Rating: 
Summary: Printer Driver Crashs System - NO Minolta Support
Review: I have tried to install this printer on my PC and the driver crashes the system. The computer exceeds every minamum system requirement. I am running the XP operating system and have tried the driver provided with the PC and the current driver from Minolta-QMS Web site. When I contact Minolta they say the support group will call within 1-2 days. I would not buy this printer. If you do try it when it crashs the system the only way to recover is to boot in Safe Mode, then perform a System Restore function.
Rating: 
Summary: Perfectly good if you dont have any special conditions
Review: I just bought this printer last week, and have had a chance to look it over thoroughly and do quite a bit of printing.
The good:
If you want nice color prints and speedy b&w laser text output, you cant go wrong here. On regular white copier paper this produces better color prints than the Epson 700 and 800 series inkjets (my other two printers) did on special coated photo paper. The b&w text output is crisp and better than my last two monochrome lasers. This unit allows me to work from one printer, without compromise. It has a good range of connection options, ethernet, usb and parallel. As can be expected, hooking it up to a network is nothing short of rocket science so I can understand why some buyers would give a bad review based on that. But this printer is no different from any other network printer, the complexity is in the way microsoft does networking, not in the printer itself.
Color photos come out with a slight gloss to them...less than inkjets on coated paper...less than a real photo...but a nice shine. I hear there are some semi-gloss laser print papers that produce a better output. I dont have a need to spend money on that, these are good enough. I also hear that using superwhite (100+) copier/printer paper produces even better results. When I use up the rest of the case of 80 white I bought 2 years ago I'll do that. If there is any question on output quality, I'm printing my wedding photos on it and the wife is very happy with them. Some reviewers have been upset that putting coated photo paper in them causes the paper to melt. Thats because you arent SUPPOSED to put coated inkjet photo paper into a laser printer. It says so in the manual, and it usually says so on the printer paper package. Read the manuals!
By the way, printing monochrome text pages in the "color" mode slows down the output to the same 4ppm as color prints. Make sure you default the printer to B&W output and change it to color only when you want it. Then it'll step the printer up to the faster b&w print rate of 12-15ppm.
The bad, revealed:
Its loud and clunks a lot when printing as it has to change between four toner cartridges. Theres a fan that runs all the time. If this was in a small business environment and I had to sit within 5' of it all day, I'd be unhappy. I use this at home. I turn it on, print my stuff, turn it off, no problems.
Speed is not as high as some other lasers. Hmm, it churns out four pages a minute in color and about 12-15 in black and white. Plenty fast enough for me...what are ya gonna do...print out 500 color prints an hour??
Many have maligned the 'design' with regards to where the connections are. On mine, the connections are on the left side of the printer, at the back. Paper loads on the left side, just in front of the connections. So you cant slip this printer into a corner with the left side up against a wall. You cant put another printer within a foot of this one on the left side. Its a little ugly to look at the wires, and you cant turn it to put the wires on the back as this is where the paper goes. Kinda a dumb design. Had they put the paper feed on the opposite side, you could put the wired side to the back. I guess if you dont print an awful lot you could just stick 200 sheets of paper in it, turn it around and then pull it out to put more paper in. While its dumb to have done it this way, its not the end of the world for me.
Size. Its very large, but its a tall thin printer. Takes up about the same desk space my old monochrome laser took up. Its also pretty heavy so if you have a dinky table, I'd find someplace else to put it.
The software. The software is weird. For starters its written in Java and installs Sun's JavaVM on your machine all by itself without asking you if you want to do that. I didnt particularly. I also wonder what the rocket science is in writing an installer that isnt dependent on other software packages. But some people cant live with simplicity. The software was not able to perform an adequate network installation of the printer, I had to do it manually. I also had to hook up and connect the printer via USB before running the software, or the install bombs...usually printer software is installed first, so when you connect it windows can automatically recognize it. Even when connecting it first, windows wanted to install it and so did the setup program, so I had to exit the windows new hardware install. Goofy.
Printer memory. More unclear thinking on QMS/Minolta/Konica's part. The printer comes with 32mb of installed memory. You can add more via a plain old fashioned pc100/pc133 DIMM, and I certainly have plenty of those lying around. Unfortunately for many, the printer wont print at full resolution in color without 64MB, and requires 256MB to do full page duplex printing. Fer cryin' out loud, this old memory is something like $10 for 256MB in volume...whats the problem with loading up the printer at the factory? Of course, you have to remove 11 screws to get at the memory slot. This may explain why some reviewers said the printer wouldnt print a full page of color print.
