Wax On, Wax Off
As a solid-ink (also known as wax-jet or phase-change) printer, the Phaser 8400 works something like an offset printing press, or a cross between an ink-jet and a laser. Its yellow, cyan, magenta, and black ink come not in liquid or powdered (toner) form, but in waxy chunks or small cubes -- actually, not cubes but four slightly different, drop-in shapes, carved toddler-toy-fashion to fit into the proper slots underneath the hood of the printer.
Accustomed to conventional ink and toner cartridges, we were slightly unnerved that the Phaser's front-panel LCD and software driver don't offer an ink-remaining gauge (though the former does display a low-ink warning); instead, you simply lift the hood and look. You can top off or add ink anytime -- such as before starting a big print job, with no more wondering whether an installed cartridge will go the distance. And compared to the usual rigmarole of throwing away or recycling consumable cartridges and waste tanks, the 8400 is a friend to the environment, with one small, plug-in "maintenance kit" or imaging-drum lubricator to replace every 10,000 pages (the $100 standard kit) or 30,000 pages (an optional $150 kit), plus a waste tray to empty and replace periodically.
According to Xerox, printing some 6,800 pages takes six sticks apiece of the four colors, with a total ink cost of $700 -- by our rough calculation, something like 10.8 cents per page, somewhat more costly than most color lasers but thriftier than desktop inkjets.
Inside the printer, the stubby crayons are melted -- drawing, speaking of environmental impact, up to 1,500 watts, though Xerox says the printer averages less than a fifth of that -- into an ink reservoir. A 1,236-nozzle, 600 by 600 dpi printhead sprays the ink onto a heated, rotating drum, which transfers the image to paper in one pass (versus the four passes of most low-priced color lasers). The ink almost instantly solidifies again on the page, with no inkjet-style seeping or blotting on plain paper, and won't smear if swiped by a damp finger -- though it can scratch off if rubbed with a fingernail.