The Xerox C320 ($395.99) is a compact color laser printer with superior workload ratings, excellent print quality, and a large paper output bin. Also known as the Xerox C320dni, it offers a wide range of connectivity options, including Wi-Fi and a dedicated USB port for walk-up printing via a thumb drive. The print speeds for text-based documents are highly competitive, though somewhat less so for color and graphics-heavy documents. The color toner costs are also a bit high when compared with similar color laser printers. If you don’t plan to print a large number of color pages over the life of the printer, that may not be a major obstacle. Otherwise, you might consider a model with lower costs for color pages, such as the Brother HL-L3295CDW, our Editors' Choice winner for budget color laser printers.

Design: Solid and Capable, With Plenty of Output Room

At 12.5 by 17.9 by 16.6 inches (HWD), the C320 is about average in size for a low-cost color laser printer. That said, it’s not quite as compact as the Brother HL-L3295CDW, which measures 10.8 by 17.6 by 15.7 inches. The HP Color LaserJet Pro 4201dw is a little smaller at 11.3 by 16.6 by 16.8 inches. And the Ricoh C125 P Color Laser Printer is a little taller and narrower, measuring 13.1 by 15.7 by 17.7 inches. They’re all in the same ballpark, but if your available space is quite narrow, that might give the Ricoh model an advantage.

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You'll notice more of a divergence in the respective weights among this group. The C320 tips the scales at 46 pounds, which is somewhat heavy for its price and specifications. By contrast, the Brother HL-L3295CDW comes in at 36.8 pounds, and the HP 4201dw slides in just below that at an even 36 pounds. The Ricoh C125 P outweighs them all, weighing a substantial 55.1 pounds. Are heavier printers better than their lightweight equivalents? That depends on your point of view. They’re much easier to lift and move about. However, if you’re concerned that lightweight models might use plastic parts where metal would be preferred, you may favor heftier models.

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Given the modest retail price of this model, you might expect some capability cutbacks compared with higher-priced models. Those kinds of cutbacks often show up in the paper input capabilities. The C320 has a standard 250-sheet paper input tray, but only a single-sheet manual feed slot. That can be limiting, though Xerox does offer an optional $219 accessory that not only adds a 550-sheet paper input tray but also significantly boosts the single-sheet manual feed with an integrated 100-sheet bypass tray.

For comparison, the Brother HL-L3295CDW has a 250-sheet capacity input tray, a 30-sheet multipurpose input tray, and an optional 250-sheet paper tray. The HP 4201dw has a 250-sheet capacity input tray, a 50-sheet multipurpose input tray, and an optional 550-sheet paper tray. Finally, the Ricoh C125 P has a 250-sheet capacity input tray, a single-sheet override input tray, and an optional 500-sheet paper tray.

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On the output side, the C320 leads this group with its unusually large 170-sheet paper output tray. The Brother and HP models are not too far back with their 150-sheet output trays, while the Ricoh is further behind at 125 sheets. If you tend to need long print runs, especially unattended ones, you may want to pay close attention to this often-ignored specification. And no, you can’t upgrade the size of the output tray on any of these printers.

Even though these models are not meant to be used constantly, you do want them to be able to take on a reasonable amount of heavy work in a pinch. Here, the C320 rises above the others, making it a real standout for the price if a moderate-to-heavy workload is required. Xerox gives the C320 an unusually high 6,000-page recommended monthly print volume rating. Both the Brother HL-L3295CDW and HP 4201dw have a 4,000-page recommended monthly print volume. And the Ricoh C125 P is rated for a subpar 1,500 pages, which is only a quarter of the recommended monthly print volume of the C320.

It’s a similar story with the ratings for maximum monthly duty cycle. Here, the C320 has a very high 65,000-page maximum monthly duty cycle, while the Brother HL-L3295CDW and HP 4201dw are rated for a still-quite-strong 50,000-page maximum monthly duty cycle. And once again, the Ricoh C125 P can’t keep up with the others with its lackluster 30,000 pages.

