Xerox C315DNI Color All-in-One Laser Printer

The good: The quality of printing, black and white and colour.

The bad:
The scanner only works as a page scanner. An attempt to scan a page from a book, or anything at all that would require the scanned object to stay on the glass so that the top cover stays open, fails with an unknown error.

It is now 1 month since a support ticket was raised, 7 calls to Xerox support, 3rd day since a promise for a technician to come and fix it. On one of the calls, CSR was trying to convince me that it is actually normal for a scanner to not be able to scan a book page, so I had to push back that this is not the case.

My initial opinion was that this device is underrated, but my experience now tells me it is not. Unfortunately, I revealed the problem past the return day.

Will update the review upon the development.

So many features and easy to use. Big upgrade from our 12 year old xerox 6180mfp.

For whatever reason, despite quite literally being a world-wide household name, Xerox printers have exceptionally few reviews on the internet. When this happens, you get a disproportional representation of negative reviews. I took a risk ordering this printer for that reason — not great customer reviews and essentially zero professional reviews.

However, this printer was basically the only printer I could find from any manufacturer that supported high resolution printing (more than 600×600), color, was a laser (or other technology that doesn’t dry up over time), and had inexpensive cost-per-page of officially supported toner cartridges. Oh, and was reasonably sized to fit in a home office. So, I ordered it.

And I’m glad I did! I keep my printers for a long time (one of the reasons I’ve avoided ink jets) and so printer technology has come a long way since my 15 year old B/W Brother. Setup involved finding a spot for it, physically putting it in that spot, and plugging it in. Then, the screen had a step by step guide to configure a user, password, SMTP server (for email/fax, this can be skipped), and connect to wifi. Once done, it showed me a video of how to open up the printer and take out the bits and pieces that were there only for shipping. A video! Super nice.

Then, I was done. I could immediately see the printer on my wife’s iphone. I could print.

Aside from phones and tablets, all our PCs at the house run linux, which is definitely unusual… and can occasionally make finding a printer harder than usual. Xerox had drivers available on their site for linux, so I knew beforehand at least some functionality would work. (If you’re a more traditional user, as most are, it also came with a CD ROM which I assume is drivers for more common operating systems).

I installed the ppd from the xerox support site into CUPS and the printer installed. Then, I actually got scanning working, which is usually a pain in linux (more so than printing) but apparently Apple’s hugely unbalanced market influence for consumer devices has made “Airscan” a de-facto standard, so I was able to even wirelessly scan using a generic driver for airscan.

The printer also serves are very powerful web management page from its IP address, so even if you don’t have software installed, you can set everything, and check status, from that web page. And I mean you can configure absolutely everything — users, permissions, fax, email, notifications (to email), copy and print settings, configure additional paper sources, DPI, scan to flash settings, and fax address book.

I’ve done very little printing so far, aside from testing to make sure things work — a couple web pages, a photo. The photo was actually decent. It’s a laser printer, and no laser will produce truly good photos, but if you need the occasional photo in a document or for scrapbooking or a leaflet, this will work. You just won’t want to frame it.

I will definitely update this review if and when I encounter issues like paper jams. Keep in mind I use general copy paper — Boise brand, and hammermill occasionally. Nothing fancy or expensive.

For the cons, so far:
The paper tray is odd. There’s no real way to tell when it’s too full — I put pages into it until it looked full — e.g. the paper was level with the sides of the tray — but this wouldn’t fit into the printer. Maybe there’s something I’m missing and its not a huge deal for a home printer but for a small office, with many different people putting paper in it, it might add issues. For that, probably best to get a second paper tray that can fit a whole ream so you can remove the guesswork.

The linux driver only offers 600×600 DPI printing. I’m not sure if this is actually that resolution, or just a bug or artifact. I don’t have an alternative operating system to see if it is different there, and compare the output. The web UI does show it has 1200 dpi (and is in fact the lowest option).

It is much bigger than it strictly needs to be, even for a color laser MFP. It might be simply too big for some home offices. Measure and check specs before ordering.

The one I got was not able to send out fax but able to receive. Cyan ink was defective. Xerox service guy came and said to return since it was less than 30 days. Amazon received the returned item but has not processed my refund!
Update!
Even though the UPS tracking showed it was delivered to Amazon, I had to call Customer Service for my refund which they did. I just don’t like the idea that i had to call before they issue the refund. It should be automatic.
Bought a second one but still unable to send outgoing fax. Telephone guy came to check the line and he did not see any problem. After some research, found out that this machine is actually Lexmark and Xerox just put their name on. Too bad, i like Xerox and they just disappointed me with this product. Bought the HP Color Laser Jet Pro 4301 dfw instead. It’s working. Able to fax and receive fax. Don’t buy the HP Color Laser MFP 4301. I ‘d rather have this xerox printer than the HP.

First things first. it prints VERY well in both color and grayscale. It prints duplex It STAYS connected to the friggin network.. Anyway it is a joy to work with. I will most likely be purchasing a second one in the coming months