Design:

This SCX-4300 laser printer is fully made with durable black plastic body along with sleek finish and matte coating, which considerably avoids any fingerprint smudges. It is built with 406mm width, which is little wider than the other home laser printer but has the same height and depth when compared to rival brands. The extra width is made in order to include the scanning engine under its chassis. The A4 scanner bed is nicely sits at top of the machine and spreads from left to right side.

This SCX-4300 Compact Laser printer has wider area at the top and has different shape when compared to Samsung SCX-4500 laser printer. The control panel is at the front end, which feature 16 character LCD display without backlight but you can easily see the details under normal lighting condition. There are totally eight control buttons that gives easy navigational path for any print, copy or scan settings. The menu system can be easily accessed along with the display using controls.

Beneath the control panel there is a dedicated paper emerging slot, which comes with pull out to stop emerging paper falling on the desk. Even if you do not pull out the slot the paper would not fall on the desk. The output tray has capacity of 50 sheets. This mono laser printer has large paper feed tray that has the capacity of 250 sheets and it is double the capacity when compared with previous version of laser printer from Samsung. In this paper feed slot you can also find single sheet multi slot for any special printing purpose.

Connectivity:

The entire range of connection ports are placed at the back section of the printer, which includes power cable connection and USB port connection. It is the only connection facility for sharing data.

Printer Maintenance:

You can easily access drum cartridge and integrated toner, which can be revealed by opening front panel that hinges down firmly. This all in one laser printer comes with half capacity starter cartridge and you can expect nearly 1000 pages from this cartridge. You can extend the life of this cartridge until you buy new cartridge by simply activating lesser toner consumption option in the printer. When compared with higher range of laser printers, this Samsung SCX-4300 mono laser printer does not feature additional large paper input tray and optional duplex printing.

Inbuilt Software:

All the printing, scanning and copying operation can be controlled using in built SmarThru 4 software. A separate utility is provided to diagnose the printer problem such as Dr.Printer. The print quality setting is well supported by driver and you can easily handle this driver using simple navigational panel

Performance:

The print quality of this Samsung SCX-4300 Printer, Scanner and copier perform at fair level and not been accentuated with the point of excellence but considerably delivers 15ppm of print speed. Samsung claims the print speed to 18ppm in A4 and 19ppm for letter. The maximum resolution that this laser printer can achieve is 600 dpi with 256 shades of grey and well supported by 8MB of internal device memory.
The darker shade text prints are not up to the mark and it shows some curves and jagged lines that are visible on the text. Business graphs, when printed in greyscale, loses much of its details and looks with stripes on the printed sheet. The quality is not up to the expectation for graph prints with grey shades. The same results apply for photographic prints and it looks like a dot matrix print without details in shadow and darker areas.

Low Running Cost:

The important aspect of this business laser printer is its printing cartridge that cost around £40 and it well supports 2000 ISO pages. The cost per page including paper cost is more economic and comes around 2.7p. This mono laser printer uses normal toner and drum cartridge that keeps the running cost minimal. This cost is normal and applicable for mono laser printer and you are not charged with extra running cost when you use Samsung SCX-4300 multifunction laser printer.

This home laser printer gives balanced performance with scanning, print and copying function, which is suitable for moderate office use and home use. You cannot expect this printer to perform more printing volume of about 10,000 pages per month that is 300 – 400 pages continuously. Even if it does this job then the running cost is expensive. If you are looking for high volume printing capacity machine then you need to look for some high level laser printer that well suite your daily printing needs.

Photocopying:

All the photocopy functions are controlled using command buttons on the control panel. The same document can be taken with 99 copies using the option available in the control panel itself. You can easily perform resizing of documents that range from 50% to 200% from the original document. This mono laser printer has impressive photocopy print speed and shows up single page photocopy approximately in 11 seconds. It would take some extra time when you take photocopy of full sized colour photo. But for such low price laser printer this photocopy speed performance is considerable.
When you take a photocopy of a greyscale print in Samsung SCX-4300, the surface of the image and the text seems to be scrubbed off and not clear. Especially when the greyscale print is printed from the same printer the result looks very bad. The same result could also been seen with other branded all in one laser printers and from other models of Samsung. This effect is due to clash between dot print with scanning technology that comes inbuilt.

Scanning:

The closing door of scanner section that flips opens up to a moderate level and it is fully supported by internal spring mechanism. In case of any paper jam it opens up and gives enough space for easy adjustment. Normally in all laser printer the scanner section will opens up fully and stands in a vertical position but Samsung SCX-4300 does not feature such provision. It has optical resolution of 600 x 2400 dpi and comes with enhanced resolution of 4800 x 4800 dpi.

Verdict:

Samsung SCX-4300 is an honest laser printer with cost effective printing solution. This laser printer performs well in text prints, business graphics and chart prints. Only the photocopies of greyscale shades shows unclear and little scrubbed off. It has reasonable print cost and definitely fit in your budget. If you look for low priced mono laser printer with multifunction facility that gives reasonable running cost then this is your choice for both home as well as office use.

Check 2010 Latest Laser Printers, other Samsung Laser Printer Models, Reviews in this website.

Samsung SCX-4300 - Technical Specification Table

When compared to its close contenders, this printer does have slow black print speed but produces high quality colour prints. HP has made this printer more user friendly by providing easy to understand instructions with comprehensive settings and features for user, which put together in an accessible tool box software. It is an efficient colour laser printer specially made for office usage.

Sluggish Design:

Being a 50 pound weighed laser printer, it does not have attractive design but holds the credit for well managed control panel and tucked in drawers. It has a standard colour combination with grey and black mix. With large working space on the printer, it is easy for paper handling on both feed tray and output tray and the space are well distributed between the panels. This laser printer has wide dimension and requires pair of hands to move around in your office desk. If you are looking for smaller sized colour laser printer then you need to sacrifice the quality of print. At the bottom of this printer you can find 250 sheet main paper output tray with fold down mechanism and has the capacity to hold 20 pound paper.

Additionally 50 sheet manual input tray is found at the bottom, which is equipped with adjustable paper guides suitable for various media. With added cost you can opt for additional 250 sheet tray to accommodate extra volume of papers and can be regularly used for particular paper media like letterhead. The control button is placed at the corner in front of the printer. All the connective ports are located at the back of the printer and this includes a USB port, power plug and an Ethernet jack for establishing simple network connection with the router.

