Konica Minolta Magicolor 1690MF Multifunction Color Laser Printer Save 45% off

• The Konica Minolta magicolor 1690MF is compact footprint of 16.0"W x 16.9"D x 17"H is perfect for desktop use and it features an easy to read display for intuitive operation.
• The magicolor 1690MF outputs original prints at speeds up to 20 ppm B&W and 5 ppm color and accommodates a monthly duty cycle of 35,000 prints.
• Replacing toner cartridges is simple with the full front access panel on your magicolor 1690MF.
• Toner yields up to 2,500 pages per cartridge.
• Copy, scan and fax multiple documents with ease using the automatic document feeder, accommodates 35 sheets of paper at a time.

On the positive side, it prints very quickly in black, a little slower in color (it''s a four-pass CMYK printer, meaning it prints Cyan, Magenta, Yellow and Black in individual runs or passes) but the quality of the color images are fantastic and are only limited by the quality of paper used. It scans acceptably well, not spectacular, but more than well enough for my needs. Haven''t tried the fax portion and don''t foresee doing so.

There are only two negatives that I''ve found: the machine is noisy even when not in use; it has a loud cooling fan that will run for a long time (more than 20 minutes); and it''s shipped with what seems like only a few drops of black toner. If you buy this printer and plan to do any amount of printing right away, you need to get more black toner, pronto. The toner cartridge that came with it lasted less than a week with moderate usage.

So far I like it and would recommend it. The printer part of it gets five stars, the scanner four stars. The other qualities--noise, set up, features--bring the overall rating to four stars.

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I''ve had this printer for several months and would overall rate it as mediocre, but the base machine now sells for ~$250 online so you get what you pay for. Compared to prior Brother lasers, the KM is very noisy, slow, counter-intuitive to set up, crippled in a Mac OS 10.6 environment, and has largely dismal support online and by phone. So, be certain you''re willing to accept these trade-offs in return for decent color prints, adequate scans, and OK faxes. Otherwise, pay a few hundred dollars more for a more user-friendly machine.

As others have noted, a set of OEM toner replacements costs more than the entire printer, so this is the Gillette model: give away the razors but make your profit on the supplies. Refilled toner cartridges are about half the cost of OEM and available online; refill kits, if you want to put up with the mess, could drop the costs further. One particularly annoying feature is that it''s virtually impossible to cancel a print job using the buttons on the front. If there''s a printing error in one document of twenty, the only to stop the machine from spitting out garbled pages filled with costly toner is to power it down and then hit the Cancel button repeated as it powers back up. I''ve called customer support from time to time and finally figured out that they do have some good reps who can be very helpful, so if you get a bozo, just politely thank him for his efforts and call back on the same number. It usually takes 4-5 calls in a row to find an experienced tech but it''s worth the effort: they will know the limitations of the machine, which helps you avoid trying to find a workaround for inherent problems in the hardware or software.

As a color laser printer alone, I would rate the quality of the images as good. I run a small business and print 80% B&W and 20% color so this machine is adequate for my needs. In fact, I used the driver features to set up different virtual printers [B&W draft quality, color draft quality, B&W hi res, color hi res] and find that for most tasks the draft quality is indistinguishable visually from the hi res setting. I presume this is saving significant toner costs, as it did on my Brother machines, but it''s possible that the reason is that this software feature doesn''t do much. You probably would want to use hi res for photo images.

I''ve read the user manual ten times and it is really marginal: sometimes confusing, lacking in depth, and almost useless in trouble shooting. Combined with the poor customer support, this means you are pretty much on your own in figuring how to set up this machine. Fortunately, my Mac OS 10.6 software had no trouble recognizing this printer via USB connection, and then my Time Machine network recognized it too. I also figured out how to have Windows XP in a virtual environment recognize the print function if I hook it up to a USB port on my MacBook Pro. I gave up on net printing after wasting a few hours although I have implemented this on other printers without such hassles.

As a Mac user, the greatest drawback is that despite over a year of misleading sales as a "Mac Compatible" system, KM has still not released scan or fax drivers for OS 10.6. In other words, this printer is only compatible with outdated Mac OS: none of the other "multifunction" features work with Snow Leopard. I did finally figure out how to save manual scans to a USB stick using the port on the front of the machine, but after two scans is saves them skewed about 30 degrees. I''m assuming this is a hardware defect but the quality of the scans is low enough I will probably use my trusty Brother machine for scanning and faxing.

I did install the duplex adapter that also required adding a large capacity paper tray. It seems to work but the large capacity tray makes the scanner bed so high up I had to move it off of my desk to a lower table nearby. Paper handling features are rudimentary: it will not accept 8.5 x 14 or sizes smaller than a personal envelope. So, I use my trusty Brother to print deposit slips and scan or print legal-sized documents.

In summary, the KM 1690MF is the least expensive color laser printer available because it has a number of limitations. But, if you are on a tight budget and don''t print many pages per month, it could fill the bill if you use Windows or an outmoded Mac OS.

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We use this printer in our little design office, to supplement the ultra-high-quality (and ultra slow and expensive) prints from our ink-jet printer. I bought this printer to offer speed and economy for daily printing. The prints are surprisingly good, and fast enough to be a welcome relief from that ink-jet printer!

There is a bit of fan noise at times, and scanning over the network can be a little slow at the higher resolutions. But overall we are extremely happy with the printer. We''ve been cranking out full color prints of renderings and drawings, and there are no signs that we are running out of toner. We still don''t use if for our final, photographic-quality high-gloss presentations, but we use if for all our daily stuff and interim client reviews.

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I bought this printer after much searching of all the brand names I could find. In total blind faith, I decided on this one. It seemed to have the least service problems opposed to the best features. As laser printers were never meant to produce quality photos, this printer does quite nicely for occasional medium grade photos and oustanding for my original purpose...color printed illustrations and reams of notes for my anatomy and microbiology classes.I am deeply satisfied with this printer for this purpose.

As for problems, the first page I tried to print, the paper jammed, my fault for not putting in the paper right (I was in a hurry). Also, the fuser is faulty (and they are sending me a new one at no charge) leaving a mark across two lines on the paper. It doesn''t affect my notes and color diagram, but still, it''s new and shouldn''t do that.

I have had no other problems and Minolta is being wonderful about all my idiots issues. They were endlessly patient when, after two months and 764 pages later, I had to replace the sample toners. They lasted much longer than they were supposed to, but I set my dpi settings at 600 x 600. I still had very good quality results at that setting.They worked with me for over an hour, walking me through the installation.

All in all, I would definitely buy this product again and will endlessly recommend it to all my friends!

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Overall really nice laser printer for the price and functionality. The only one out there that I can see. However if you own a Mac which is a lot of us... there is only USB scanning using Image Capture, meaning no network scanning like there is from the PC driver.