Skip to main content

Xerox Phaser 6010 review

Xerox Phaser 6010 front open
Image used with permission by copyright holder
Xerox Phaser 6010
MSRP $249.00
“While unexceptional in appearance, the Xerox Phaser 6010 is compact laser printer with very good quality color output. Only things missing are duplexing and Wi-Fi.”
Pros
  • Highly compact
  • Very good quality output
  • Has 10 sheet bypass tray for specialty papers
Cons
  • No Wi-Fi
  • No automatic duplexing
  • Slow first-copy out time

While Xerox is synonymous with photocopy (due to the decades of incorrect usage as a verb), Xerox is also a pioneer in laser printing. When you hear the name, however, you might imagine giant machines that need a forklift to put in place, but Xerox makes some highly compact printers as well. And although these printers are aimed at the small business or workgroup markets, some, like the Phaser 6010 we tested, will work at home or in a college dorm. Despite missing a couple convenient features, is this $250 still worth the investment?

Recommended Videos

Features and design

The Phaser 6010 is a small, fairly nondescript laser printer. It measure a compact 15.5 x 12 x 9.2 inches and weighs in at 23.4 pounds, so it will easily fit on most desktops. A small cluster of controls is located on the front left side of the top panel, along with a two-line LCD. Here’s where you adjust settings, cancel a print job, or put the printer into a power-saving mode.

The top panel is where the prints are ejected, and there is a large flip out paper catcher. It’s a bit flimsy and we managed to knock it off of the printer twice when using it, but it snaps right back on.

The four color-toner cartridges are loaded by pulling the right side-panel down, and the rear panel pulls down to free a paper jam.

A pull-down panel on the front of the printer exposes the two paper input trays. The lower tray can hold up to a hundred sheets, and the top tray has a capacity of up to 10 sheets of specialty paper or heavy stock.

That’s it. We really meant it when we said nondescript, and for printer design it’s as simple as it gets.

What’s in the box

The Phaser 6010 is packed in a fairly large box, so it’s surprising to lift the top piece of foam packing and find a printer that’s very compact. Beside the printer itself, there’s not much else in the box other than a power cord, a CD, and three very small booklets (an Installation Guide, Connection Setup Guide, and Quick Use Guide).

The CD contains the detailed documentation (though you probably won’t ever need it) and drivers for Windows and Mac OS X. For the IT guy, Xerox includes its CentreWare software, a network printer administration tool that few home users will ever even look at. Also included, and automatically installed, is PrintingScout, which opens on your screen when a print job is sent to the printer and displays the printer status including error messages and estimated toner levels. The toner levels can also be viewed from the printer’s front panel LCD.

Xerox Phaser 6010 back cartridgesXerox ships the four color-toner cartridges preinstalled in the printer, so it’s ready to go when you unpack it.

Performance and use

Setting up the Phaser 6010 is exceptionally easy. Just unbox the unit, plug in the power cord, connect a USB or Ethernet cable, and run the setup program from the disc. The Phaser 6010 does not offer Wi-Fi, so it’ll either have to be fairly close to your computer or network router – an inconvenience considering everything today is going wireless.

If you need to produce a report or flyer with charts, graphics, and photos, you won’t be embarrassed with the quality of the Phaser 6010’s output.

Xerox claims a color output speed of up to 12-pages-per-minute output speed in color. In our tests, we got 10ppm using the Normal default print driver setting, which is close to the speed Xerox states. The first-page out speed was a bit slower at 22 seconds (Xerox touts 17 seconds color, 14 seconds black and white), but things move right along once the print job gets going. The Phaser 6010 does not have automatic duplexing, so if you need to print both sides of a page, you’ll have to do it manually.

The Phaser 6010’s image quality is very good. Colors were spot-on accurate, though just a touch darker than the reference prints from a calibrated Epson Stylus Pro 3880 that we use. We printed our test images using both HP Office Paper ($3 a ream in our local supermarket) and on Hammermill Premium Inkjet and Laser Paper ($12 a ream at an office super store). Print quality was actually just a bit better on the less expensive paper, though you’d have to have both test prints right up against the reference print to see the differences.