Features:

Front Control Panel:
This CP2025n network laser printer has simple and useful control panel that is placed at the corner and it is difficult to have better visibility of the display. It would have been better if the panel is placed at the top for easy viewing like in Canon colour laser printers. This control panel has totally five buttons that helps you to locate the menu system and make quick changes to the printing process. These includes cancel button & directional pads and all the information would be seen on two line backlit LCD display, which also gives you alerts and details on toner level graphics. Additionally two alert LEDs indicates print error and low toner details.

Driver Software:
This HP CP2025n (CB494A) Colour Laser Printer comes with driver software and has comprehensive set of features that enables the user to know the status of the printing process. You can control the feeds in the input tray manually and ToolboxFX software gives you details on present toner level, shows no of pages remaining and usage trends. When the printer faces any malfunction you can also opt for email alert message. HP offers step by step video instructions through installation CD that instruct you on driver settings and tells how to optimise the print quality. This driver software is compatible with all Windows from 2000 that includes Vista and 64-bit XP, it also works well with Mac OSX 10.2.8 and newer version.

Lack of Important Features:
This HP laser printer does not have mechanical duplexer and automatic double sided printing facility is missing. Generally at this price range the duplex printing facility is an extra cost and normally available at higher end laser printer models. You cannot directly connect digital camera or other portable digital device like pen drive with this printer for taking instant prints due to the absence of PictBridge facility. All these drawbacks can be well compromised by its ability to connect with multiple computers using quick wired networking system without complex connection. The connection junction is strategically placed at the back of the printer, so you can easily access CP2025n from several PC without any hassle.

Installation of Toner Cartridge in CP2025n:
The toner cartridges can be easily replaced by opening the top front door of the printer, which show horizontally stacked four toner cartridges on the rack. It is easy to install the cartridge using single push to release mechanism for hassle free installation. This installation method is better than bucket style toner cartridge installation found in OKI laser printers. The cost per page for standard black prints comes in an average and for colour print not expensive. HP has given details on life cycle and cost of both colour and black cartridges but not mentioned about availability of high capacity cartridge. This laser printer has monthly duty cycle of about 40,000 pages, which is much suitable for large work groups and small office.

Printing Speed:
HP Colour LaserJet CP2025n Printer is good in output speed for colour prints and churns out 20 ppm but 20 ppm cannot be achieved when you run the print for 5 or 20 prints. The print speed does not even come close for shorter prints but when you print for long document CP2025n come close to 20 ppm. Similar case is applies to black text prints and it gives less than 10 ppm for five page colour graphics documents and black text prints. The print speed would be normally achieves for long print run. The black text print speed is not up to the mark and comparatively lesser then its rival products. HP CP2025n is mainly applied for business printing purpose where it requires to perform for longer print run, so obviously the quoted printing speed is automatically been achieved without any doubt.

Printing performance:
Black print produce more appealing look with sharp and crisp text edges. It has solid look and performs well for both colour prints as well as black prints. HP mainly speaks about the quality of the output rather then printing speed of the device. The black cartridge delivers clean and sharp edge for smaller fonts and produce better visibility even in graphical representations along with text. With total 600 dpi of resolution the quality is well maintained through out the printing cycle when compared to its close rival OKI C3600n.

Warranty:

This HP Colour laser printer comes with 1 year warranty with comprehensive online support.

Verdict:

Though this HP Colour LaserJet CP2025n priced at a little higher end it is well built for small work groups and business owners. You cannot expect double sided printing, since this printer does not have the facility for auto-duplexer. If you are more keen for mechanical duplexer and want a favourable environment for double sided printing to favour quick printing process then you can try for the another version HP Colour LaserJet CP2025dn with extra £40 cost. If you feel the cost of duplex version is higher then you can try Canon i-SENSYS LBP7200C that cost less than £40 in its duplex version. The lower black print speed is only minimal and it is not a major concern for small business printing purpose.

HP Colour LaserJet CP2025n Printer (CB494A) - Specification Details

Designed professionally:

As in the case of most of the other office printers, the Ricoh Aficio SP C221N A4 Colour Laser Printer too looks very professional. It has the standard white and grey finishing, and it is actually quite sleek for an office printer with its dimensions being (H x W x D) 12.8″ x 16″ x 18″ and weighs 50.7lbs. You will find the big control panel with all the necessary buttons in the facia of the printer and along with it, there is also a small LED display, it is really disappointing that there is no LCD colour display to preview the print content. The menu is easy to access with the navigation controls and intuitive design.

Ports, trays and connectivity in SP C221N:

In the rear side of the unit you will find the cable cover, power socket, Ethernet port and an USB port. In the bottom of the printer, there is a bypass tray that will allow you to load paper sheet by sheet; this is a very useful inclusion for printing on letter covers, etc. When that is pulled out, you will find an input tray that has a capacity of about 250 sheets. On the top of the device is a standard tray extension that supports the sheets that come out curled after being printed. The stop fences behind the output tray ensure that the legal sized or A4 sized prints do not fall behind the machine; for the legal sized prints, the rear fence has to be raised and for the A4 sized prints, raise the forward fence. The top cover has to be opened to replace the print cartridge and the front cover to replace the waste toner bottle or to remove jammed paper.

The control panel:

The control panel of SPC221N Duplex Laserjet Printer is very intuitive and the buttons and indicators are placed very logically. In the left most corner is the alert indicator that lights up whenever a printer error occurs and when this happens, the Smart Organising Monitor has to be used to check for the error. The ready indicator lights up when the printer is ready to receive data from a system and flashes when the printer is warming up or receiving data. You will also find the load paper indicator that lights up when the paper tray is empty or unattached and the replace print cartridge indicator is available under each toner icon that flashes when there is very little toner remaining and remains lit when there is no toner left.  The keys include the stop/start key and job reset key.

Installation of Aficio SP C221N:

The installation of the printer takes a while. The first step in the installation process is that, the printer has to be configured as a Windows network printer. Once that is done, the printer has to be added in the printers and other hardware section in the control panel. And then keep pressing next in the upcoming dialog boxes and finally click on the finish button on the final dialog box. Once the installation process is done, the printer will be ready for the printing process. The specific installation instructions are given step by step description in the printer manual.a

Compatibility:

The SP C221N is compatible with Windows 2000/XP/Server 2003/Vista; Mac OS X v.10.2 – 10.4 Novell Netware v. 4.x or later and Citrix Server Operating Systems.