Setup and Software: An Emphasis on Mobile

The setup process for the C320 is straightforward. Xerox provides a CD-ROM disc for you to install the necessary drivers and basic software. However, if you plan to use the unit wirelessly, there’s a much easier (and far more modern) way to go.

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After first powering on the C320, you’ll be given the option of setting up the printer using a mobile device. You’ll see a QR code on the printer’s control panel that initiates the download of the Xerox Easy Assist mobile app on either an Android or iOS device. In the Xerox Easy Assist app, select the C320 from the listed models, and your Wi-Fi network info will be automatically transferred to the printer. The app can also send you a link to download the software to your computer. Xerox supports the full set of print functions with both Intel and AMD processors.

From this point on, the process is essentially the same. The CD-ROM’s setup program downloads the same XeroxSmartStartInstaller.exe file that’s available through the mobile app’s email link. Either way, you’ll have the necessary drivers and a simple Xerox Notifications app.

This model offers a wide range of connectivity options. In addition to the usual USB and Ethernet connectors, you’ll find support for dual-band Wi-Fi (2.4GHz/5GHz), as well as Wi-Fi Direct. And the C320 also has a dedicated USB port for walk-up printing via a USB thumb drive. What this model lacks is an integrated NFC card reader for security-based badge authentication. If you do need an integrated NFC reader, you might consider opting for the previously mentioned Brother or Ricoh models. The Brother, HP, and Ricoh models also support USB, Ethernet, Wi-Fi, and Wi-Fi Direct. The Brother and HP models also include dedicated USB ports for walk-up printing via a thumb drive. The Ricoh model does not have a USB thumb-drive port.

The C320 is compatible with Apple AirPrint, Mopria Print, Mopria Scan, and Chromebook printing. You can use the Easy Assist app to print documents or graphics files directly from your mobile device. You can wirelessly change many of the C320’s settings, including turning the unit’s beeping sounds on or off, extending the sleep mode to as long as 120 minutes, and changing the administration password. You can also check the toner levels and order replacement cartridges from the app.

(Credit: David English)

Even though the C320’s 2.8-inch color touch screen is modest in size, it uses the limited space efficiently to present the available choices and relevant information. The home screen icons are logical, color-coded, and muted in tone. Those icons are Status/Supplies, Job Queue, Settings, and USB Drive. The Status/Supplies icon leads to entries for Alerts, Trays, and Supplies. The Job Queue icon provides information about the print jobs currently pending. And the Settings icon leads to a generous selection of settings, detailed reports, and troubleshooting guides.

One of the settings lets you reconfigure the icons on the home screen. You could add a Bookmarks icon to the home screen that lets you print your favorite documents from a server or the web. Some of the reports can track how the printer has been used over time. In the troubleshooting section, you can open a series of test pages to help you identify and correct print-quality problems.

Print Speed: Competitive for Text, Less So for Color

Xerox rates the C320’s print speed at 35 pages per minute (ppm) for color pages and 33 pages per minute (ppm) for black-and-white pages. It’s unusual for manufacturers to give different print speeds for those two types of printed content. Most manufacturers give a single maximum print speed that’s meant to cover all types of content. For comparison, the HP 4201dw is rated at 35ppm, which puts it squarely in the sights of the C320’s rated speed for color. The Brother HL-L3295CDW is rated a little slower at 31ppm. And the Ricoh C125 P is well behind the others with its rating of 26ppm.

The C320 ships with two-sided (duplex) printing enabled by default. In that scenario, we time and record both a printer's one-sided (simplex) and two-sided performance. When printing our standard 12-page Microsoft Word text document (excluding the first page), I clocked the unit at 28ppm in duplex mode and 34.4ppm in simplex mode. That simplex result was 1.4ppm better than this model’s rated 33ppm speed for black-and-white pages.