The LCD display. Its not backlit. In a darker room, you cant read it. With light directly on the screen, you cant read it. With moderate to bright room lighting and looking at it indirectly or by shading it from direct light, its perfectly readable. Not really a huge problem, but one has to wonder what the impact of spending an extra five bucks on a backlit LCD display the size of your little finger would have been...?
I'd also have liked to install the latest drivers and software, but Konica/Minolta/QMS's web site wasnt available/responding when I went there.
Non-PC support. I guess if you have a Mac or Linux machines, the drivers are lousy and the support isnt very good. I dont have either of those, so its not a problem for me.
No support for PCL/Postscript. These are 'printer languages', PCL is from HP and postscript is Mac. This is a 'winprinter' which means any windows application that prints through windows will work fine with it. If you have some godawful old home written application that writes PCL or Postscript straight to the printer, you'll get gobbledegook output. I havent seen one of those kinds of apps in a very long time. Like ten years or more. If you're running Word or Powerpoint or any other regular old windows app this is a big fat "so what?".
Bottom line: its pretty, its a little noisy when operating, it has some layout and engineering/design foibles, makes great prints, and is a very very good printer for a home user or small business user. For a small biz user, I'd make sure this sucker is away from the workers desks. Installation could be smoother, but its not a huge problem. If possible, get the printer with the high capacity cartridges installed rather than the starter cartridges. From what I've seen the printer can be bought with the high capacity cartridges for the same price as the four cartridges themselves. Which in a way makes it a disposable printer...why spend more to replace the cartridges, drum and waste toner cartridge when you can buy a whole new one and just sell or donate the old one?
Rating:
Summary: Best thing since sliced bread....
Review: I ran the math, and this laser over an inkjet is a HUGE cost savings. Assuming that the cartridges/toner last for their rated time, you'll be even for costs after 1500 color pages. And I've printed probably 100 color pages, and my consumable display still shows 100% for my color toner status, and I NEVER got the full benefit from my inkjet: they'd dry out, etc. So I think it's a wash even earlier, despite the large up-front cost of this printer vs an inkjet. With replacement toner cartridges, you'll pay about 9.5 cents for a color page, and I think about 2 cents for a B&W page. Compare this to an inkjet, where the costs are about 55 cents and 14 cents respectively. And this doesn't count the difference in quality: it's BEAUTIFUL! I did invitations, and they look unbelievably professional. The downsides: it's fairly good-sized, and HEAVY, and it's much noisier than my old B&W laser when you're printing color (as it switches toner cartridges). But for the speed, quality, and cost, don't even compare it to an inkjet. If you can cough up the initial money, and have the room, it is well worth it! Even with the starter cartridges, even if you only use this printer for the initial toner life of 1500 color pages, you're still only paying $.53/page! Compare this to making color copies at Staples!
Rating:
Summary: Feeling ripped off
Review: If you find this printer for a good price, make sure that you buy several of them since they are cheaper than replacing the toner cartridges and drum, even taking into account the crippled "low capacity" cartridges shipped with the printer. As the other reviewers have said, once the printer decides that you are out of toner it stops printing completely. My printer decided today that there was 0% left of all three color cartridges (what are the odds of that?) so it stopped printing and won't even print black and white pages. Also beware that the low capacity toner cartridges have the same part number as the high capacity ones. Make sure you know what you are ordering.
Rating: 
Summary: A "Winprinter", no pcl5, no postscript, no linux drivers
Review: Ironically, lower cost printers like the Okidata 5100 feature Color Postscript, PCL5, and hence is supported by almost every operating system out there, linux, unix, freebsd, os/2, windows, mac, macos-x.The 2300, however, would qualify as a "winprinter" since it uses a proprietary page description language and protocol, to encode and send the page images from the pc to the printer. There are beta-level linux drivers, created by a third party by reverse-engineering the proprietary page description protocol, but the capabilities of these experimental third party drivers do not come even close to the original proprietary drivers for windows provided by QMS. In short: it's a winprinter. If you want a standards-based printer that supports PCL5, Color Postscript, and works with any operating system, check out the Okidata 5100. The predecessor, the QMS 2200 "Magicolor", is also a Winprinter (more appropiatelly, a "GDI printer", in the sense that it uses a proprietary protocol and the Windows Graphics Engine (Microsoft technology) inside the printer. AVOID THAT, get a real color printer with PCL5 and/or Color Postscript
Rating:
Summary: Almost Perfect
