Photo quality Color Laser printer - KM 2350EN Anyone seen it's printouts before?

[kfeng]

Hi all,

I have been looking into (relatively affordable) color laser printers for photo quality printing.

There was one that caught my eye. The Konica Minolta Magicolor 2350EN.

There's a review about it: http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,1759,1217172,00.asp

The only thing is where can I find sellers in Sim Lim Square or anywhere else who sell Konica Minolta color laser printers? I want to see the printer in action, and compare its print quality to respectable inkjets.

If anyone is using this model of color laser, please do tell me where did you buy it from and for what price? And roughly your comments about the toners and imaging drum, any experiences etc.

[Wai]

Got another review here

if your budget allows, can consider this too

[Wai]

tomolo go comex @ suntec, should have all these printers

[kfeng]

Wai, you're the man. anything color laser, you're always seem to know it all. Read ur previous threads...

The first link of the 2300DL is great. But in case you didn't see my thread title, its the 2350EN that my thread is referring to. The 2350 EN boasts 9600 x 600 dpi with FineArt mode. They say the 4 colors can be printed at 16 different levels, therefore giving better photographs due to better color gradients.

and KM also has a SC-215 scanner that allows the 2300 DL or 2350EN to become a color copier without the use of a PC. Making it even more attractive for a multifunction user (like me) switching to color laser, cos my HP multifunction printer gives me color banding problems, and the scanner is spoilt, and HP doesn't want to repair, they will give me a recon one if i trade in spoilt one and pay the price of a nice photo quality inkjet, i.e. $450.

Then, while I was shopping one day and the sales person recommended me the CLP-500N. I told him the automatic duplex and price attracted me. I told him i wouldn't buy until i had checked up many reviews about it.

Check the states webby, and there is a CLP-550N. Noticed that the 550N has more ram and supports PCL6, while 500N is SPL-C and half the ram of 550N. I don't find any major changes to the 550N from the 500N. Wonder is print quality anything better about 550N than 500N ?

PC mag's review of the clp-500 shows there's a problem with the clp-500 not returning control to application quickly enough that's making them not recommending it. If that didn't exist, i would have almost gotten either 500N or 550N.
http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,1759,1437987,00.asp

Worse: now they are promoting the 500N with a free handphone. meaning KM is ready to bring in the 550N after their promotion, hoping to finish up their stock of the 500N.

Note: I focus on print quality, duplex, and of course price. Print speed does not matter at all to me... (at least print speed is anytime faster than an inkjet.) so its down to 2 choices, the KM or the samsung. HP, oki, brother, canon and lexmark all don't have anything special about their color lasers.

So the clp-500N is a no brainer in terms of features and price. (if i can try out if there is really a delay problem). while the 2350EN has optional duplex at around S$600, and the printout is slightly glossy and higher dpi, at S$1000, the SC-215 can be obtained.

one more thing: can the clp-500n use photo quality paper ? will there be any difference if i use photo paper or normal 80gsm paper? And maybe i should start a new thread to call users of clp-500n... if they face the same problem.

[kfeng]

Wai, want to ask you something about color lasers. Do color laser printers have banding problems like inkjets?

Also, do you think these year's models of color lasers can produce decent photographs at lower costs than inkjets ?

[Wai]

banding problem - possible, esp when the cartidges almost empty

colour laser with plain paper definitely win inkjet + plain paper

colour and sharpness for colour laser with plain paper is as good as using coated paper and inkjet

however, i won't recommend it for photo, it still lose to inkjet on glossy paper

also, at very close look, u will see that printouts from colour laser has small grains (dots), but latest inkjet can really produce very nice colour gradient, so fine that u cannot see any grains.

however, ink cart dry easily if u dun print regularly...clotted cart will cause banding. Certain brand of inkjet printer already very "famous" for the head clotting problem

but if u use it regularly, i will say the print quality from this brand is the best, water proof somemore

[Wai]

before i answer all your questions, which app. u will print from most of the time?

500N is a host based printer, so the print speed depend on the computer too, esp for the "return to application control"

however, this won't really bothers me, unless u need to print many different files in very short time, that's why all these depends on how u use it

[Wai]

Ops...was rushing off just now, didn't read the model number clearly

from my experience with the 2300 - i dun like the physcial design and the embedded web server, user interface is bad. Imagine the password to the web server was no where stated in the website and manual, i got to try my luck to guess the password and login to the web server (probably they have sovled this problem now)

for the 2350, it is still the 4 pass printer engine - slow, noisy
the menu button still the same - very hard to navigate
no paper tray still

but it is small and cheap compare to other brand

[kfeng]

If i print color photos, it is from photoshop. For normal documents in b/w, the application is usually acrobat, word or powerpoint, and often print double sided.

I rarely use (infact never bought before) glossy paper, since its quite costly.

For photos, i usually, print to plain paper, then laminate them. So i get a fake "glossy" appearance too. So i probably will not mind if the printer produces matt printouts, instead of semi-glossy printouts on plain paper.

Essentially, I want to be able to print all my usual word, powerpoint and pdf b/w documents and also be able to print reasonably ok color photos (as long as no obvious banding)

So does it mean color laser would be a better choice for me? Especially the 500N or 550N with built in duplex?

For the 2350, yes even the reviewers say its is noisy and slow. But they say the quality is good and comparable to inkjet print on glossy paper. But i'll have to spend another S$600 more for duplexer.

[PhotoTime]

Just side Track a bit. Does anybody has any idea on how much is the toner for each of the laser printer? I am considering switching over to laser, but I afraid that the maintenance cost will be higher than that of inkjet.

[Wai]

For low end colour laser, cost of each toner can range from $150-$300++

so when you need to replace all the 4 colours, it will cost as much as getting a new printer