Fuji Xerox's DocuPrint C1190FS is an entry-level colour laser multifunction printer that's a surprisingly capable performer given its price tag. Its feature set isn't extravagant and the detail of scans could be improved, but this multifunction will be a valuable addition to any small office.
Unlike the Fuji Xerox Phaser 8560MFP which looks like a conventional multifunction, the DocuPrint C1190FS bears closer resemblance to the DocuPrint C2200, with a scanner and automatic document feeder teetering off one edge. The design makes the DocuPrint C1190FS a bit taller than it might be otherwise, but it makes pages easier to grab from the output tray.
Fuji Xerox has placed the imaging unit at the very front of the DocuPrint C1190FS multifunction, so paper input is limited to 250 sheets through the paper cassette and a single-page manual paper feeder. The increased space between the output tray and scanner doesn't offer any advantages either — the tray can only handle a maximum of 150 sheets at a time.
One annoyance we found with paper management is that the Fuji Xerox DocuPrint C1190FS refused to remember paper tray settings. Even when defaults were set in the system settings menu, the multifunction continued to ask for paper tray settings whenever the tray was opened, and refused to print until these settings were confirmed.
USB, Ethernet and fax RJ-11 ports are all available at the back of the printer, and toners can be easily replaced through a side panel. Though compact, the four individual toners are still capable of producing 3000 pages each. When taking the multifunction's other consumables into account, the DocuPrint C1190FS will cost you an average of 26.8c per A4 page, which is somewhat expensive for a laser printer.
The small monochrome LCD display is surprisingly effective, though mounting it at a different angle would have made it easier to read. You can print configuration reports directly from the printer, but the DocuPrint C1190FS also displays the assigned IP address on the display to save you from wasting paper.
Automatic duplexing is absent but it's difficult to complain considering the multifunction's price.
In addition to normal printing, you can select Secure Print, which holds the document until a PIN code is entered, and Sample Print, which allows you to save the print job into the memory for later duplication. The printer comes with 384MB of memory, which is user-upgradeable.
The Web interface provides consumable and maintenance information, and it is easy to navigate. There is no 802.1X authentication function, but Fuji Xerox has provided an IP filter which allows you to limit the printer's network availability to five users.
The Fuji Xerox DocuPrint C1190FS prints consistently at 16.5 pages per minute for mono documents and 12.2ppm for colour documents, regardless of the quality setting. It takes an average of 21sec for the first page to print. These speeds are quite slow for a laser printer.
Print quality is good. The laser printer capably handles text at font sizes ranging from 7pt to 22pt, producing accurate and readable characters without aberrations. Colour documents are quite accurate and there is no evidence of the colour mis-registration we found with the DocuPrint C3300DX. Blues can have a slightly purple hue and don't mix well with black text, but otherwise the colour palette is certainly acceptable for professional documents and graphics.
The maximum 600dpi optical scanning resolution results in sketchy detail on scanned images. Though it will suffice for straight text, we would have preferred slightly better resolution for image scanning.