Customer Reviews

Konica Minolta PagePro 1350W Laser Printer

5 star:		(12)
4 star:		(11)
3 star:		(8)
2 star:		(5)
1 star:		(10)

 

 

This was a great printer as far as print quality and speed... but what Minolta doesn't tell you in advance is that if you either refill the cartridge or use a non-new or non-factory cartridge, the printer goes into "deep cleaning" mode (permanently) while printing and slows down to about 6ppm. It won't go back up to regular speed unless you install a new Minolta cartridge.

This, of course, is a completely bogus excuse for forcing you to buy Minolta toner (which costs $130).

I called tech support to confirm that there was no workaround, and the woman I spoke with had received 4 complaints that morning on that issue.

So I sent it back and bought a Samsung ML-1710, which, although a little bit slower (17ppm instead of 21) can use any toner and seems like an excellent little printer.

Yeah this is a pretty good printer. Like the other reviews it does a pretty good job dosen't jam much if you use regular paper, but it is a little on the loud side. I got it for $99 and was initially very happy.

Now for the scam. The printer is set up to read a chip on the toner cartridge that says how many prints that the cartridge is good for. The printer then counts the number of pages printed and arbitrairly slows the printer down till you buy a new cartridge. The cartridge that comes with the printer is rated for 1500 pages at 5% page coverage. You can also buy 3000 and 6000 page cartridges. The only difference between the cartridges is the chip on the bottom and the amount of toner/developer within the cartridge. When my cartridge reached 1500 prints the printer software said it was out of toner, it wasn't. There was clearly still toner in the cartridge and it was printing flawlessly. So what's the problem? I was in the middle of printing out a mass mailing (+/- 250 sheets) and the printer would pause for 5-10 seconds between each page taking a total of about 20-25 seconds for a page. The printer is rated for 21 ppm and it took the printer almost an hour and quarter to print everything.

After fighting with tech support over there being no scientific reason for slowing down the printer ("deep cleaning mode")after 1500 sheets while there is still toner in the available in the original cartridge I gave up. Buyer beware, yeah initially cheap but the lowest price I could find for a 3000 page toner cartridge was +/- $85 without shipping. So you pay double for toner making this an expensive printer in the long run. Do some homework and price the toner before you buy your next printer or you'll regret it like me.

This printer is great for a home user coming off of the inkjet bandwagon. It only runs off of Windows which is good enough for 85% of you out there. Cost per page is great as is the speed.

I also had the 1250W and the 1350W is basically the same thing with better constrution/looks and faster. To the guy who was complaining about the toner cartridge - yeah, you have to use the Minolta toner which is probably a load of crap but don't misrepresent the product's cost. A regular toner is around $80, about $10 more than the Samsung equivalent. The high-capacity toner runs about $120 and is almost impossible to find so I wouldn't use it as an example of cost.

This is my first home laser printer, and I love it. First page out is very fast, as is print speed. Looks a lot better, in my mind, than the HP 1012. Manual duplex is easy to do. Noise during printing seems quite acceptable. And apparently the toner cartrdiges are easy to refill.

A few niggly things stop me from giving this 5 stars:

- There's a fairly loud fan hum for about 15 minutes after printing, as it cools down. Not outright noisy, but way noisier than the average computer, and annoying for anyone who tries to minimize noise. I find myself avoiding printing small jobs sometimes, in order to avoid the noise after printing... (The HP 1012 doesn't do this, as it's fanless; but apparently its print speed slows *way* down after ~50 pages, in order to avoid overheating.)

- I'm very keen on double-sided printing, and this printer does it well. However, it always prompts me to turn over the paper (or cancel duplex), even after printing a job of just one side. 'Twould be nice if it was smart enough to realize there's no reason to turn over and run the page through the printer again... Easy enough to hit Cancel, but still a minor annoyance, particularly when photocopying.

- Large power draw immediately prior to printing causes house lights to flicker. Not too bad, but noticable.

I've had this printer for a few months and it has been flawless in operation. The sheets coming out of the printer did tend to fall out like another reviewer said . . .until I figured out that the support for the outbound pages wasn't fully extended. The printer status message does appear on start-up, but it's a very minor irritation. Other than that, it's a gem.

I just refilled the toner cartridge with a generic refill for about $20 and it works OK. The internal chip has hit its limit and the printer is now operating at 6 PPM, which is OK for my limited home use. 6000 page aftermarket chips are available now for about $10 to correct this. They are easy to change, so if you're willing to do a little work, toner can be pretty cheap.

Warning !!! This is a GDI printer. Therefore you can not set this printer to work on a home network using dedicated TCP/IP print servers (i.e., D-Link DP-301P+, Linksys EtherFast Print Servers, etc.). As a GDI printer it does not have a builtin command processor. In other words it is a HOST based printer relying on your PC's processor as the brains to process print jobs. I made this mistake!!! Be forewarned !!!! Do not buy this product if you wish to use it on a home network!!!

I purchased this printer back in June. The first printer died after only printing about a dozen pages. Konica Minolta tech support determined it to be hardware failure and sent me a replacement and a return shipping sticker. The second printer has worked very well.

