OKI B440dn

MARCHANDS	€
Amazon marketplace	286.03
Amazon.co.uk	291.70
Printerbase	292.64
Amazon marketplace	415.84


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Caractéristiques
Resolution	1200 x 1200 ppp
Speed B&W / color	28 ppm / N.A. v70
Ink drop size	N.A. picolitres
Number of cartridges	1
Number of base colors	1
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Scanner	no
Copier	no
Fax	no
WiFi	no
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Nilofar Hadjanadjiboudine
Test date: December 14, 2009

5.5 seconds for the first page? OKI thinks so ...

On the technical specs for this printer, OKI claims that the first page of your document should be available within 5.5 seconds. That might well be how long it takes for the printer to start printing once it has received your document, but our tests showed that it took almost twice as long (around 10 seconds) from choosing to print the document on your computer to actually receiving it. That's still very fast though.

What's less impressive is how long it takes the printer to leave standby or when you switch it on for the first time.

Start up from standby: 25 seconds

Cold start: around one minute.

Handling

The OKI B440dn is a black-and-white laser printer which offers 1200 dpi printing at 28 pages per minute. It's the kind of model you'd choose because it reaches high speeds and offers quality printing, as we've seen that 1200 dpi printers are more accurate than those at 600 dpi.

It also includes a network port and an automatic double-sided printing mode. The paper tray can hold up to 530 sheets, which is a lot. Being able to store a whole ream at once is very handy, and most of OKI's competitors make do with room for 200, or perhaps 250 sheets. The printer is compatible with Mac, Linux and Windows, as well as the PCL6 and PS3 standards.

Noise and Energy Consumption

While on standby, the printer uses 5.8 W, but that reaches 735 W on average while it's printing. That's a long way above average.

The printer is also very large and noisy.

Speeds

OKI promised us 28 ppm with the B440dn, and it delivered. This is a very fast printer, once it gets going. The first page, though, takes its time, as we explain in the inset.

Double-sided printing usually causes the speed to drop by half, but here it's more like two-thirds. Pages only come out at a rate of 10.3 ppm, which is still a pretty average score compared to all the other printers we've tested.

Printing Quality

The B440dn boasts proudly of its 'true 1200 dpi' resolution, which should lead to excellent print quality. But we were disappointed: our test documents were far too blocky for a printer in this range. The quality made us think of a 600 dpi rather than a 1200 dpi printer, as this comparison shows.

Compare the OKI B440dn to other printers in our Product Face-Off

Laser printers aren't cut out for printing photos, and this one is no exception.

Cost per page

The B440dn isn't an all-in-one: the imaging drum, which is separate from the toner, has a lifespan of 25 000 pages and costs £182.57, giving a cost per page of 7.3 p.

Once you have the drum, three different sizes are available. The first has incredibly low running costs at under 1.5 p per page, while its rivals often climb over 3 p.

The next two sizes offer even better value at less than a penny a page.