Customer Reviews

Konica Minolta PagePro 1100L Monochrome Laser Printer

5 star:		(7)
4 star:		(12)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(6)

 

 

The printer works extremely well, but this review focuses on customer service.

First, the Minolta web site is well-done - not only can you download the drivers for the printer, which I had no problem doing for MS2000, but you can fill out the warranty information and view the user's manual on-line.

Second, I received the printer without the collateral material (power cable, CD, guide, etc.). Amazon talked with Minolta's customer service and found that the most effective course of action was for me to get it from them directly (makes sense for all parties).

I called Minolta's customer service, left the pertinent info on voice mail, and received a call back from a rep 15 minutes later. On the basis of the call, they sent me the necessary materials overnight express.

This exceptional service is worth noting, because I suspect that the basic printing functionality of a laser printer doesn't vary across brands - but if something goes wrong, I can attest from personal experience that Minolta appears to backing up its products with prompt and courteous customer service. That fact alone inclines me to recommend purchase of this printer for anyone who doesn't feel the need for color capability.

The Minolta PagePro 1100L is my second laser printer...

However H-P changed its model names and I couldn't find another 4L or anything that seemed equivalent. Also the Minolta was 3 times cheaper than any H-P model so for this second printer I took a gamble as both Minolta and its QMS subsidiary have been around for years and enjoy a good reputation.

It's a bit unfair to compare a 2001 Minolta with a 1995 H-P, but Hewlett-Packard has become *the* standard for reliability and quality. The Minolta turns out to be even better than my H-P in performance and output, although some of the plastic parts seem a bit flimsy and may not last 5-6 years. The printout is as good as H-P's for text and better for pictures. The Minolta also prints out faster and has some unique, interesting and useful features such as the ability to print multiple pages on a single sheet of paper.

Also, for those who are short on desk space, the Minolta's footprint is about half my H-P's.

The physical installation was a breeze, but the software installation was a nightmare. There is supposed to be a CD to perform the installation, but it was missing. I was able to download the drivers but the process, and the selection of the proper driver is not obvious. Also I'm stuck with about 8 megs of downloaded and unzipped files cluttering my hard drive and I'm not sure which are necessary and which I could delete.

After installation, I experienced two major bugs (the readme.txt file covered them both but I suffered 3 hours of frustration before I got to that file as a last resort). The manual is very sketchy and does not cover the printer's special features.

The setup installs a nice little program called Printer Console, but it is totally undocumented and you're totally on your own to discover even its existence. And its help file is at times ludicrous...

All in all I would rate the Minolta 1100L as a 5-star if you are a very experienced computer user (or have access to one) and 3-star if you're not. And if you buy it, be aware that the needed supplies don't seem to be available from anyretailer at this point; you have to order them on-line from qms. (It's not clear in the product description, but you DO get enough to get going already installed in the printer)...

Had medium to low expectations of this printer because of the price, but gave it a shot anyway. WOW! Ubelievable quality and speed for such a small price and a small footprint to boot! FYI I Don't know what problems the other user was having, but I couldn't print at all with one old cable I had around here at first, but once I plugged in a different cable all was up and running fine.

Only slight negative is noticeable banding on photos but this may differ from one unit to the next - plus depending on what you use it for this could be overlooked, again because this printer is SO INEXPENSIVE! Also, text and line work is super, super sharp. The speed and convenience is so far superior to inkjet it isn't even funny (plus no smearing!), and at this price you can afford to have it for all your B&W work, and have a decent ink jet with its messy, pricey inks and special papers for when you want/need to do color.

Even though the printer is kind of tall, it takes up a surprisingly small amount of desktop space. Ideal for home use, and nicely priced (rivals higher end inkjets). I used to use an inkjet, but I realized that the amount that you spend on the replacement cartridges makes the inkjet cost much more in the long run than a laser printer (for the same amount of pages printed).

In short, I like this printer.

Why only 4 stars then? Well, I think HP printers are more sturdily built than this one. However, HP Laserjets usually get up to ~$400. The sweet price on this one allows me to give it the high rating.

When I decided to replace my HP InkJet Printer I decided I would go for a b&w laser printer since I printed in color less than once a year. As I started to look at Laser printers price I soon got discouraged. But then I found this printer. At first I was sceptical because the price was a lot lower than any similar product. So I decided to check for reviews on the net. All I saw was that this printer has been awarded by pc world magazine and a 5 other organism so I decided to buy it. Go to Minolta-Qms website and you'll see for yourself.