Network support:

Being an office printer, it is essential that Aficio SP C221N A4 supports networking and Ricoh has made no mistake by supporting network and local connection. It can be used as either Window printing port or even a network printer and the network connectivity can be established via the Ethernet interface offered. The local connections can be established via USB connections. There are just four steps to be followed to use the printer in a network environment: Print the test page, Install Smart Organising Monitor, Specify the IP address of the printer and Install the printer driver. The documentation offered with the printer gives you neat and clear explanation on how to do so.

Features:

Ricoh Aficio SP C221N A4 Network Laser Printer is equipped with a 300MHz processor and has about 128 MB of RAM as standard. A lot of the latest technologies like laser beam scanning, elecrtophotographic printing with mono component toner development and four drum tandem method have been employed. The printer has a duty cycle of 30000 prints per month.

Performance:

Having all these latest technologies employed we would expect spectacular print speeds. Unfortunately, even the 21ppm speed mentioned by the manufacturer in the specifications can be achieved only in the speed print mode. When tested the print speed is a mere 16ppm, which is very average for an office printer. The resolution of the prints in the draft mode is 600 x 600dpi, in standard mode the resolution is 1200 x 600dpi and in fine mode it is 2400 x 600dpi. As you can see, the resolutions are great. It takes about 14 seconds to give the first print, which is comparatively quite a long time. The printer also takes about a minute to warm-up.

Warranty:

The Ricoh Aficio SP C221N A4 Colour Laser Printer comes with one year standard manufacturer’s warranty.

Verdict:

The Ricoh Aficio SP C221N A4 Colour Laser Printer is best suited for people who require high volume colour printing. The printer is very inexpensive when compared to the other office printers in the market. Though the print speeds are average, it is really great value when considering the fact that it has a very powerful processor, lot of latest technologies and a very good set of resolutions. We would recommend the Aficio SP C221N for those who want networking, latest features and good resolution at a budget price tag.

Read reviews of Samsung Laser Printers, IBM Laser Printers reviews in this website.

Ricoh Aficio SP C221N Network Printer - Technical Specification Table

Design:

Sleek architecture:
The Infoprint 1824’s sleek architecture is proved by its dimensions, which is (H x W x D) 40 x 42.4 x 29.2 cm and light weight of just 21kgs. You might think that that does not sound much like sleek and light, yes you are right, but you must also keep in mind that the Infoprint1824 Colour A4 Laser Printer is an office printer. It has a very official look having a grey and white finishing. It has a very simple monochrome display and minimalistic controls. A compact printer will be a great option for a small office as it would slide in anywhere, giving you a lot of office space. In fact, it even has a small advantage of reducing the shipping and packing costs.

The control panel:
The front control panel offers you an easy way of viewing the status of print. You can cancel the processing jobs just with a single touch of the button and check the status very quickly with two coloured job light provided which shows green when processing and red when it undergoes an error.
A hundred percent front access is provided for the feed of the paper, removal of the paper after print and even to clear errors occurred due to miss-feeds. For printing using difficult media the printer is providing us with a choice of single sheet manual feed.

Input:
A dual drawer is also provided with the IBM Infoprint Colour 1824 LaserJet Printer which got a capacity of holding 650 sheets. By providing this dual drawer the printer is offering the user an input tractability, which is now capable of holding totally 901 sheets (251 in normal tray and 650 in dual drawer).

An USB port is provided on the front panel which is PictBridge certified which allows you to directly connect your USB flash drive to the printer through the USB port provided.

Features:

Networking:
Networking is a very useful business feature incorporated in the IBM 1824 duplex laser printer. It helps to create a network with different number of systems so that it can function on behalf of all the systems.

Back to back printing:
The two sided printing standard is another occupying business feature of the laser printer. Without wasting the papers just by printing one side, this option saves a lot of papers. It is also provided with application tractability with a vast diversity of media.

Huge 500MHz Processor:
The IBM Infoprint Colour 1824 Laser Printer is incorporated with 500MHz Processor, which reduces the time taken for the first print compared to other competitor printers. It just takes 12 seconds for the first print. It also very actively prints high impact, professional quality commercialising stuffs by in taking great deal of power because of the processor.

128 MB Internal Memory:
The printer is also provided with 128 MB of internal memory, which can be expanded upto 640 MB of memory.

Easy access:
The IBM printer provides you with a very easy way to access the modern print quality characteristics such as colour correction which can be done manually, setting colour balance, contrast, brightness, intensity and ICC profile matching.

Print speed:
The IBM Infoprint Colour 1824 printer performs with very high printing speeds. It is capable of printing 25 pages per minute for colour and 25 pages per minute for monochrome. The IBM laser printer takes 11 seconds for first black and white print and 12 second for first colour print. The manufacturer recommends a volume of up to 3000 pages per month to get a good performance and output from the printer.

Print quality:
The print quality of the printer is very professional, very high quality with absolutely precise colours. The print is of crispy detail and polished slopes. This extremely high quality of the print produced by IBM Infoprint Colour 1824 laser printer is making it also incisively suitable for business needs also.

Eco- Friendly:

The Eco mode provided in the IBM laser printer it reduces the power consumption and preserves energy used by the printer just by selecting the options which are most suitable for the environment.

The toner supplied with the IBM 1824 printer is an extra high yield toner. By providing such an extra high yield toner cartridges the IBM is trying to reduce the waste added to the environment. These cartridges are of long life span compared to other toner cartridges. The cartridges provided with this model are not compatible with any other model prior to it. The extra high yield toners offer you a chance to increase the productivity and also reduce the price for print per page. You can return the used cartridges to the IBM, who in return is offering you a good discount on next cartridge.

Warranty:

The IBM Infoprint 1824 Laser Printer is provided with one year manufacturer warranty.

Verdict:

The IBM Infoprint 1824 Network Laser Printer can be said as calm, portable and affordable printer. The print quality is extraordinary for the money paid for it. It will be best suited for home, small office and business purposes. The manufacturer of the printer is not only providing a high quality printer, he is also giving the user a chance to conserve environment along with him just by purchasing the printer. So be quick to be a part of the IBM team by making a wise decision of purchasing the printer. If you are a person waiting to buy an affordable colour printer, with many advance features like USB print, and high quality print then this printer is a best suit for them.

