| I bought this printer and set it up instantly getting prints quickly and properly right out of the box. I used the software drivers on the disc included. The printer takes about 75 seconds to put out its first color print if it is cold. The literature said it was shipped with FULL cartridges not starter cartridges which is contrary to another review. The rebate coupon form says only good for 100 dollars off if you purchased it for more than 349.00. The printer sounds like bongo drums as it warms up to print. The machine came loaded with the toner cartridges already installed and it was pretty much plug and play. The print quality was fine as I printed out a large color image of a detailed wristwatch and it looked fine. I wouldnt say it was brilliant or vivid on cheap paper and I didnt feel the ink on the paper as a layer of what feels like vinyl on other color print docs. the rebate coupon calls for 2 upc stickers with serial numbers and they were difficult to cut out of the box so get a box cutter and try not to cut your fingers off. The warmup time was improved if you already used the printer in the last few minutes. If the printer toner cartridges cost a fortune I will look for remanufactured ones on the web. I wish it were smaller and wonder if I can one day hook it to my apple if I need to. The box said it was not compatible with Mac. I use it everyday at my office for small print jobs. This is my first color laser and I am apprehensive about replacement toner cartridge cost and hope the ones it came with last a long time. I've had my Magicolor 2400W for about a month and am very happy with it for my home based business us. It prints quickly and with high quality and it sure beats the ink jet cartridges. The toner is expensive, but it seems to last a long time!
It didn't work right out of the box, but the technical support was great - a real person who spoke english! He helped me correct the problem quickly - a bent paper sensor which indicated there was a jam. Once that was back in place, it works like a charm. We decided to purchase this printer for our small business to take the load off of our all-in-one inkjet. Originially we were going to get a monochrome laser, but for the price of this printer, it was hard to resist the upgrade, and the color is occassionally usefull for our purposes. Anyways, to the machine itself.
The Printer is well packaged, but the documentation is very poor. English is sparce in the manuals, hard to find, and lacking in information. The tech support is good, however. The printer comes all set up and ready to go, except for the lack of an included USB cable, which I found disappointing, since the box does not state this. The initially driver installation process is finicy, but the installation guide is clear enough to walk you through it.
The printer does a fantastic job with monochrome prints. The warm up time is only 5-10 seconds, and the pages come flying out with perfect quality. The printer has large capacity trays for it's price point, which makes it nice for small businesses. I talked to a tech support technician before I bought, and one thing he told me was to set the printer to B&W mode when I was printing purely B&W documents, as to not waste color toner and time. I set the default to B&W, and change in printer settings as needed.
Now the color is not perfect photo quality. It is great for most business purposes, and can produce good color drafts much more effectively than an inkjet on fast draft. Colors are fairly vivid, and pixilation is not overly noticable. And although the paper tray is adjustable, I could not get it to setup to print properly on precut 4x6 photo paper, though standard sheets work flawlessly.
The biggest scare about purchasing this printer is networking. I want to clear this up. No, there is no ethernet jack, but the printer can be shared over a network with other comptuers using windows, and the disk to put drivers on the other computers. Follow the windows steps, not the drivers steps. However, error messages, etc. are all displayed through the status program, which only works on the computer the printer is directly hooked up to. I have also heard this printer does not work with a print server, but sharing does work, at least with Win2000 and later, probably Win9x.
Although the printer is not overly loud for a laser, it makes some strange clunking noises occassionally, that almost sound like it is breaking itself. You get used to them over time, however.
Overall, this is a great printer for the home user who needs a primary black, but occassional color printer, or a small business. This is not a large scale network printer, but for the price, it's speed, print quality, efficiency, and small scale ability make it a great choice for many looking for the benefits of laser. |