Review: Laser printers are potentially superior to inkjets because of the laser's unsmudgeable ink. However, for years the affordable laser printer with good resolution and good colors has been a mirage on the horizon. Finally, it has arrived as the Minolta Magicolor 2300 DL. Can you tell that I am excited about this printer? I did not consider the companion printer, the 2300W, because of its lower resolution. This sucker is heavy. It might be wise to get help before lifting it onto its table. Installation was a bit rough. I'm on Windows ME, but the installation software did not offer a Windows ME option. I chose the closest, Windows 9x. You can also tell it which drive to install from, but why bother, it will just continue from where it started, right? Wrong. The software tried to read from my camera card reader and froze. I rebooted, restarted installation, and told it to install the Windows 9x driver from the CD drive. This worked. I have downloaded the more recent driver from the Minolta web site but am in no hurry to install it because the driver that came with the printer has caused me no problems except the minor installation problems noted above. Note that I am *not* using this printer's networking capabilities. Looking at the pics of the tilted control panel, you might think that the LED position is adjustable, like on the Hewlett Packard Photosmart 7550. But the LED is firmly fixed and will remain at that same, exact tilt for the life of the printer. Comments by other reviewers that the LED is hard to read are NOT exaggerated. To read the light lettering, I need a flashlight. In planning where you might put this printer, note that a corner would be inconvenient. You will need to access the 2300 from at least three, possibly all four sides: Front to use the control panel and replace the toner cartridges, left for the paper tray, right to clear paper jams (I've had none yet) or optionally install the duplexer, and back to access the motherboard if you add memory. Another planning consideration is that this printer might not be a good choice for printing lots of small jobs. Hidden away in the back of the user's guide, in the section on replacing the drum cartridge, is the statement that the drum cartridge does cleaning rotations after every job; therefore, lots of small jobs wear it out faster. The user's guide says that more memory improves resolution for large-coverage graphics, especially when combined with duplexing. So I bought a 256-MB PNY PC133 SDRAM DIMM from Amazon for one eighth the price charged by Minolta. Getting under the cover of the 2300 was easy enough. The memory socket was empty. (The on-board 32MB chip is somewhere else.) I seldom install memory and found this module stubbornly difficult to seat, but after gentle rocking it finally went in. When I printed a config page, the printer recognized the extra memory, for a grand total of 288 MB. Technically, I have now voided my warranty because the user's guide says that's what happens when you install an accessory not sold by Minolta. And the memory upgrade is listed under "Accessories". However, the memory installation instructions do not explicitly say that you must install Minolta's. Although I have not noticed improvement in the resolution, which I already liked, I have yet to run detailed comparisons with my dozen or so "before" samples. Colors are about equal in quality to those of my Photosmart inkjet, except for one problem: Pure yellow becomes yellow-green. (Greens, however, look OK.) I ~hope~ that this is merely due to contaminated yellow toner and that the problem will disappear after I use up and replace the yellow cartridge. I don't know about you, but I seldom need to print pure yellow. I plan to print such pages on the inkjet, then spray them with clear acrylic to discourage the smudge imp. This is good news--I still have a use for the inkjet and the coated paper that I bought for it. Text is crisp and dark. I definitely prefer it to the lighter text from my old IBM laser printer. 2300 output looks quite attractive on a bright-white 24-lb. laser paper such as Hewlett Packard laserjet paper. Unlike inkjet ink, laser ink/toner does not soak into plain 24-lb. paper, and it binds to a plain surface just fine. Indeed, the user's guide warns that coated inkjet paper will damage the 2300. If you print on both sides, heavy-coverage graphics can cast a shadow on the opposite side of 24-lb. paper, but mainly when the reader lifts the page and lets light shine through from the other side, and I don't think it's enough to bother the reader. Next up the scale is Hewlett Packard 28-lb. "color laser" paper. Great White soft-gloss (coated on both sides) 32-lb. laser paper looks even nicer because of the glossy white spaces--for example, the margins. And if you print on both sides, it is more opaque. It is like the paper in an expensive coffee-table book. Adding to the opulent appearance is the delightful soft gloss of the 2300's 'ink' (if that is the correct term for fused toner). I cannot imagine any reason to use a heavy-gloss paper in this printer. I plan to buy the duplexing attachment later, and after I install and use it, I will add a note here about that experience. I'll also let you know whether the yellow-green problem persists or was a fluke. TWO MONTHS LATER: The problem with the yellow was a fluke. It went away after about 200 pages. It may have been something used in sealing the toner bottle.
.
I am wavering on the duplexer because of the high price and because it does not accept 28-lb. and 32-lb. paper, which I plan to use.
