<img src="http://www.pronetworks.org/main/images/blurb/Konica%202400W.jpg" align="right"><b><font size="4" color="darkblue">Konica Minolta 2400W Review:</font></b> <a href="http://www.pronetworks.org/forum/viewtopic.php?t=74663">(Read the Quickview)</a>
With several awards already under its belt, the Konica Minolta magicolor 2400W is quickly becoming the 'hot deal' of 2005, especially when you consider the price. The 2400w drops the entry cost for color laser printing to its lowest level yet, around $299-$399 depending on location. I bought mine for $299 from Office Max on sale, pretty good deal consider the next closest thing was twice the price. I had to wonder at the time what I was sacrificing for such a sweet price, but as you'll see, I wasn't sacrificing much at all.
The 2400w is by far the first in its price range to offer such excellent output quality and surprisingly, it even has a better performance than most other four-pass color lasers. Most importantly though, the speed, cost, and quality all add up to make this one great deal.
The set up of the printer is about as easy at it gets. You bring it home, take it out of the box, pull the protective tape/restraints off, plug it in, and you print - it's that easy. The printer is powered by USB and will work wonderfully on any modern Windows operating system (we use Windows XP). The printer is built around a four-pass engine that can produce up to 20 pages per minute in black/white and about 5 pages per minute in color. Those estimates can vary depending on number of color pages sent to the printer que at once.
The printer is remarkably small for it's abilities, the smallest on the market at the time of this writing. It measures 13.4" by 16.9" by 19.8" and weighs around 45 pounds. That's nearly the same as a personal monochrome printer; pretty impressive.
<img src="http://www.pronetworks.org/main/images/blurb/samples2400.jpg" align="right">Here's another great feature when you buy the printer - the device comes fully loaded, all the cartridges are already inside it. You don't even need to shake them up or prepare them for use. Just plug the printer in and go. Software installation is typical for a USB 2.0 printer. The cartridges are your typical "starter" cartridges, but they last plenty well enough to get you going. We printed a few hundred pages in both color and black/white without any problems.
While its low price may raise suspicions about performance, the 2400W has performed remarkably well in printer tests by various institutes and agencies. It's won three prestigious awards already; not too shabby. For monochrome the printer is by far one of the best on the market, the quality is superb. Graphics print out very crisp and clear, though not as highly defined at the monochrome print (some mild dithering is visible). For photos, the 2400W is one of the fastest four-pass printers I've ever seen, averaging 25 seconds for each 4-by-6 photo and 29 seconds for each 8-by-10. The quality of photos suffers dramatically compared to everything else, and likely is the greatest weakness of the printer. But for most personal users, including small business owners, this printer wouldn't even be needed for photos; so no real problem there. All-in-all, the quality scores high in my book.
We've used our Konica Minolta now for about 3 months, and we've printed a few thousand pages with it. For the most part we've printed, on average, a 25 page booklet sold in our online store at HawaiianStyleMedia.com. We have easily printed some 100 booklets in the short time we've owned it and only once have had to change the starter black cartridge to a full capacity cartridge (which is likely still more than half full), and we've only now run out of ink on the starter color cartridges (despite the fact all the pages have 1-3 photographs each in the booklet). In fact, since the printer warned us the color cartridges were empty, we've printed over 40 more booklets - you can do the math on that 40 x 25 pages each. But that's a downside in my opinion to the printer. It warned me a month ago I needed new color cartridges, so I shelled out the money for them and haven't yet had to install them. While I don't mind saving money, I hate thinking I'm about to run out of ink and having to rush to get new cartridges. What's worse is that 30 of the 40 something booklets we've printed were done after the printer changed the status of the cartridges from "nearly empty" to "completely empty" - well we're still printing; go figure? I'll give the grand totals here later when it actually truly does run out of ink. If nothing else, you have to give it credit for fair warning time. The cartridge warning system is also right on the front of the printer, so you can immediately see the status of each cartridge (even if it does jump the gun on 'empty'). I have linked to a company called Laser Quipt below as well - they offer the best deals I've found on all the cartridges, especially on 'page 2' when you buy all three color cartridges together.
The heat output, noise, weight, and costs to maintain the printer are all pretty standard, no big perk or con either way. The printer can let off a fair amount of heat if left on (even when not running), so shutting it off when not in use is a pretty good idea - there is a switch right on the side of the printer. Maintenance of the printer is pretty simple, and overall appears to be basic and standard for most laser printers.
What I don't like is that is only holds 200 sheets of paper at a time in the tray - I still haven't figured out why it's not larger. I wasn't thrilled it lacked networking support, but I can live without it. The printed manuals that come with it are horrible, so you have to use the included CD to learn about anything beyond basic installation. But I will say the CD is very good. The last negative I can think of is probably the photo quality, but again, it's not that bad (our small 4x6 booklet photos are great) and it only has been noticeable when I print larger photos or anything with a lot of white/yellow in it.
Overall the balance of low price, good performance, and decent enough output makes the Konica Minolta 2400W a clear winner and bargain buy; so it gets two thumbs up from myself, the Chairman of PRO-networks Technology.
<img src="http://www.pronetworks.org/main/images/blurb/Konica-2400W-open.jpg" align="right"><b><font size="4" color="darkblue">Specs:</font></b>
<b>Type:</b> 4-pass color
<b>Technology:</b> Laser
<b>Rated Speed (Color):</b> 5 ppm
<b>Rated Speed (Mono):</b> 20 ppm
<b>Maximum Paper Size:</b> Legal
<b>Duty Cycle:</b> 35000 pages per month
<b>Input Capacity:</b> 200 sheets
<b>Network-Ready:</b> No
<b>Duplexing:</b> No
<b>Cost Per Page (Color):</b> 5.2-20 cents
<b>Cost Per Page (Mono):</b> 1.8-2.2 cents
<b><font size="4" color="darkblue">Summary thoughts/score:</font></b>
<b>Perks</b> - Why it's better
-It's Inexpensive.
-Fast performance for a four-pass laser printer.
-Very easy setup and easy toner change.
-Excellent text quality.
-Decent if not ideal graphic output.
-USB powered
<b>Middle Ground</b> - Where it's the same as others
-Heat output
-Noise
-Weight
-Cartridge Costs
-Prints on legal or standard.
<b>Cons</b> - Where it's worse
-Photo quality not ideal.
-Empty cartridge warnings appear to early.
-No networking support.
-Only holds 200 sheets in tray.
-No Duplex.
<b><font color="darkred">Quick Synopsis</font></b>
With a direct price of just under $400, the Konica Minolta magicolor 2400W is, for now, the least expensive and absolute best laser printer you can buy. I highly recommend it for the home user or small business owner.
<b>Rating</b>
8/10
<b><font size="4" color="darkblue">More Information:</font></b>
<a href="http://printer.konicaminolta.com/products/color/mc2400W/index.asp"><b>Konica Minolta 2400W Website</b></a>
<a href="http://www.laserquipt.com/cgi-bin/category.cgi?query=2400W&category=search&orderby=INVENTORY%2Ehot%20desc%2C%20INVENTORY%2Ebrand%2C%20INVENTORY%2Emodel&start=0&limitcategory=&template=search&templatehead=&templatebody=&templatefoot=&templatethumb=&searchfields=sku%7Cbrand%7Cmodel%7Ckeywords%7Cmisc8%7Cdescription&match=pattern&searchtype=and&"><b>LaserQuipt.com</b> - Great Deals on Ink Cartridges</a>
