Customer Reviews

NEC Technologies Superscript 870 Laser Printer

5 star:		(4)
4 star:		(5)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

We used this printer in our office of 7 persons and printed basically everthing out. Heavy worker, nice & quiet, also very fast. I am truely impressed with its 2-side printing feature and also the network capability (can also be printed from the home computer thru the internet). It a little bit too big for home but will be perfect for office. Use inexpensive, old, computer SIM memmory for upgrade. The refill tonner cartidge cost about $150-170.

I purchased this laser printer for a small office because of the price and my past experience with NEC printers. NEC often offers a rebate on this printer, and with or without the rebate, it is an exceptional value. I was using an ink jet printer before this purchase, but I never printed much because of the time it took for the ink jet to warm-up and its slow printing. The NEC 870 has an energy saving mode when it is not in use, so I just leave the printer on all of the time. It quickly warms up and is ready to print. I am also very impressed with the print quality and page speed.

If you happen to have any old RAM around, you can easily install it into the NEC 870. I increased the standard 2 MB to 6 MB in only a few minutes. The internal parts are easy to manipulate, clean, and replace if needed. Also, the replacement toner cartridge is inexpensive.

After about 10 months and printing about 2,000 pages, the printer surprisingly developed a printing problem. The printer comes with a 2 year warranty and NEC has a toll-free 800 number for technical support. I was able to speak to someone relatively fast, they asked a few questions, and they are going to replace the damaged part at no charge. I am very impressed when a company will stand behind their products when an occasional problem occurs.

(NOTE: This is a review of the SuperScript 860, which has been replaced with the 870)

We bought a SuperScript 860 (the previous incarnation of this printer) 5 years ago for home use (we were heading off to graduate school and wanted a cheap, fast laser printer for school papers), and it's still serving us well. In fact, we're still on the original toner cartridge, after printing more than 4000 pages. It's not as small as some of the HP personal laser printers, but it's a great printer, and the price is unbelievable for what you get. We've printed on plain paper, cardstock, and transparencies with no problem - the only trouble we've had was with very rough cardstock, which didn't allow the toner to fuse with the paper properly and then flaked off easily. Text printing is excellent and fast; graphics are good, photos are so-so. If you want a good laser printer for home or small-office use, I highly recommend this printer.

The NEC Superscript 870 is a great printer. I've used it now for three years and it's a workhorse that never jams and continues to spew out fantastic looking text, graphics, etc. I love this printer!

However, I HATE NEC! NEC refuses to issue an updated driver for this printer so that it can be used with the Windows XP operating system. If you have XP or want to upgrade to XP (like I want to) this printer will suddenly become a large paper weight! This means that I spent $400 three years ago for a terrific printer that still works like a charm and shows no signs of ever stopping BUT when I upgrade to Windows XP I have to buy another printer.

Simply do a search on the net for "NEC Superscript 870 XP Driver" for evidence of widespread frustration regarding this printer and the terrible way NEC has handled this problem.

I will never again buy ANY product from NEC.

Ok, this was a super printer. I would have given it 5 stars -- worked for years, printed many many drafts of my dissertation -- but then NEC stopped supporting the driver. Everyone still using this has had problems because it definitely doesn't work with XP, and some people have problems with Windows 2000. NEC no longer supports it; they blame Adobe for not updating the PrintGear software they depend on, and Adobe (perhaps not surprisingly) blames NEC.

Regardless, I have just discovered a way around this. While I would NOT recommend that anyone buy this printer from a reseller even though it is cheap, if you already have this and want to keep it working, I suggest using the driver for the HP LaserJet IIP. To do this, use your control panel, select "Printers" (or whatever), "add a printer" and then you will have to manually select the driver. You should be able to pick out this driver out of the list of what came preloaded with XP. Select HP as the company, and then choose between the printer driver options.

I don't know whether this will clear up all the problems for everyone, and let you use all the features that were available with this printer when the NEC driver worked (watermark, booklet printing, etc.), but I do know that I wasn't able to print at all before, and I can print all my basics now. (...)
Hope this helps someone!

I recently bought a computer running XP and my Superscript 870 lost all of its special features that I need, especially being able to print with a dot pattern. This is due to the fact that these features are run from Adobe Printgear which Adobe has discontinued and offers no alternative. And you can't ask a question at the Adobe site...they charge for everything! Boo to Adobe!
So if you are running XP...do not purchase this printer.

For those running Windows 98 or below, this is a great little workhorse printer that gave me no trouble. Unfortunately, without the special print options, I will have to sell mine.

This printer works wonderfully ... quick and reliable prints... no problems until Windows XP. NEC refuses to make a driver for Windows XP, thus leaving me with a useless piece of trash.

Based on this experience I would guess NEC has no problem treating its customers poorly and would expect the same on their "current" products. I'll not buy another product from NEC.

Best laser printer I have ever owned!!!

Go to the Hewlett Packard website and download the Windows XP updated driver for an HP IIP Laserjet. Works like a charm!!!!!

I bought the 870 over about a year and a half ago, and it came with a 6,000 page toner cartridge. After printing 7,272 pages, I finally need to get a new cartridge.

The printer has been great - cheap, reliable, and good quality output. I couldn't ask for a better laser printer for my home office.

I have had this printer for a couple of years and it worked great with my computer that had Windows 95. However, when I installed it on a new computer with Windows XP, it lost a lot of the features it came with. The feature I miss most is the 2-sided printing function. I have checked with Microsoft and NEC for an XP compatible driver but there is none available so it works more or less as a generic printer with no special features. Also, it looks like NEC does not make this printer anymore and supplies are getting hard to find for it. Sometimes I can find replacement cartridges and photoconductors on Ebay, but that's about it.