The Lexmark C792de ($1,599 direct) laser printer provides fast color laser printing to high-volume workgroups. It has good paper capacity (including lots of optional trays and accessories). Its output quality isn't at the top tier, but it's more than adequate for most business needs, and the C792de deserves a close look if you're in the market for a workhorse color printer.

Design and Features
In a word, the C792de is humungous. This gray, cubelike printer measures 20.3 by 22.3 by 20.2 inches (HWD) and weighs 110 pounds—you'll need at least two strong people to move it into place. But though it may be a colossus, it has a very welcoming feature: Set into the front bezel is a 4.3-inch color touch screen, which lets you preview documents and print jobs, as well as access shortcuts and pre-loaded Lexmark solutions. Not far from the touch screen is an alphanumeric keypad. A front USB port lets you print from a thumb drive; there is no memory-card slot.

The C792de comes with an automatic duplexer for printing on both sides of a sheet of paper, and a paper capacity of 650 sheets, split between a 550-sheet tray and a 100-sheet multipurpose feeder. The C792e, the same printer minus the duplexer, sells for $1,349.

A wealth of paper-handling accessories are available, including additional 550-sheet drawers ($350 street); 2,000-sheet high-capacity feeder ($900 street); 500-sheet offset stacker ($550 street); 5-bin mailbox ($700 street); stapler with hole punch ($1,000 street); and more. This printer has a rated monthly duty cycle of 150,000 pages.

The C792de has a low claimed cost per page of 1.5 cents for monochrome pages and 9.2 cents per color page. We seldom see laser-printer per-page costs below 2 cents for monochrome or 10 cents for color. However, the low ink costs are based on high-capacity (20,000-page) cartridges; use standard cartridges and the costs more or less double.

Also, certain Xerox solid-ink-based printers such as the Editors' Choice Xerox Phaser 8860 Color Printer ($2,500 street, 4.5 stars) have incredibly low claimed per-page costs for color printing: 3.2 cents per page. (Its cost per monochrome page, 1.7 cents, is a tad higher than the C792de.) Though it has a higher sticker price than the C792de, its lower running costs will make up the difference within a couple of years if you print a lot of color—the threshold is about 20,000 pages.

The C792de offers Ethernet and USB connectivity; we tested it over an Ethernet connection using a PC running Windows Vista.