Konica Minolta magicolor 3100 Color Laser Printer

• Up to 1,200 x 1,200 dpi resolution
• Up to 16 ppm in color and black, first page out in 17 seconds
• 256 MB RAM, upgradeable to 512 MB
• USB and CrownNet for Ethernet 10BaseT/100BaseTX interfaces
• Automatic 2-sided printing; 1-year onsite warranty

I can''t say what occurred with the previous reviewer. My guess

is he was referring to the 2200 (a much slower color printer)

or was driving the 3100 via a parallel cable.

I got the printer today and have printed just about everything

in sight, including 8.5x11 inch pictures (1536x2048x16 million

color digital camera images) in regular and fine quality mode.

Certainly it takes the printer longer to print these images,

but thats 15 seconds verses instantaineous. Note that I use

a 100bps ethernet to drive it.

The image quality looks great to me. I picked this printer

because if you add duplexing and a 500 sheet tray to their

lower end printer(the 2200), both options I need, you get

approximately the same total price as well as a printer that

is MUCH slower in color, has a fraction of the CPU speed and

does not do Postscript 3.

The 3100 DN is a win, and gives both a better price and smaller

size than the equivalent HP printer. The other printers in this

class all seemed to have 500 sheets, duplexing or networking

as various options.

Again I would ask the first reviewer to check if he has the

right printer and retract that if not. This printer does not

deserve that writeup at all.

1/2003 postscript:

Have been using this printer for 2 weeks now. This printer has

several features that are apparent only after examining the

unit, and deserve mention. First, it is very quick to come

online from a full energy save mode, about 1 minute. Second,

you can get full status on the printer by accessing the

built in web server (mentioned nowhere I could find in the

documentation), which gives an amazing number of statistics

on the printer, including bar graphs telling you how much

toner remains in each of the colors, how much life (in pages)

are left on each printer component, etc.

Finally, each of the parts that wear out in the printer, the

toner, transfer unit, imaging unit, fuser and feed roller are

user servicable units that can be simply unlatched and

replaced.

The local store discontinued this unit, but is still selling

a certain major brand name printer that is both more expensive

(if you include the same options), larger and, IMHO, uglier

than this printer.

Buy Konica Minolta magicolor 3100 Color Laser Printer Now

After 3 weeks with helpful Minolta tech support staff I have discovered that it is normal and OK for this printer to take 12 minutes to print one 8'' x 8'' regular photograph at 300 dpi at the printer''s lowest resolution. That is way too long to be practical in a business environment. I regret the purchase.