Magicolor but not magical (Konica Minolta magicolor 2450)

Member Name: thejazzyj

Product:	Konica Minolta magicolor 2450
Date:	17/07/09 (46 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Great print quality

Disadvantages: Slow, expensive

As with most ICT departments in schools we have the need for occasioanl colour laser printing and to this end we purchased a Magicolor 2450. The initial purchase price was reasonable (£450 ish) and the feature list impressed us.

The Product
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The printer itself has a fairly small footprint it is about 19 inches wide, 16 inches deep and 18 inches high. The unit is predominatly a greyish cream colour with a dark blue top section. It looks quite good on a desk.

The Features
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Well it is a colour laser printer, print quality is excellent. The paper tray is large holding approx 100 sheets which eliminates the constant refilling that so many inkjets suffer from. The printer has a network interface so that it can be easily shared as well as the standard parallel and USB conneections.


Consumables
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To replace all the toner expect to pay over £200 (4 toner cartridges). Ouch.

The Priniting
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Printing on these is slow. Very slow. It suggests on the manufacturers site that you can expect 5 ppm in colour. Rubbish. If you get 3 pages you are doing well. This printer also suffers from unexplained errors. there is a single error light which occasionally comes on. 9 times out of 10 opening and closing the lid solves this.

The quality of print is excellent and for small scale printing this offers a reasonable choice. however if you are oinly small scale printing I have to ask whether an inkjet would be a better buy.

Summary: Not reliable enough for large scale work. Not cheap enough for small scale

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