What do you call a black cube that can print 48 A4 pages per minute? If you're Dell, the answer is a 5330dn, the latest and, to date, fastest member of its growing family of business lasers.

From the outside the 5330dn doesn't look like much and it's mono only, but that's not a major issue, with a lot under the bonnet for buyers looking for a general purpose workhorse to handle day-to-day office printing.

To start with there's the 48ppm laser engine, capable of generating pages of crisp text and graphics at an almost alarming rate, with a built-in duplexer for double-sided printing as standard. The duty rating is a massive 250,000 pages per month plus you get a built-in print server, a Gigabit Ethernet interface and a slot for an optional WiFi adapter (£69 + VAT).

Windows, Mac, Linux and Web printing protocols are all supported, allowing the 5330dn to be shared on mixed networks. Plus there's the usual Web-based interface for management over the LAN and SNMP support for those who need it.

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Paper is fed in via a 500-sheet drawer with a pull-out, 100-sheet, multi-purpose feeder for envelopes, card and other awkward materials. Two more 500-sheet drawers can be added underneath (£169 + VAT each), or a single drawer and a 2,100-sheet high capacity feeder (£399 + VAT), raising the capacity to 3,100 sheets altogether. In which case there's also an output expander (£169 + VAT) to stop finished jobs spilling out over the floor.

As with most mono lasers there's just one cartridge to replace. The one shipped with the printer is rated for 10,000 pages but most buyers will opt for the high yield replacement (20,000 pages) which at just £94 plus VAT equates to less than 0.5p per page.

We found the printer easy to site and setup and were very impressed by what it could do. With a 500MHz processor and 256MB of memory it can handle most day-to-day documents with room for a further 512MB if complex forms or graphics are involved. Postscript and PCL come as standard with Windows drivers for both, plus additional monitoring and management software.

Silent when in standby mode, the printer took around a minute to warm up, although once working the first page out of any document appeared in just a few seconds. Maximum resolution is 600dpi, but that's more than adequate for most business work, with enhancement technology also built in to improve text appearance.

Noise could be an issue in an open plan environment, but it's not bad for this type of printer and because it's so quick, the 5330dn will spend a lot of time in standby mode anyway. It's not the cheapest of lasers but running costs are low and, overall, you get an awful lot for your money, making it a good business buy.

The fastest laser Dell sells, the 5330dn can print at a speed of up to 48 pages per minute and comes with a duplexer and comprehensive networking support as standard. Add in low running costs, a massive duty cycle and loads of paper handling options and you've a real business workhorse, more than capable of handling general office printing needs.