Xerox's WorkCentre 4150V P is a bulky multi-function machine, designed for medium-sized offices or workgroups. It functions as a photocopier, scanner and network printer and is based on a mono laser engine, rated at 43ppm. It weighs in at just over 50kg, so is physically heavyweight as well as catering for most office needs.

One of the most notable features of the machine is its LCD touch-screen, which acts as both status display and control panel. This makes it particularly easy to use, though the controls provided by the panel are supplemented on either side by physical buttons. These include a number pad, which comes into its own if you add the optional fax functions.

As it stands, the machine supports local or network printing from its 500-sheet paper tray, single or duplex copying from its scanner glass or Automatic Document Feeder (ADF), and scanning to a PC or e-mail. Print and copy jobs come to rest on a moulded output tray beneath the scanner unit and are not that easy to get at, but they can be headed by a cover sheet, indicating the person who ran the job. As well as the standard paper tray, there's a separate, 100-sheet feed tray for special media and two further 500-sheet trays may be added as options.

The WorkCentre 4150V P can be connected locally via a USB port or through its Ethernet port to an office network. It works automatically with any DHCP server via the supplied drivers, to allocate itself as a network resource. Xerox includes copies of OmniPage and PaperPort, both from Nuance, to provide optical character recognition and document management, respectively. These are both good applications in their fields.

The device is easy enough to maintain, with a toner cartridge that requires replacing only after 20,000 pages and a drum that should last 55,000 pages. Online prices on these consumables are £80 and £185, giving a 5 percent text page price of 1.2p. This is a reasonable, though not the most economical, running cost for a multi-function device in this price bracket.

Print quality depends on the type of document you're producing. Text output is clean and sharp, with no sign of toner spatter, and output is fine for both internal and external correspondence. Add in graphics and you start to see some banding in large areas of grey tone, though this is still not pronounced and it should be fine for internal reports. Photo images suffer more from the irregular tone, though, and this device can't really be recommended for photo output - though that's not unusual for a mono laser.

This is a big, networking, multi-function machine, made easy to use through its touch-screen control panel and well-designed drivers. It should run well on any busy office network, providing print, copy and scan functions at a duty cycle of up to 20,000 pages per month. Print quality is adequate and running costs are fair, though it's not top-of-class in either area.