Mac Creative > Reviews > A3+ colour laser printers > Canon LBP5960

Canon LBP5960

Canon LBP5960
  • Manufacturer: Canon (http://www.canon.co.uk)
  • Pros: Plenty of finishing options available, good all-round performer, casing can take a few hard knocks
  • Cons: Network configuration is a little tricky, low maximum memory, drum units are pricey
  • Price: £2,240
  • Star rating: 3

During this group test, it became apparent that all those years producing photocopiers and other document systems stood most of the manufacturers – Canon included – in good stead. It was disappointing, then, that the review unit from Canon – the LBP5960 – turned up with substantial physical damage to the outer casing. However, that seems to have left its performance unaffected on our standard series of tests.

Toners are inserted into slots under the top cover of the LBP5960 – handy for those who might have back problems. Toner life is a not exactly spectacular: 6,000 pages for colour and 10,000 for black, though toner and drum unit are separate items, which means less expense when it comes to replacing one or the other.

Setting up the LBP5960 via our test network proved to be problematic. Unlike the other printers on test, the Canon wasn’t immediately recognised by the Mac as a Bonjour device when the two were connected via Ethernet. Luckily, we had a USB cable to hand, which resolved the issue in a trice.

Moving on to our standard series of tests, the Canon produced 50 A4 copies of our standard Word document in around 1 minute 30 seconds at 600dpi. It made similarly short work of a 10-page Excel spreadsheet: 31.35 seconds. These, of course, are pretty much bread-and-butter tasks to any printer, so to test the graphics capability of each of our review units we used a 4MB PDF containing a mix of print, graphics, images and colour swatches. At A4 and 600dpi the LBP5960 churned out our file in 27.04 seconds, while at 1,200dpi that time lengthened slightly to 38.21 seconds. Using the same PDF scaled up to A3 resulted in 29.32 seconds at 600dpi and 1 minute 4.87 seconds at 1200 dpi.

In terms of cost of ownership, toners run to approximately £50 each, while the drum units are more expensive, at around £160. Overall, then, we felt that the Canon was worthy rather than outstanding, with
an average toner life and a paltry maximum memory of 384MB letting it down.

This product is part of our A3+ colour laser printers group product review. Other products in this group are:

 

HP LaserJet 5550DN

  • Star rating: 3

 

Konica Minolta 8650DN

  • Editors ChoiceStar rating: 5

 

Lexmark C935DN

  • Star rating: 3

 

OKI C9650N [Mac]

  • Star rating: 4

 

Xerox Phaser 7400 [Mac]

  • Star rating: 4

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