndicate

The Xerox Work Centre XK35C is a very compact unit, considering its multiple use. It is a little bigger than your average printer but offers much more.

Gone are the days when your office will have separate scanners, photocopiers, fax machines and printers. The XK35C handles all of this, with good quality, but at admittedly sub-average speeds. At $350 US ($550 Canadian), the price is very competitive. But, like the VCRs and televisions you'll find attached and bundled together on the market, the overall quality is not there. Xerox might have bundled together older technology to create a value office utility.

The evidence? Really slow scanning time and incredibly slow printing time. A full color image averaged 10 minutes for a print. Scanning was not much better. Printing black and white pages is much more competitive, however, with a page printing at average speeds.

Print quality? Color is great, with sharp photos retaining their sharpness. Scanning is a tad faded but not overtly so. Black and white scans were curiously lacking in quality, with multiple instances of printed sentences that were lopsided (the top and bottoms of some lines did not match up).

The technology might not be as quick as some other options out there, but the scanning technology certainly is. The unit comes bundled with software that includes optical character recognition technology, allowing scanned documents to be edited in a word processor. The scanning resolution, 300 x 600 dots per inch (dpi), or 4800 x 4800 dpi enhanced, looks sharp.

Replacement ink cartridges are reasonably priced at roughly $40 ($60 Canadian) and the toner seems to last a long time. An extremely heavy workload consisting of both color and back and white pages did not tax the quantity of toner available.
The paper tray, regrettably, only holds 100 pieces of paper.

This reviewer was prepared to love this unit. The functionality of all-in-one technology is not to be underrated and this is a budget-conscious piece of hardware that is very capable for home and low volume use.

But, while you're not spending $350 US for something you can only look at, the Work Centre XK35C is more suited to low volume printing, faxing, photocopying and scanning. If immediate output is not a requirement and the time waiting for documents to print won't slow down your business, however, then the price, versatility and quality of output make the Xerox Work Centre XK35C a solid purchase.

Reviewer's rating: 3.5 / 5

Comments: Love the versatility and would like to rate it higher but the slow printing time really hampers an otherwise solid, budget-conscious product with a great price.

Price: $350 US , $550 Canadian

Where to buy: DynaDirect

Can't find this item for sale any more? Seeking a deal on it? Need accessories for it? Try looking at Ebay Auctions. Click: eBay.com or eBay.ca