My thoughts now ? Well this printer really does 10 ppm and the printing is crisp and sharp. Installing was very easy. Pluged the parallel cable, installed the drivers and I never had problem even since. I paid good money for this printerand it works as perfect as an HP's $500 laser printer. Even graphics are clean with the grayscale.

So my final word? If you've always wanted to buy a laser printer but never did because they are expesive, this printer is the one you were waiting for. It's cheap, it's fast and it delivers what Minolta says it's supposed to.

I just got this printer and I have to say it works really well. The only reason it does not get 5 stars is because it does not come with Windows 2000 drivers (although it can be downloaded off the QMS webpage), other than that the machine is perfect. Its small, prints really fast, is quiet, pleasing to the eye and is a lot cheaper than the other printers in its class. And if it were truly that bad I don't know why ZDNet, WinMag, and other PC magazines give it awards.

I just got this printer in the mail, but i had some trouble getting it up and running. It was a fairly simple problem with drivers. I run Windows 2000, and the driver cd only came with drivers for 95/98 and NT. I just had to download new drivers from the minolta-qms site ( http://www.minolta-qms.com ) and I got it installed and printed a test page. Now I tried to print a document from Word, Notepad and my browser. NOTHING worked!! I uninstalled the printer from the control panel, then reinstalled the drivers. I finally got it working after 3 or 4 restarts (very rare in 2000!). The setup took about an hour from start to print.

But after all the restarts, it prints like a dream. I cannot believe how fast it is. The paper doesn't even finish going into the printer before I see it coming out the other side, freshly printed. The quality is excellent! I would have difficulty telling the difference between a page printed on this printer, and one at work (a huge expensive HP laser printer). This printer also has a small foot-print. Allthough, it is sort of tall.

One other complaint I have is that it doesn't come with any way to store paper in the tray. You can buy a tray from Minolta, but that would be pointless in my opinion. The paper exits from the top on to the translucent foldable plastic tray. It just take a little getting used to.

This printer is a GREAT bargin because of it's size and quality. It's only fault is in it's driver support out of the box, but the drivers can be downloaded from the site (which is a better idea because of software updates etc that are not on the cd).

This impressive printer seems to work as well as the ... HP we have at the office, but at less than ... (after rebate) it's pretty amazing. Quality is great for the basic printed documents we need--Quicken reports, internet articles, Word/Excel documents, etc. With its very reasonable price and excellent document output, it's not out of the question to have this printer and a high quality bubble jet for digital photography. I would recomment uninstalling your antivirus program before installing the printer, however. Bizarrely enough, after installing the printer, my Outlook Express email wouldn't work. I called Minolta and they were very easy to get to, but even after emailing me "patches" they couldn't help me. The so called "fixes" didn't work, and someone there ultimately told me it was a Windows problem. In fact, I noticed that my Norton antivirus 2001 wasn't working properly, so I just re-installed it and now everything works fine.

I bought this laser printer within the past 6 months and was very pleased with it. It prints in reasonable time (much, much faster than the ink jets I'd always had before) and with excellent quality.

Installation took a little bit of effort on one of my computers, but was a snap on another. One drawback is that it doesn't have a USB port, so you have to connect with a parallel cable. (Make sure to order one with it because it does not include one.)

The definite negative to this printer -- and it could be a big one -- is the limitation of its software. Just as installation can sometimes be difficult, due to software issues, this printer DOES NOT work with WindowsXP. Minolta will tell you otherwise (they claim the Win2000 drivers work) but they are mistaken. I tried all the various fixes they suggested, but no dice. This printer relies on part of the old Win95 software to work, and just isn't compatible with WinXP.

So, the bottom line is this: if you're not running WinXP and don't plan to, this is a terrific printer and I recommend it to you very highly. But if you run WinXP, or think you might, you do not want this model.

This is a good, cheap printer for Windows 95/98/ME users but Windows 2000 and XP users need to use a beta Win2K driver (v0.22) that is not very reliable. Since all new computers are now sold with XP I would not recommend this printer for use with a new system until Minolta/QMS releases a reliable, non beta driver.