Check Oki Laser Printer Models, Xerox Laser Printer Reviews in this website.

IBM Infoprint 1824 - Technical Specifications, Features

Bulky design:

The KX-MB771 all-in-one laser printer looks quite official in off-white and at the very first look at it, you will be able to say that it is a multifunctional printer as you will find lots happening in it. Upright on the top of the printer you will find the output tray which is the case in any other laser printer. And just beneath it, you will find the neatly organised control panel with the big and catchy start and stop buttons on the right end grabbing attention. From the left, first comes the fax auto answer button followed by the function buttons of scan, copy and fax followed by collate, contrast, resolution, zoom and page layout buttons. The display is a two line x 16 characters LED.  There is a circular navigational pad and just above it, you will find the menu button. The other major buttons include Caller ID, redial/pause, Recall and monitor. In the right end you will find the numerical keypad that is big and bold.

The input tray has a standard capacity of 250 sheets and hence, you will never have to worry about running out of paper even during high volume print or fax job. This laser printer has both beauty and convenience in it.

OS Compatibility of KX-MB771:

The Panasonic KX-MB771 Multifunction Mono Laser Printer works with operating system like Microsoft Windows 98, Microsoft Windows ME, Microsoft Windows 2000, Microsoft Windows XP and Microsoft Windows Vista.

Quality Laser Printing:

The new model KX-MB771 offers the printer function assure high quality 600 x 600 dpi resolution. This resolution is maintained in every document either you print, scan or copy. The laser printer boasts a high printing and copying speed of up to 18 pages per minute. This speed is genuine and is really good for a multi-functional printer. It takes approximately just 15 seconds to warm up.

The “Multi-Function Station” launcher software is bundled along with the printer and this software allows easy setup and selection of multiple functions.

A Laser Fax Machine:

Panasonic KX-MB771 printer/copier/scanner is designed for fast and efficient fax transmissions at a speed of 4 seconds per page. It features a 33.6 kbps super G3 fax machine, which bears standard, fine and super fine modes allows you to make choices based on the importance of the document. The unit has a photo reception transmission memory of back up to 170 pages and transmission memory of up to 150 pages. The memory offered is ideal for broadcasting multi-page documents to multiple locations. Panasonic has employed some advanced features in the machine like, 64- level photo resolution, dual access with reserved transmission and error correction mode. It also has 33,600 bps speed modem of fax machine Resolution.

Even while the unit is busy sending or receiving a memory based fax, you will be allowed to store additional documents to be sent later. With this printer you will be able to send or copy everything from family photos to official documents with the nearest original quality possible, thanks to the 64- level half tone reproduction. This laser printer is also incorporated with and in-built error correction mode (ECM) PC fax Junk fax prohibitor.

KX-MB771 as A Copier:

The KX-MB771 enhances the copy quality to 600 dpi clear and sharp copies are assured and hence, is capable of working as a professional copier. In addition to the 20-sheet Automatic Document Feeder, a built-in flatbed allows you to scan, copy, or fax a variety of originals in different shapes or sizes. The CIS (Color Contact Image Sensor) image sensor allows for high-speed scanning and high-resolution image reproduction even when the spine is raised slightly above the glass plate.

The copier has a high copy speed of up to 18 pages per minute and has the capability to make up to 99 multi copies. It is capable of 25-400% reduction or enlargement.

Panasonic KX-MB771 as a Scanner:

The Panasonic KX-MB771 will be useful for colour scanning with flat bed. The laser scanner allows you to scan documents in colour or black-and-white at a high resolution of 600 dpi x 1200 dpi with flatbed, or 600 dpi x 300 dpi with a 20-sheet Automatic Document Feeder. It scans in maximum scanning resolution of 9600 dpi x 9600 dpi when interpolation is used.

KX-MB77 is a TWAIN compatible scanner that can scan to PC in formats like PDF, JPEG or TIFF which converts scanned images to editable documents with Readiris OCS software easy to use image viewer and bears ADF 9600 dpi interpolated scanning resolution, 24 bit colour scanning output, 8 bit monochrome output and 16 bit white gray scales. With the “Multi-Function Station” launcher software installed, you will be able to easily access a variety of image processing functions from the graphical menu. In the viewer scan menu, you can choose page view, reduction, Duplicate, and Cut and Paste functions. OCR function is also available in 1-byte language designation models.

Package contents and Accessories:

The package contents of the printer include the Panasonic KX-MB771 Laser Multi-Function Fax, AC Adapter, Installation Guide, Manual and warranty information. As an option, you can get the KX-FA103 handset unit for additional functionalities and the consumables includes a KX-FAT92 Toner Cartridge (2,000 pages) and KX-FAD93 Drum Unit (Max. 6,000 pages).

Warranty:

Panasonic KX-MB771 multi function printer is provided with 1 year of service and support.

Verdict:

Panasonic KX-MB771 multifunction Laser Fax Machine  is a good printer with good quality, performance, power consumption and speed. It is suggestible to buy a Panasonic for home to meet all your day to day needs like printing, fax, copying and scanning. It is a best choice and of good value and good brand and even is affordable one too.

Check other Mono Laser Printers in this website.

Panasonic KX-MB771 Multi-functional Printer - Technical Specification Details

The Konica Minolta 1690MF is one of the best multifunction printers on the market that is designed to print, copy, scan & fax. From desktop to large workgroup output devices, Konica Minolta’s award winning range of laser printers delivers superior quality and guarantees top performance. It is relatively compact compared to some rival models and comes with a 100-sheet paper tray, 50-sheet automatic document feeder and 10/100Mbps Ethernet for attaching to a local network. Space-saving design, quality results and user-friendly features make the MagiColor 1690MF the last office assistant you will ever need.

Size, Colour and Access of 1690MF:

Konica Minolta 1690MF Multi Function Laser Printer is small in size but efficient in output and in case of colour laser printer, the smaller is the printer, the better is for you. The printer measures about 10.9 x 15.6 x 15 inches (H x W x D), which means that this compact printer will not take more space next to your desktop. Its relative compact footprint is perfect for desktop use and it features an easy to read display for intuitive operation.
The Black and Gray coloured combination is an outstanding attraction for your Konica Minolta MagiColor 1690MF multi function laser printer. It is incomparable with any other wide ranges of laser printers in the market for its compact appearance and flexible make out design by the manufacturer. Another most convenient access in MagiColor 1690MF is its front access panel operating system. Replacing toner cartridges is been made simple now with the full front access panel in your MagiColor printer. Toner yields up to 2,500 pages per cartridge

Compatibility:

There is no compromise with the printer’s compatibility issues. All your Office requirements will be covered with a single device. Print, scan, copy and fax. All in one MagiColor 1690MF saves you time and money. There is only one machine to monitor, maintain and order supplies for. Being extremely compact, it can be smoothly incorporated into the smallest office spaces or sit close next to you in your home on your desk.