Though it proved to be a little better than Xerox’s own rating, it wasn’t quite fast enough to catch up with the HP 4201dw, which nudged past the C320 with its 35.5ppm simplex speed. The C320, in turn, was slightly faster than the Brother HL-L3295CDW, which had a quite respectable 32.7ppm test result. And the C320 easily surpassed the Ricoh C125 P, which lagged the others with its unimpressive 26.3ppm.

Next, I timed the C320 as it printed our collection of colorful and complex business documents consisting of Adobe Acrobat PDFs, PowerPoint handouts, and Excel spreadsheets and graphs. When I combined those results with the scores from printing the 12-page Word document. I found it took 109 seconds to print the entire suite. That works out to a speed of about 13.8ppm.

That is slightly better than the Brother HL-L3295CDW. The Brother printer took 111 seconds to print the entire suite. And both of those models trounced the dismal 171-second time from the Ricoh C125 P. However, top honors in this department go to the HP 4201dw with its stunning time of just 86 seconds.

While no laser-class printer can match a dedicated photo printer for quality prints, I timed the C320 at printing our 4-by-6-inch test snapshots. It averaged about 11 seconds per image, which is rather slow for a color laser-class printer. The Brother, HP, and Ricoh models averaged about 7 seconds with the same test snapshots.

To sum up, the C320 is very competitive when printing text-based documents. In that regard, it competes neck-and-neck with the leading performers in the category, such as the Brother HL-L3295CDW and HP 4201dw. However, when you add color graphics, either through a mix of text and graphics or with pages that consist entirely of graphics, it becomes less competitive. That could be a sticking point if you regularly print graphics-heavy documents, though remember that we’re talking about a drop in speed, not quality.

Print Costs and Quality: A Premium Price for Color

While the C320 is a relative bargain in most respects, it becomes less of a bargain when it comes time to replace the toner cartridges. That initial savings will be chipped away (and eventually disappear) as you print additional pages after the preinstalled toner cartridges are depleted. You have to expect some ink-cost penalty with any lower-cost model. However, the C320’s ink-cost penalty is more prohibitive than usual: This model’s preinstalled cartridges are rated to last for only 1,000 color pages and 3,000 black-and-white pages.

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Assuming you go with the more cost-effective high-yield replacement cartridges, you’ll pay about 2.7 cents to print a monochrome page and about 16.1 cents to print a color page. For comparison, the HP 4201dw runs about 2.5 cents for a monochrome page and 15.2 cents for a color page. That gives the HP a slight edge on both monochrome and color pages. However, the Brother HL-L3295CDW is an even better bargain. It runs about 2.5 cents for a monochrome page and 12.9 cents for a color page. That’s a significant difference for color. If you plan to print a large number of color pages over the life of the printer, you should strongly consider the Brother HL-L3295CDW over the C320.

It's not all bad news for the C320 concerning toner costs. The C320 does have lower per-page costs than the Ricoh C125 P. That model runs about 3.8 cents for a monochrome page and 18.2 cents for a color page. Not coincidentally, the C125 P is the only model in this group that doesn’t offer a high-capacity set of toner cartridges. For the Ricoh, standard-capacity cartridges are the only option.

With any laser-class printer, you should be able to produce near-typesetter-quality text that’s suitable for most business text documents. The C320 easily passes that standard for those kinds of documents. I was able to read typical business fonts down to a very small 4-point size. Everything it printed was clean and accurate, with no stray dots or faint vertical lines. Charts and graphs looked very good and were well-defined. The colors were consistent throughout all of the test documents, though the contrast levels could sometimes be a little stronger.

Printed photos had a similar well-balanced appearance. The colors were true-to-life with a slightly subdued contrast that suited most documents, apart from some of the charts and graphs, where a little more differentiation might be needed. As with any laser-class printer, you won’t be able to print borderless pages as you can with an inkjet printer. That said, the C320’s photo print quality should be more than adequate for brochures, newsletters, real estate flyers, or similar business documents.