The Xerox Phaser 8500N is a color solid-ink printer designed for the small or medium office environment.  It offers good printing speed and a low-waste ink system, but print quality is not quite up to laser standards.

The Phaser 8500N uses a relatively new technology developed by Xerox called solid ink.  Essentially, the Xerox 8500 ink comes in solid, waxy blocks that are melted into liquid and sprayed onto the drum for printing.  The benefits of this technology are generally faster printing speeds and less ink waste than inkjet or laser printers.  Unfortunately, the 8500N doesn’t benefit from these advantages as much as Xerox’s more expensive models, resulting in a relatively expensive solid ink printer with slower speeds and lower quality prints than most of its laser printer competition.

The printer is very easy to set up, and once you get the printer unpacked, connected, and the software installed, you are off and running.  The solid ink sticks are no more difficult to replace than the average toner cartridge and in some ways are easier, as they are notched to prevent users from accidentally placing ink sticks in the wrong slot.  The printer supports all modern versions of Windows, Mac, and even Linux operating systems, allowing for more flexibility than most laser printers.

Print quality is where the Xerox 8500N really suffers, however, as text is not as sharp as a typical laser printer.  Text quality is generally good, but on close inspection it shows a bit of fuzziness.  Graphics prints are mixed in quality.  Some graphics look fairly good, but photos are often uneven and ink dots are sometimes visible.  Print speed is average, at around 12 pages per minute in black and 11 pages per minute in color.  One of the main advantages of solid ink technology, speed, is just not very prevalent in the 8500N, as competing laser printers have the same or better speed for the same price.

Overall, the Xerox Phaser 8500N is a well-designed printer that gives a preview of what solid ink may do in the future.  Unfortunately, its many shortcomings make it difficult to recommend over its superior competition.