User Benefits the Single-pass method of colour printing:

The MagiColor 1690MF all-in-one printer is sure to impress with its flexible media handling. It processes paper weights between 60 and 209 gm and it includes envelopes, labels, thick paper and recycled paper.
The Users are facilitated with their own creation of posters, signs, presentations and various other marketing materials on the MagiColor 1690 MF. Also it includes the features of poster function for special effects, blowing up photos on 4, 9, and 16 or up to 25 A4 sheets. Combination of pages from 2 to 16 pages on a single sheet is made possible when downsizing with n-up functional mode. Flexible document options on your all in one colour laser printer makes custom copies possible and scanning of a variety of file formats convenient through a USB 2.0 interface.

Rapid Speed:

The Konica Minolta MagiColor 1690MF output original prints at 35,000 pages per month at speeds up to 20ppm in black and white, and 5ppm colour at vivid 1200 x 600 dpi, as rated by Konica Minolta. It uses four passes for colour printing, thus its speed rate for colour documents is 5 pages per minute whereas in case of monochrome documents, the speed rate increases to 20 pages per minute. But there is no compromise in quality output in your Konica Minolta 1690MF Colour Laser Printer.

Host-Based Processor:

Unlike higher-end laser printers, the Konica Minolta MagiColor 1690MF does not have a Postscript processor. It entirely works out with the use of Host based processing which means your computer can save, prepare and keep the files ready for printing and transfers it to the printer.

Range of Copy Modes:
Different copy modes on the MagiColor 1690MF Printer, Copier & Scanner, which ensures optimal quality and includes a photo, text and mixed modes. There are two separate start buttons which allows instant copying in either colour or black and white.

1690MF Energy Rating:

Go Green! Save utility bills with Energy star rated MagiColor 1690MF which meant to protect the environment too. Less than 14 watts will be consumed at sleep mode itself. And so, no worries about paying high utility bills anymore.

Convenient Flatbed Scanning:

The MagiColor 1690MF offers convenient scanning to PC. Its available file formats includes PDF, JPEG and TIFF. In addition, the Link Magic software provides easy access to the most frequently used scanning applications. You will be able to scan images with Link Magic and save them to any directory on the hard disk of your computer. With its full network compatibility, the MagiColor 1690MF will let you scan originals directly to email or a shared folder on your PC. Scan pictures, documents and more at speeds up to 20opm of monochrome and 3.3opm colour using the automatic document feeder on your AIO printer.

Automated Easy Operating System:

The MagiColor 1690MF is flexible for the user’s comfort. With its compact design and small footprint, it can be easily integrated into any office setting with limited space. The MagiColor 1690MF features a large, easy to read display and convenient access from the front for straightforward exchange of consumables. The automatic document feeder on the MagiColor 1690MF makes copying or faxing multi-page documents fast, smooth and also accommodates 35 sheets of paper at a time. It is time saving printer of course. For any busy office environment, the MagiColor 1690 MF is the best multi functional printer which in turn increases official productivity by fitting 500-sheet paper tray with automated document feeder. Another worth considering option in your Konica Minolta MagiColor 1690MF is the availability of automatic duplexing unit which allows you to print on both sides of a sheet of paper.

Easy Faxing:

With this multifunctional printer, you will be able to send a document very fast using the 33.6 Kbps Super G3 fax that comes standard on your Konica Minolta MagiColor 1690MF, which also includes PC driver and 6 MB memory.

Quality Output:

The resulting output prints from your Konica 1690MF are of Very good quality and unbeatable clarity. Text is sharp and clean at any point of sizes. Even thin curved lines are unbroken and smooth.

Crisp Text and Images are ensured .Whether in colour or black and white, the 1690MF will impress with its brilliant image quality. It also comes equipped with Simitri HD polymerised toner, which adds clarity and definition to the tiniest detail. At the same time, the toner save mode on the MagiColor 1690MF reduces toner consumption, saving you money and thus ensures smoother, more natural images and sharper text while saving 15% more energy.

The photocopies printed from 1690MF Compact laser printer are impressive and no doubt about the quality. A copy of our resolution test with the printer reveals that it is quite difficult to find difference with the original and the photo copied text and images.

Small Price Tag:

What can be better than having a printer well designed compactly fit your space next to desktop and economically fit your budget to buy a colour laser printer? The Konica Minolta MagiColor multi functional laser printer is one such printer which can be said as an economical device. If you buy this printer, you can tell proudly, but arguably that “my Konica Minolta MagiColor 1690MF is the cheapest colour laser printer in the market with fast printing abilities”. The printer gives a running cost of 2.9 cents per B&W and 16.6 cents per colour page.

Warranty:

Konica offers a one year limited warranty for parts and labour for Konica Minolta MagiColor 1690MF laser printer.

Verdict:

Having a compact design, lot of options for connectivity and all in one functionality is all too appealing. Finally, the best choice to go for in the decision in buying compact laser printers in the market is our Konica Minolta MagiColor 1690MF multifunctional laser printer.

Check 2009 model latest laser printers, other colour laser printer reviews in this website.

Konica Minolta 1690MF Colour Laser Printer - Specifications, Features

C1100N - A bulky laser printer:

Design wise, the AcuLaser C1100N Colour Laser Printer does not belong to the compact category. It is quite a bulky printer, which would need the space of an old model desktop PC. The paper feed is available from a tray at the bottom of the machine and the paper comes out via the top cover and a pull out paper support has been offered for the support of longer sheets. The feed tray is quite unique as it is a 180 sheet multi-purpose tray. In order to feed the paper in, the front cover has to be removed and another thing that has to be noted here is that, there is no removable tray to fill, which is a major disadvantage. If you are looking for some extra capacity, then you can add an optional paper tray of 500 sheets capacity, which can be fitted underneath and this makes the device even taller. An automatic duplexer is also an option.

