Inelegant. That's the word that comes to mind when describing the Dell Multifunction Color Laser Printer 3115cn ($899 direct). It encompasses nearly everything about the printer—from its clunky physical design to its clumsy setup procedure to its overly long name. But inelegant or not, the 3115cn delivers performance, quality, and features appropriate for a small office or workgroup—which makes it worth overlooking its clunkiness and considering it anyway.

Most sub-$1,000 laser all-in-ones (AIOs)—both color and monochrome—follow the same overall physical form: A scanner hovers over a printer output bin, with the two pieces designed to look like a single, fully integrated whole. The 3115cn's scanner is, indeed, above the output bin, but it looks like a bolted-on afterthought built by a carpenter; it rests atop two supports, each one the size and shape of a 2-by-4.

The effect is that the 3115cn looks like it should come apart, so you can move it around in two relatively small pieces. It doesn't. This means you have to take the 79.4-pound, 28.7- by 18.1- by 22.4-inch (HWD) AIO out of the box as one unit. The size and weight distribution all but guarantee that you'll want some help moving it into place, even if you're a weightlifter who considers 80 pounds easy.

The 3115cn's physical setup is reasonably typical for a low-cost, color laser AIO, except that Dell ships each toner cartridge in its own sealed bag, instead of shipping them in place—an increasingly common practice for laser printers and AIOs. Simply remove the packing materials, install the cartridges, load paper, connect the cable and power cord, and turn the printer on.

Once you run the automated installation routine, you'll be ready to print, fax from your PC, or use the 3115cn as a standalone copier or fax machine. You won't be able to e-mail (by way of either a standard ISP or your own e-mail server) until you set up the feature manually. And if you're connecting over a network, as I did for my tests, you won't be able to scan, either.

That's a moderately serious problem, because there's no hint in the setup foldout that you need to set these features up separately, much less any information about where to find instructions to do so. I'd argue that, ideally, both features should be set up as part of the automated installation. The next best scenario would be for Dell to include the steps in the setup foldout. But for the foldout to not even mention that you need to set them up separately is an unacceptable oversight.

The 3115cn deserves high praise for its performance. It finished our business applications suite in 11 minutes 27 seconds (timed with QualityLogic's hardware and software, www.qualitylogic.com); That's not only a new record for sub-$1,000 color laser AIOs, but a significant jump over the previous first-place time of 15:55, by the Brother MFC-9420CN. And it's far faster than the current Editors' Choice, the Epson AcuLaser CX11NF, which finished the suite in 18:30.

The 3115cn's output quality isn't as impressive as its speed, but it's good enough for most business purposes. Text quality is below par for a laser, with no fonts qualifying as easily readable at 4 points, and fewer than half qualifying at 5 points. But all the fonts in our suite that you're likely to use in business documents are easily readable, with well-formed characters, at 6 points, and even the most heavily stylized font, with unusually thick strokes, needs only 12 points. Unless you have an unusual need for small fonts, the 3115cn can handle any text you need to print.

Graphics quality is easily good enough for any internal business need, including those such as printing PowerPoint handouts. But I'd hesitate to use it for anything intended for an important client, or for things such as trifold brochures, because of a tendency to leave small white gaps between areas of solid color—such as the wedges in a pie chart, for example. Photo quality is easily good enough for any business need, such as printing client newsletters or Web pages with photos.

I'd like the 3115cn better if Dell had put more effort into streamlining its setup procedure. But once you get past the initial installation, and assuming you can live with its less than sleek design, the 3115cn offers stellar performance, reasonable output quality, and more features than you'll find in most of the competition.

See how the Dell Multifunction Color Laser Printer 3115cn measures up to similar systems in our side-by-side laser AIO comparison chart.

Benchmark Test Results
Check out the Dell Multifunction Color Laser Printer 3115cn's test results.

More laser printer reviews: