Customer Reviews

Konica Minolta PagePro 1250W Laser Printer

5 star:		(11)
4 star:		(4)
3 star:		(4)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

I was tired and annoyed of spending $25 on ink cartridges for my ink jet printer to have them dry out because I forgot to use it for two weeks or run out of ink just after a hundred pages. Have you noticed that many new ink jet printers cost exactly what the cartridges they ship with cost? Be very careful.

Now to this very fine Minolta PagePro 1250W Laser Printer review. I did a lot of research for an entry level Laser printer. So after researching just about every printer in this level I chose this model and I'm so glad I did. Here are some highlights I've found very important:

- Minolta's toner sells for .... (about average toner price for a 3000 page yield) just about everywhere, unlike Samsung whose printers are about the same price but you'll be lucky to find toner for them.

- This toner lasts 3000 pages, not a hundred like ink jets.

- Toner is made of powder, so it never dries out. You can use your printer as much or as little as you want and can go out on a 2 or more week vacation without worrying about it.

- The Minolta PagePro 1250W comes with 8MB of memory, which means it is able to handle and print large documents quickly. The HP LaserJet 1000 comes with just a mere 1MB, the Brother HL-1440 with 2MB and both are more expensive than the PagePro 1250W.

- It prints at 17 pages per minute at a resolution of 1200x1200, which is well above average in this price range. The HP 1000 prints at 10PPM, after a 15 second wait for the first page to print due to lack of memory. First page on the Minolta goes in about 5 to 7 seconds.

- USB and Parallel ports. I have way too many USB devices already and can't plug anything else to my already full USB hub, but nothing today uses the parallel port. So why not use it for the Laser printer, after all, the parallel port was designed for printers. Of course you have the USB as well, so the choice is yours. The printer ships with no cables, so make sure you get the one you need.

- It is compatible with Windows 95, 98, ME, NT, 2000 and XP. So many printers are still not compatible with XP that it's scary. I did not use the driver supplied with the CD though, but rather downloaded the latest driver from the MinoltaQMS web site.

- Printouts are remarkably crisp and clear. No ink jet I know comes close to the resolution of this Laser Printer.

- This printer is Windows only, meaning it will not print on Linux. If you need a Linux printer, make sure you get a printer that speaks a PCL or PS (PostScript) language and has a parallel port. The Minolta PagePro 1250E is a good choice, but costs almost 100 more.

- Some say this printer is noisy. Well, it is compared to an ink jet, but not too bad and of course only while printing.

- The printer driver comes with some very cool features, like printing 2, 4, 6, 9 or 16 pages onto a single page, watermark (text and image overlay), envelope printing, toner saver, halftoning, contrast and brightness adjustment, toner saver mode and 3 print resolutions to choose from, among other features.

This Laser Printer definitely exceeded my expectations... by far!

I've used this printer for home and research work for 3 months and have no performance problems at all on over 6 reams (3000 sheets). The 8 MB of RAM ensure smooth printing (even on larger PDF files), and I rarely see printing slow below the 17 ppm spec. The text and graphic quality is perfectly crisp, but it takes a little work to get photographic images to look right (as has been my experience with most laser printers).

The feeding mechanism is extremely robust, but... The paper feed tray extends quite a bit (8") beyond the body of the printer. I tend to set things down on top of the paper stack and they get pulled through. My parking permit (a plastic sticker), photographs, and various notes-to-self all have tagged along through the mechanism. The printer polity flashes an error indicating that I should open the case, but I have never seen a piece of paper actually jam - they get sucked right through. Well, it's better than gumming up the works. I hope the engineers add a paper cover to protect their absent minded customers.

The toner is relatively rare in local stores, but readily available online. This printer has easily paid for itself in terms saved ink jet cartridges. Let alone the convenience - just try and find an ink jet that will print beautiful copies at these speeds!

Note: I agree it is not a very quiet printer, but it doesn't take long to finish what it's doing.

This printer's 17 ppm and 1200 dpi domnimates my previously owned HP LaserJet 6L and 3100 in many ways. Without saying, the printing quality is crispy. And to be environmentally friendly, I frequently manually duplex print my documents (auto duplex printers are so expensive.) HP Laserjet 6L and 3100 sometimes fed in two or three pages together when I printed the second side. This one has no such a feeding problem. Always one page at a time. The only drawbacks are its noise in printing and higher price of new toner cartridge (...) With a (...)rebate and (...)coupon, this is one of the best deals on internet.

The good:

Paper feeding is great.
Cheap.
Good text.

The Bad:
graphics are very poor with lots of banding. The images are also too dark. The printer driver has virtually no options.

Get it if you don't need graphics.

Wow - I'm amazed by the punch of this little printer. The text and graphics are equal to or better than machines 3X the price. The tones and shading are rich and the pages fly out of the machine at the 600dpi setting. Installation was a breeze in Windows XP. Paper trays are admitedly a bit awkward when open, but they fold away neatly when not in use. Envelope printing was less than satisfactory initially, but it runs smooth if you don't pinch the envelope too tight in the feeder. Drum and toner are separate cartridges which is a plus. For simplicity of design, high quality printing, and space efficiency this may be the best value for the home system. Probably not a good choice if you have large volume printing needs, but for home or school use it's a gem of a printer that delivers a very professional looking product.

This is a Windows GDI only printer so it works pretty well for MS programs like MS Office. It is very fast. However, when I am printing the postscript files, the problems come. For the dvi-ps generated ps file, if one use the right paper setting, say US letter, it won't come out right. One has to use A4 which is the wrong setting and the printer won't go through till one presses that cancel button. So if you are basically working with latex instead of the MS thing, this is not recommended.

If you are running a linux as well, you may not want to consider this printer at all since it won't work anyway.

If you are looking for a quality printer at an affordable price with incredible customer support - buy this printer. I originally purchased a Minolta-QMS 1100 printer, the predecessor to this one. I burned through ream after ream of paper over the course of two years and I was still using the original toner cartridge. Then I upgraded to an XP computer and found that the 1100 would not work with XP. I knew the printer was out of warranty but I contacted Minolta to see if they had any upgrade offers. Instead Minolta offered to replace my old printer with a new 1250w and pay shipping both ways. I just had to switch my toner cartridge from the 1100 to the 1250w.

I have now had the 1250w for about six months. I am still using the same cartridge. The printing is clean and sharp and the pages come out faster than any inkjet I have ever seen. I have saved the cost of this printer in ink-jet cartridges. Both printers have been virtually trouble free. I have been extremely happy with my purchase and would by another Minolta lazer in a heartbeat.

My friend had one of these and he was real happy with it, which prompted me to get one as well. (A rebate helped, too.) It's been four weeks and I'm quite happy with this no-frills laser printer. High quality build, and fast! The print quality is comparable to the HP Laserjet 4100 in my office. Loading paper takes a bit getting used to, but if you are familiar with inkjet's, I don't think this is a problem. I use the printer with Windows XP and the software options work great. I don't print that much, but I think this is designed for moderate printing in a home or SOHO. If you run XP, you can also set up XP's network printing so you can print to this printer from any PC in the house/office.

I got good service from this printer until I bought a new computer with Windows 7 64-bit. Now it is impossible to use the printer and Konica/Minolta has not developed a driver for it. Do not buy this printer if you are using a 64-bit operating system.

This printer is great on 32-bit OS. But since I moved my OS to 64 bit, I found out that this printer does not have drivers for 64-bit OS. I made couple of calls to Minolta support and they are not going to come out with the drivers for 64-bit OS. So, I would recommend not to buy this printer unless you are going to use 32-bit OS for a while.