The control panel:

The control panel is surprisingly very simple to use and it has been angled into the front lip of the printer. It consists of a single line, 16 character LCD screen along with four small buttons to its right and another small circular cancel button to its left and a large Go button with an built-in action LED. A second line could have been added to the LCD display and it would have been much better if Epson has provided with a backlight for the display. The menu system is very simple and is extremely easy to traverse.

Connectivity:

Coming to the connectivity options, there is a USB2.0 port and a parallel port. Being a sophisticated version of the AcuLaser C1100 model, this “N” version has Ethernet connectivity option which the former lacks.

The initial setup:

Setting up the AcuLaser C1100N Duplex Laser Printer is not that complicated. In order to fit in the all in one photo conducter, the top cover of the printer has to be opened, and the same applies for fitting in the fuser unit. The other front slot paves way to insert the four cylinders of toners into the rotating carousel mechanism. Since this is placed deep inside the printer, fitting in the cartridges can be quite a fiddly job. During the process of printing, the C, Y, M, and K images are built up in turn on the drum before it is being transferred to the paper. As a four-pass laser, the paper passes through the print process four times for colour pages, but black-and-white prints zip through in a single pass. And hence, the monochrome prints come out much faster than the colour documents.

An advantage with the separate cartridges:

One of the advantageous facts about this laser printer is that, since it uses four separate photo sensitive drums and toner units, it works much faster than the ones that work with a carousel. The principle involved is that, the time taken to turn the carousel and apply each colour individually will be longer than making up all four colour images on separate drums and applying them all to the paper in one pass. The only consumables are the photo conductor unit, which has a service life of 42,000 black pages or 10,500 in colour, and toner. Black toner comes in a 7,000 page cartridge, with each of the colours available in standard (5,000) or high (7,000) capacities.

Print speed of AcuLaser C1100N:

The Epson AcuLaser C1100N is having an extremely impressive print speed, in fact it is one of the quickest colour printers that we have ever tested. The 67MHz processor seems to be doing a great job. It managed to five pages of black text in just 24 seconds, which gives a true rate of 12.5 pages per minute. The C1100N manages to print mixed text and graphics in 18 seconds and 5″x3″ photo in just 19 seconds. This rate is amazing when compared to the other latest laser printers such as the OKI C3100 which takes 25secs and the Samsung CLP-550 that takes 29 seconds, which implies the C1100N is about 20% faster than the rest.

Print quality:

The AcuLaser C1100N LaserJet Printer does not let you down in terms of print quality too. The black text is very clear and clean, the fonts are very even and are reproduced accurately and in a good proportion. They look very solid without being shiny or glossy with reflected lights. The grays are smmoth and clean but slight ghosting is visible over black lines. Graphs and charts look neat and tidy, and hence, professional reports will have the required impact. The colour pictures are good but cannot be said as excellent as there are some variations in large areas of solid colour. Overall, the prints look smart and professional. The pages come out nearly flat sans any curling issues.

Photo printing:

Coming to photo printing, the AcuLaser C1100N excelled as a laser. Though there was occasional hint of purple cast in the monochrome prints, they have great contrast and detail, with no signs of banding. The photo reproduction is quite vivid and faint banding is visible, but we must confess that the foreground detail’s quality was extremely good and the graduated tints are smooth. Although image printing isn’t a primary strength in lasers, the C1100 will let you add images to professional projects with confidence. It’s rather noisy at times though, and it can take a while to settle down again after a long print-run.

The software bundle:

Epson has offered a pretty comprehensive software bundle which includes Photo Quicker and Print Image Framer, as well as the driver. Providing with two different photo specific utilites with a laser printer is quite odd. We are aware of the fact that printing of photo images will be one of the tasks of a colour laser printer but photo reproduction will not certainly be the primary job of the laser printer. The driver utility possesses the standard set of features such as watermarking, etc, but the issue here is that, it does not have any specific control of colour or measures that attempt colour matching. And hence, you will have to rely entirely on the application software that you must be having for this.

Warranty:

Epson offers AcuLaser C1100N one year standard warranty, but you can also opt to get 3 years extended warranty.

Verdict:

The Epson AcuLaser C1100N is a well constructed printer that does not have a great design, but excellent print speeds and great quality. If you are looking for a laser printer for your office and really care about the print speeds and quality, there cannot be a better option other than the C110N. The Ethernet connectivity option is of course an added advantage.

You can check reviews of latest laser printers, Best selling Colour laser printer reviews in this website.

Epson AcuLaser C1100N Laser Printer - Technical Specification Table

A reasonably Compact printer:

The CP1215 LaserJet Compact printer from HP possesses a design that is very similar to that of the CP2025n. The printer has got the “Compact” tag with its dimensions of just 10 x 15.7 x 20” (H X W X D) inches. The unit weighs 38.9 pounds which is considerably lighter than most of the laser printers out there in the market. These low values are obtained by omitting the internal auto duplexing and networking hardware.

Buttons and controls:

It also has a grey and white shades that covers the exterior, but the HP CP1215 Duplex Laser Printer does not have a LCD display. Instead, HP has included a main control panel towards the side of the face plate that contains all the buttons that are required to manipulate and trouble shoot the laser printer. The buttons and lights in the control panel includes paper feed button, power button, ready light, resume light, paper jam light, attention light and an array of status lights that indicate the low toner levels etc. These LED status lights work fine but it would have been much better if HP had just included a two line LCD display. If only they had employed an LCD display, then the display of very specific details on specific trouble shooting and printing job could have been given.

The other parts of the printer are quite simple with just a small power button on the left side and a power plug on the lower rear side of the printer. All of the paper accessing and toner handlings are in the front of the printer in form of several fold out drawers. They are lined in the order of output tray on the top, followed by the toner drawer and an input tray at the end. The input tray has a capacity of 150 sheets.

Installation and set-up of CP1215:

The process of installing the drivers and setting up a connection is very simple and hassle free as this is an USB only printer. For now HP has got no offer of any networking attachment for the printer and so, if you have any idea of networking, then a direct attachment is mandatory. We appreciate HP for providing the basic instructions in a very simple manner. The driver also runs and installation guide automatically that will be of great help for installation purposes.