Rating:
Summary: A lot of printer for the money
Review: My deskjet 890c has seen better days, so I was looking for a fast printer with color capabilities and good quality print. For not much more than I paid for my last printer I got the speed, economy and quality of laser printing in my home office. I have only had it for a few days, and have heard wildly different things about the last version of this printer that I thought I would share my experience with this printer after a few hundred pages. I took advantage of the included network card and ran it into my siemens wireless router. I did have to call minolta to get it talking to the computer, but they answered after one menu and in one minute I was talking to a real live person. We reinstalled, synched up IP addresses and had it printing in about ten minutes. It prints beatifully, and you can print four full page photos in about the same time as my old inkjet. I think the page speed is accurate on this machine but with my old inkjet, it could take many times longer than the rated speed depending on what you are printing. The 2300 doesn't seem to differentiate on what its printing the pages just spit out. If its in energy saver, it does take maybe a minute to get the first page out, but its still faster than the first page out of my inkjet when printing invoices from quickbooks, etc. After its warmed up its pretty instantaneous. It does produce fan noise even when idle which some people may find distracting. It is probably noisier than an inkjet when printing, but its over a lot sooner. I can't speak for reliability, but I'm going to buy a 3 year onsite warranty plan that will run about 159.00 just in case. I'm figuring that I will save money of consumables over my two tank inkjet, but I'm not really worried about that. Monochrome print quality is as you would expect, awesome, no smudging, and a real professional look. Color is better than my old inkjet, but not significantly. Get a dedicated photo printer if that's what you want. Full page photos off of my 1 megapixel camera are very decent. There is not a photo paper listed in the reccommended media so the point is moot. But the color does not seem to bleed when it gets wet. I am not experiencing any buyer's remorse with this purchase whatsoever. And thats after I practically begged the guy at staples business expo to sell me one.
Rating:
Summary: Some reviewers' criticisms are baloney!
Review: Some previous reviewers have complained that when the 2300 decides a toner cart is empty, it refuses to print, even though the cart still has toner. That is EMPHATICALLY untrue in my experience. I have just replaced all the color carts after about two months of "Toner Empty" messages. I fianlly replaced them because the print was simply too pale - because the toner had actually run out.
Similarly the waste toner cart - I have emptied mine three times with no problem (sure, it can be messy if you don't take care - but you will, won't you?).
As for the OPC drum - that warning has been flashing for two months also. The reviewer who complained that his drum lasted only 17000 print instead of 45000 prints was probably doing OK, because it 'uses' one print for each color on a sheet. A black print 'uses' 1 print, a color uses 4. When the OPC drum is running out, you get streaks in solid color areas - depending on your application, that might not be a problem for you. The moral is to make sure that you only peint in mono if you don't really need color.
The reviewer who recommended an HP Laserjet because it has fewer comsumables seems to be talking about the 2200, not the 2300. The only 2300 comsumables are 4 toners, the OPC drum, and the waste toner cartridge.
This printer is an excellent value.
Rating:
Summary: Great Printer, Great Price
Review: Still early to tell entirely, but so far this printer seems great, and you can't beat the price, especially with free shipping. ... Printer set up easy, and is networkable--which is great if you have a home network. Also has USB and parallel ports as well. Set up in a matter of minutes. Printer is louder than an ink jet, at least during its warm up stages. Energy saver features is a bonus too, if you don't print too often and are using this in a home office.
Rating: 
Summary: Excellent SOHO/School Printer
Review: The Minolta QMS Magicolor 3200 DL provides excellent print quality for a very reasonable price. ... it is easily the cheapest color laser you will find on the market today .... Text is sharp and clear and images are near photographic in quality, although not quite as good as prints from a modern inkjet photo printer. Speed is more or less exactly as rated (4ppm color/16ppm b&w). Based on just speed, print quality, and price this printer is a 5/5.
Now for the downside. Printing in color is noisy, although not as bad as some reviews would make it out to be. Much more troublesome is Minolta's sub-par support and drivers. Their web based support options ... are nearly worthless and phone based support is only available Monday-Friday. The only real items of value (in my humble opinion) on the site are the drivers. Speaking of which, my recommendation is to not even bother with the CD, just head straight to Minolta's website and download the latest drivers. Be sure to get the Crown Print Monitor as well as the print drivers; I could not get my system (Windows 2000 Pro SP3, USB connection) to recognize the printer without first installing Crown. Finally, the accessories for this printer are laughably expensive.....
Even with all of that, I still rate this printer an overall 4/5. The cost of operating this printer, expensive replacement parts and all, is still a bargain when compared to the cost of Inkjet consumables. If the printer will be used for 50 or more prints a day, such as in a school computer lab or busy SOHO office, switching from an Inkjet to a color laser will easily allow you to recoup the increased startup cost within the first year. And while Minolta's support may not be so good, the printer does not seem to be non-functional so much as just a pain to set up properly....If you need a more "set-it-and-forget-it" type of printer spend the extra [money]and get the HP.
|