Print quality is very, very good for text and pretty decent for images. Kicking it up to 1200x1200 cuts the print speed in half, but can be worth it for documents needing extra crisp text. I have used it to print many large document runs of up to 400 pages in one sitting. While the fan does kick in to cool it down, the speed at which it prints cannot be beat. I've run it with plain paper, envelopes, and card stock without issue. In the few instances where it has jammed, it has been very easy to clear.

I have the printer setup as a shared printer on my home network between a Windows XP machine and a Windows ME machine with no problems.

The only downsides I see (which haven't been much of an issue for me):
- It does draw a lot of current on startup and seems to suck a decent amount of juice during printing
- It can be a bit noisy
- The printer is a bit tall compared to a number of other laser printers which could make it hard to fit into your workspace
- As a Windows-only "GDI" printer, it depends on the computer to pre-process much of the data thus consuming more system resources than a non-GDI printer. This hasn't been a concern even on a Celeron-500 based machine.
- Printing of photographic images have some "banding" effects. Not a big deal for me; I use a color printer when doing photographs.

I consider it to be a very good value at the 80-100 dollar level. Hard to believe we've reached a point where you can get a printer with this level of output for such a little amount of money.

I purchased this printer (under $100, on sale at Staples) as a first step up from an inkjet. I have owned it for less than two weeks as of this writing(May 3, 2004).
It prints text quickly and clearly. I haven't used it for graphics yet. It has a relatively small footprint and it is a little noisy when it initializes: you hear the fan and the printer mechanism. It quiets quickly when initialized in about 20 seconds or so. As to toner costs: I found Konica-Minolta toner in a retail store for $80.96! It is important that you use ONLY Konica-Minolta toner. Other toners will put the printer into a constant cleaning mode and will slow the pages per minute output.
I downloaded updated drivers from the website, but, the drivers on the enclosed cd ROM worked fine too. I did have to call Konica Minolta Tech Support to understand how to install the new drivers. Their techs were courteous and knowledgable.
I was only dissatisfied in one area: the manual. It would be nice if manufacturers would return to the practice of providing directions that consisted of illustrations AND TEXT in English in a MANUAL. There is little information in the manual though it is in multiple languages. Instead, you must rely on the cd ROM and download the Adobe Reader. It's not a problem, but, I prefer the simplicity of a complete manual that I can hold in my hands and study and that is written in English! That being said, I recommend this printer unreservedly. If you prefer the security of extended warranties, they are available.

I have had this for several months now and it has never failed me! Never have I had a problem with jamming, but maybe thats because I don't use bent cornered paper and I know how to neatly load the tray. I've got over 900 pgs printed and my 1500 pg toner is still at 48% remaining. When I finally do buy a new toner cartridge, I won't be too concerned about the price (~$75 for 3000 pg. online). In regards to the fan issue, sure it is a little noisy when the fuser is heated before and shortly after printing, but eventually the fuser cools down and the fan turns off (1 pg print test: 1/2 min @ noisy high rpm... then 15 min @ very quiet low rpm... then off). Before this I had used only Epson inkjet printers strictly for quality preferences while sacrificing speed. As far as text quality, laser jets are the best and speed, forget about it. I think I was getting 1 or 2 pg/min with my Epson c60 as opposed to the 20 with the PagePro 1350w. I use $1000 HP laserjets at work, and though they have the capabities for network use, I think the PagePro is just as good in quality and maybe even better in speed.

I've put this printer through a difficult time over the past year, and went through two high capacity toner cartridges (over and above the cartridge that came with the laser). This printer never let me down, and was always quick and clean. The setup was easy, and the printing really did start within 13 secs like it said it would.

Having said that, you should be aware of some of the quirks as they are significant and can and will affect performance, period.
1. Can only replace toner with Konica-Minolta catridge. There is a chip that "talks" to the printer and computer. Absent that, and the printer and software freaks out. The result is a drop of output from approx. 21 ppm to about 8ppm. There is no doubt that this sucks. But, really I've only seen about a 10-15 dollar difference between "compatible" and Konica-Minolta cartridges. I was willing to put up with that for the gain in performance, but you may not. Choose with care.
2. Software monitoring of the printer supply status: I have seen some slowdown when approaching the end of the cartridge life as defined by the software. What I did for a quick fix to bring the performance back to normal was set the notification for the supply left from 25% to 10%. When I reached 10%, yeah, the printer slowed its output (but not by as much as I have been reading in the reviews), but by then at 10%, I actually needed a new catridge.
3. Loud engine
4. Seems to be a power hog (no kidding, connected to a full power surge strip with a lamp, computer speakers, cordless telephone, fan, and iPod charger, this printer tripped the fuse when it started printing) Obviously the strip was overloaded, but just FYI.

Overall I've found printers to be very tempermental. This is perhaps the least tempermental printer I've ever owned. It's performed very well under grueling conditions and for that I'll pay the extra for the "official Konica-Minolta cartridge".