Driver options:

The driver offers you a few options that allow you to customise a few settings but it is no where near the comprehensive CP2025n. The CP1215 colour Laserjet Printer is in a fixed 600 x 600dpi for both black and colour prints. You are given options to choose between four colour or black neutral greys in order to save ink, yet there is no way that you will be able to adjust the resolution of the prints. The driver options are formatted in such a way that it suites the windows operating system and hence there is no option for the Mac users, which takes out a wide spectrum of users out of the market.

Price reducing strategy:

Now a days, as we had mentioned in some of the other reviews, manufacturers offer a starter set of toner cartridges that are only a fraction of what you get in the shops. This is done in order to strategically keep the prices of the printer low. And the worse is that for most of the consumers, this surprise comes only after purchasing the printer as it is not clearly mentioned in the package itself. And, the Hewlett Packard Colour LaserJet CP1215 is not an exception, all the four toner cartridges, cyan, magenta, yellow and black contain approximately just the half of a standard volume toner.

Quite an expensive operation:

When the price of the prints are roughly calculated, they are slightly expensive than the HP CP2025n. The LaserJet CP1215 has got a monthly duty cycle of 1000 pages, where as, its competition laser has a cycle of 40,000 pages which makes the fact clear that it is suited only for the small office uses.

Awful print speed:

Coming to the part of performance, HP Colour LaserJet CP1215’s speed cannot be well described by any other word than “Pathetic”. It gave around 6ppm for colour graphics, 5 and a half ppm for presentation, 5.36 for colour text and a little more than 8ppm for black text. When put in comparison with the other printers, you will be find that the difference is totally unacceptable, and will get frustrated by waiting for a colour print to appear from the printer.

Excellent quality though:

Though the speed had let you down, the quality of the prints do not do the same. They are excellent with well formed black and colour text. Even the edges are sharp and shading is dense. Though some banding can be witnessed in some of the fine details, majority of the photo elements comes out well with nicely saturated natural colour. Overall, the print quality of HP Colour LaserJet CP1215 Single Function Printer is good for a small office that has occasional presentation to be thrown in but for the larger offices that have heavy photographic works would like to have a quality of print that can be offered only by inkjet printers.

The package contents includes the HP LaserJet CP1215 laser printer, power cable, 750-page cyan, magenta, yellow, and black cartridges, CD with user guide and printer software and a getting started guide.

Warranty and support:

HP offers HP Colour LaserJet CP1215 with one year warranty. In addition to this, HP also offers 24×7 toll free phone support with instant chatting during week days. HP’s website also has a load of other useful tuffs for your printer such as, downloadable drivers, software, manuals, e-mail tech support and even trouble shooting guide.

Verdict:

HP Colour LaserJet CP1215’s pros include the simple design, ease in installation, good quality colour prints, low price tag and support for manual duplexing. Whereas, the cons list extends to expensive operation, incompatibility with Mac OS, very slow print speeds, absence of a LCD display, very small quantity of toners offered and the fixed resolution.
And so, if you are having a system that operates on Mac or in a situation of printing a large number of sheets, look for a better alternative, a cost effective Dell 1320cn which is another laser printer that offers faster colour prints and also a single sheet manual feed slot. Else if you own a small office and not cared about the print speeds, the LaserJet CP1215 is in fact a good choice.

You may also be interested in reviews and specification details of HP LaserJet 1300, HP LaserJet P1005 Printer.

HP Color Laserjet CP1215 (CC376A#ABA) Specification Details

The prices of the laser printers are falling continuously and people are thinking to add a second printer to the inkjet all in one printers that they might already posses. The reason being, monochrome laser printers are still very cheaper and quicker than that of the monochrome inkjet printers. The Kyoera Mita builds over this cost difference. The following review is on the Kyocera Mita FS-1100 Monochrome laser Printer. This squat, functionally-designed printer is designed for day-to-day business printing and has good eco-credentials for its low consumable count.

A design with lot of gimmicks:

Kyocera Mita FS-1100 Mono laser Printer has a grey and cream theme. A couple of highlights have been made in the cream and black theme in order to depict its individuality. It has simple but a smart design. The design highlight of the printer is an interesting circular indicator panel that has two orange and four green LEDs that indicate the status conditions such as that of low toner or low paper or paper jams or anything else that calls for attention. A triangular end stop is available for the paper that outputs to the top cover of the printer. Adding to the already fancying gimmicks is a small transparent window below the fold out paper stop that shows the number of toner cartridge. This acts as a good reminder of the part number of the toner cartridge and we would have liked it more if it could show the current toner level.

Media and ports:

The capacity of the main paper tray is 250 sheets and there is also a single sheet feed just above the main paper tray for the sake of special media. This can be used to feed letterheads, envelopes or other oddly sized media. Rear of the printer has a socket for the USB connection. When you flip open the top cover, you get easy access to the 4000 page toner cartridge which is the only consumable in the machine. A network adapter and a second paper tray can be added as optional extras. Another option for upgrading is memory upgrades from the 32MB that is supplied as standard.

Simple, straightforward design:

Physical setup is straightforward, as the printer only requires a toner cartridge to get it running. The initial set-up of the FS-1100 printer is very easy. The first time printing alone makes you wait for a while as the toner charging cycle has to be done which lasts for around seven minutes. This delay occurs when you clip in the printer’s toner cartridge and switch it on for the first time. Software installation is little more than a driver, though this is both well-designed and well-featured. It includes support for multiple pages per sheet, poster prints, scaling and the inclusion of separate covers, page insertions and watermarks.

Software and Language:

Kyocera Mita’s Mac OS X driver comes on a supplied CD. A Leopard-specific driver is also available from its website. The driver includes emulations of both PostScript Level III and PCL6, as well as Kyocera’s own Prescribe page description language. Other languages that can be downloaded include Kyocera, PCL + TrueType format and Type 1 + 3 format.

The unique drum technology:

Kyocera Mita FS-1100 Laserjet printer possesses an unique drum technology that lasts the full life of the printer. Kyocera Mita uses a patented coating for its photoconductor drum, which lasts the lifetime. With this kind of a technology, you will never need to change the drum on this budget mono printer and hence, you need to pay only to replenish the toner.

Processor and memory:

FS-1100 uses the PowerPC 405F5 processor that works at 360 Mhz. It has a standard memory of 32MB along with ECOmemory. The controller language is PRESCRIBE Iie.

