Hands-on review: OKI Multifunction MC573dn A4 colour laser printer

When looking for a small business or small workgroup printer, it's not as easy to choose a model as it appears.

Many of our habits have changed in recent years, including printing from mobile devices, wireless connectivity and concerns about cyber security.

Oki is a well-established printing manufacturer from Japan. For decades, they've had a significant presence in Australia and New Zealand.

Their latest product is an A4 multifunction laser printer. It's ideally suited to a small workgroup of up to 25 users.

You can print via an Ethernet network or over wi-fi. It's also ready to print from a mobile device with Google Cloud Print Ready and is compatible with Apple AirPrint.

Being multifunction it supports printing, photocopying, scanning and fax.

It's printing is either colour or black with 1,200 x 1,200dpi print quality. It's A4 paper draw has a capacity of over 250 pages and can be upgraded to 1,400 pages.

Speed is also a big factor with up to 30 pages per minute being produced. The d in the model number indicates that it can print on both sides of the page (duplex).

Numerous other features including a clever multi-purpose tray, support for thick cardboard and barcodes make it a superb printer in its own right.

With a 7-inch colour screen on the front of it, you can also easily control the device. This makes it much easier to scan, copy and fax.

A 50 sheet reverse automatic document feeder makes light work of scanning a stack of documents. Scanning is also done at lightning speed, with up to 30 pages per minute being scanned, plus support for double-sided scanning if needed.

When you scan something, it can be sent by email, uploaded to an FTP server or network drive or saved to a USB stick.

It even skips blank pages on its very own. A very clever and handy feature.

Scanning dovetails into its photocopying feature, which takes your scanned work and can quickly print it. Again this could reproduce a double-sided document, quickly and easily.

Energy and toner saving technologies are also built right in, to save money and the environment.

Lastly security features have been thought about at every level. With support for secure pin printing, user authentication before printing and an option for identification card job security.

This is a great mid-range printer with a price point of less than $1,400 and the features of a much higher end model. Good job OKI.