The Microsoft Word file that we use for speed testing had crisp text and excellent quality on the business logo used in the document. If you need to produce a report or flyer mixed with charts, graphics, and photos, you won’t be embarrassed with the quality of the Phaser 6010’s output.

One thing that’s notable if you have to produce really top-notch business documents or output with very accurate color: Most printers in this price class provide basic color adjustment features, but the Phaser 6010 goes way beyond this and offers the capability of refining color output to an exceptionally granular level. Again, most home users will never take advantage of this, but it shows how seriously Xerox takes output quality.

The Phaser 6010 also has a black-print-only mode. Here, none of the color toners are used. Since the black toner has an estimated 2,000 page yield – and, at $70, costs $10 less than the 1,000 page yield of the color toners – using the black-print-only mode when you don’t need color output can save a fair amount of money.

Conclusion

For the most part, the Phaser 6010 is a generic desktop color laser printer. It’s very light and compact, and very quiet, even when printing. It’s not as fast as a few of the other color lasers in its price class that we’ve recently tested, but given the very high quality of the output, we don’t see any user being unhappy about getting 10ppm from the printer.

Supply costs are a bit on the high side. Unfortunately, this isn’t uncommon, but the ability of the Phaser 6010 to print only in monochrome mode helps saves on toner costs. The Phaser 6010 lacks two features which would have raised its score: Wi-Fi connectivity and automatic duplexing, the latter of which is becoming a standard feature in printers at this price level and helps save even more money.

The Phaser 6010 is a nice compact printer, and would work well at home or at school. But you can get a desktop color laser for about the same money that provides Wi-Fi and duplexing.

Highs

  • Highly compact
  • Very good quality output
  • Has 10 sheet bypass tray for specialty papers

Lows

  • No Wi-Fi
  • No automatic duplexing
  • Slow first-copy out time
Ted Needleman
Former Digital Trends Contributor
Ted Needleman has been covering the world of technology for more than 30 years. Although his experience in reviewing products…
Prime Big Deal Days printer deals: laser, inkjet and photo printers
Best Prime Day Deals Printers

Update 10/9/24: We have one last day of Prime Big Deal Days, but the deals from earlier in the weekend are holding strong. The big 3 — HP, Canon, and Epson — are all still represented, but now there's extra Canon for intense photo needs.
With Prime Day finally being here and running though the end of the day today, now is the perfect time to snag yourself some great Prime Day deals on laptops. While a lot of stuff has gone digital, there's still a big need for printing, and with some of the better and longer-lasting printers getting quite expensive, getting a discount can make a big difference. That's why we've gone out and looked for some of the best deals we could find and collected them for you below. Also, while you're at it, you may want to check out these Prime Day laptop deals and Prime Day all-in-one computer deals if you're also looking to upgrade your whole office.

The best Prime Big Day printer deals
Here's what we've found so far in the sale:

Read more
I’ve reviewed every AMD and Nvidia GPU this generation — here’s how the two companies stack up
Three graphics cards on a gray background.

Nvidia and AMD make the best graphics cards you can buy, but choosing between them isn't easy. Unlike previous generations, AMD and Nvidia trade blows point-for-point in 2024, and picking a brand to go with isn't as easy as counting the dollars in your wallet.

I've reviewed every graphics card AMD and Nvidia have released this generation, comparing not only raw performance, but also features like DLSS and FSR, ray tracing performance, and how VRAM works in modern games. After dozens of graphics card reviews, here's how AMD and Nvidia stack up against each other in 2024.
Nvidia vs. AMD in 2024

Read more
The 10 best VPN services for 2024, reviewed by experts
Surfshark VPN on Mac protecting user data.

You rely on the internet to stay connected to friends, family, and coworkers, monitor the news, shop, pay bills, and more. That makes privacy and security more important than ever, and a virtual private network (VPN) is one of the easiest, cheapest, and most effective ways to hide your location and safeguard your online activities from unwanted network intruders.

But if you're having trouble choosing the right VPN service for your budget and security needs, don't worry: We can help. Below, you'll find a list of the best VPNs around. Our comprehensive guide to the best VPN services covers pricing, features, and all the information you need to make an informed decision.

Read more