Lovely prints. You’ll pay for ’em, though
Konica Minolta’s new Magicolor 3730DN is
designed to be greener than similar colour lasers in this class. It costs only
$325, despite claiming a decent 24ppm print speed in both mono and colour
modes, which looks like a pretty good deal for small workgroups.
It’s a huge, heavy printer and the print
engine is arranged sideways in relation to the front panel. The paper tray and
consumables are accessed through the front, but the manual feed slot is to the
right, so you need to keep the desktop clear on two sides. On the plus side, it
has an integrated duplex unit.
Good-looking
printer, great-looking prints, sad-looking bank balance
These days, most manufacturers’ install
programs find their printers on the network and do the configuration for you,
but Konica Minolta’s is a blast from the past. You need to use the printer’s
display to find its IP address.
The3730DN uses Konica Minolta’s Simitri
polymerised toner, which uses less power than conventional loner by fusing at
lower temperatures.
The benefits were evident in our print
quality tests: text across a range of sizes was pin-sharp with no discernible
smudging or dusting. Mono photographs revealed impressive levels of detail,
particularly in darker areas, and banding was kept to a minimum.
For such a low-cost printer, its colour
output was surprisingly good. Our test prints showed good colour balance and
detail, while our colour performance chart also confirmed that the 3730DN
produces better results than Konica Minolta’s higher-end 4750DN. Grey shades
using equal mixes of C, Y and M toner were reproduced faithfully, whereas the
4750DN was too enthusiastic with its yellow toner.
This is a GDI (CUPS) printer, so the page
needs to be processed by OS X before being passed to the printer, rather than
vector data being sent to the printer for processing. This will munch some CPU
time on your Mac while pages are output, but shouldn’t stop you doing anything
else.
Despite that, though, we found print speeds
were good, with our 24-page text document churning out in 60 seconds. The
driver offers three resolutions, and the document was delivered at the same
speed for each setting. Our 24-page DTP print fared less well, but its
collection of photos and graphics still printed at a decent 14.5ppm.
Duplex printing is activated from the
driver panel, but it will only let you print at up to 1,200 x 600dpi in this
mode. However, double-sided speeds are good: our 24-page text document
completed in one minute seven seconds.
The driver provides a good range of controls,
with options to print multiple pages on one sheet, as well as booklets and
large posters. Installation could be improved. However, as Konica’s driver
installation routine couldn’t find the printer on our network. We had to print
a configuration page to get the unit’s IP address and enter it manually.
The 3730DN’s printing costs are a concern.
Along with the four toner cartridges, you have belt, transfer roller and fuser,
plus waste bottles, and these all push the cost per mono page to 2.6p and a
pocket-thumping 12.3p for colour.
You can reduce these figures by using
high-yield cartridges, which makes a modest difference, at 2.2p for mono and
10.9p for colour. Initial costs will be even higher, as the printer ships with
2,000-page mono and 1,000-page colour cartridges, while the starter belt unit
lasts for only 50,000 pages.
For less than $375, the Magicolor 3730DN
has plenty going for it: it’s fast and delivers good overall print quality in
both mono and colour. Unfortunately, its high running costs make it a sensible
choice only for those with a limited need for colour.
Pages per minute
24pp plain text: 60 secs 24ppm
24pp DTP: 1.37 mins 14.5ppm
Six 6 X 4in photos: 52 secs 6.9ppm
2,400 X 600dpi
USB
Ethernet
Duplex
Conclusion
Price: $325
inc VAT
From: printerbase.co.uk
Needs: OS
X 10.2.8, 10.3.9 or later
Pro: Nice
prints, Cheap to buy, Decent print speeds
Con: Bigger
and heavier than it looks, Off-puttingly high running costs
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