Print speed:

Kyocera Mita FS-1100’s printing speed is rated to be 28 pages per minute in draft mode but during normal printing, it manages to produce only 16ppm for text and a little less than this while printing both text and graphics. Printing of a single 15 x 10cm photo takes around 15 seconds. With this speed rate, we can say that these are average for that of a laser printer in this price range, but then is quite fast when you consider a typical inkjet printer at a similar price. This monochrome laser printer takes a warm-up time of 19 seconds and the time for the first print is just six seconds or less than that.

Print quality:

Having a resolution of 1200dpi, the quality of the prints are good. Most of the monochrome printers in this price range have a core resolution of only 600dpi and then make use of software interpolation to mimic the higher level. The texts are dark and there cannot be any signs of spatters of jagged edges that could be notices. The grey scales are smooth too, but slight banding is noticeable. They look a bit on the lighter side when compared with the grey scale prints from the other printers.

Cost efficiency:

The cost per print comes to as low as 2p and so, the Kyocera Mita FS-1100 is a very cost efficient printer too.

Warranty:

Kyocera Mita offers Kyocera Mita FS-1100 a warranty of two years.

Verdict:

Kyocera Mita FS-1100 is a monochrome printer that has a design that does not interpret its budget cost and performance is good too, having and average speed and the quality of the prints, dark and legible. As we has discussed in the main review, the cost of operation is very less too. Looking for an attractive, low budget and good quality printer? Kyocera Mita FS-1100 is the one for you. We recommend it for the SOHO market.

You may also be interested in Brother HL-5040 Mono Laser Printer, HP LaserJet 1300 Monochrome Laser Printer.

Kyocera Mita FS-1100 Laser Printer - Technical Specification Details

Compact design:

The main campaign feature of the printer is in its design. It looks very sleek and compact and also possesses a very stylish design. It has a matte black finish which is the current trend in the market. Its elegant looks adds beauty and style to the place where it is kept. The simple looks of the laser printer with no gimmicks compliments its ease of use. It has just three controls and indicators, it has a light for power and data, another light for indicating “Low Toner’ and a button for canceling the print operation.  One-button print job cancellation helps you correct even volume.

Connectivity and set-up:

The only way by which an external source like PC can establish a connection with the Samsung ML-1640 Mono Laser Printer is via the USB2.0 interface which is located in the left panel in the rear side of the laser printer. In the right hand side of the rear is the kettle head power connection.  The set up of the printer is extremely easy and the installation of the given software can be done very quickly as it is simple and fast. Samsung has equipped ML-1640 with a combined drum and a toner cartridge and it has also included a long articulated handle using which you can manipulate the cartridge to the back of the printer within the case. This system does not make you feel much comfortable.

No dust protection:

In order to print, you will have to unfold the output paper support from the top surface and fold down the front flap which acts as the paper feed tray. There is one disadvantage with this kind of design that is, if you will need to keep Samsung ML-1640 Mono Laser Printer ready for printing at any time, the input tray has to be kept open without any dust cover. Many of the low budget entry level printers come at least with a detachable cover and the cheap Canon i-SENSYS LBP-3100 comes with a built-in dust protection.

Compatibility:

Supports a wide range of operating systems, including Windows, various Linux OS and Mac OS 10.3 ~ 10.5.

Tray capacities:

The capacity of the input paper tray is 150 sheets and the capacity of the outlet tray is 100 sheets. You will be able to notice lot of quirks with the printer. One of them is that, the Samsung ML-1640 catches the trailing edge of the preceding sheet and pushes it out of the tray when the pages are fed to the top paper tray.

Good print speed:

Samsung claims the printing speed of the machine to be 16ppm for A4 and 17ppm for letter size. This specification is quite true, but you will not get this rate of printing straight away. The print speed of ML-1640 increases as the job increases. For instance, ML-1640 prints 5 sheets in 30 seconds but 20 pages in 84 seconds and so on. You will be able to achieve the speed that is specified in the specs when you have a job of around 100 sheets. In a situation where few minutes passed from previous printing, you will have to spend some time waiting for first sheet of next printing job to be printed. Reason for this is that, after every pause in printing process ML-1640 needs a noticeable period of time for warming up.

Toner Save Mode:

Samsung has employed the Toner Save Mode feature to ML-1640, which allows you to save up to 30% on toner while still producing high quality prints. It also means less frequent toner changes. Printing options let you save paper by printing 2-up, 4-up, even up to 16-up on one page.

Excellent print quality:

For a monochrome laser printer costing less than £100, the print quality is very good. The text quality is very precise and there is very little signs of any shaky texts. Coming to the grayscale graphics, they are well reproduced too and offers clear classification of the colours. In case of grayscale slight banding can be seen but you would not be able to notice it as it is, it can be seen only if it is searched for. The texts over greyscale fills show up well. Samsung ML-1640 Mono Laser Printer has a maximum print resolution of 1200×600dpi which makes the mono images printed very grainy. But the details produced by the printer is so good that the prints can be used for both internal and external documentation purposes.

Cost of operation:

The cost of printing in Samsung ML-1640 is about 25% higher than that of the Canon model. The overall cost of printing is quite high for a monochrome laser printer. On the other hand, this printer like all other monochrome laser printers from the same category should be avoided if you have in mind large printing jobs on monthly basis. That is because these models are neither robust nor economical enough for this type of exploitation.

The package:

Usually a standard cartridge prints 1500 pages but Samsung, like many other manufacturers of low cost printers has just offered a started cartridge which has a capacity of just 700 pages. We cannot actually complain over this because ML-1640 Mono Laser Printer is a budget home office printer, but what we do have to say is that Samsung could have mentioned the toner capacity, right over its page. The software that is bundled with the printer includes the Dr. Printer diagnostic and a driver that supports watermarks and overlays and instructions for manual duplexing. All the documents provided are very easy to use and understandable too.

Warranty:

Samsung ML-1640 Mono Laser Printer comes with one year standard warranty.

Verdict:

Samsung ML-1640 Mono Laser Printer is a compact sleek printer that suites you home office the best. The print speed is pleasing and the quality of the mono texts and greyscale graphics are excellent. The absence of dust cover is a disadvantage to this printer.  Though the initial cost of buying the printer is less, the operational cost is high. We recommend Samsung ML-1640, but you could compare this with the other low budget monochrome printers like Canon i-SENSYS LBP-3100 before you take a final decision.

You may also be interested in checking Canon Laser Printer Reviews,  Latest Laser Printer Models in this website.

Samsung ML-1640 Laser Printer - Technical Specification Table