Club Printer

Konica and Minolta are two companies that have a lot of experience when it comes to printing and photography technology. They merged in 2003 and created Konica Minolta and they are now a great provider of printers both for photographs as well as for small offices. They are now some very serious competition for well known brands like HP or Epson. One of their more popular models is the Konica Minolta Magicolor printer, 5440 DL.

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As dimensions, you can’t really complain about the Magicolor 5440 DL. It measures 45.5 x 52 x 44 cm and weighs 31 kg, which is a pretty decent size for a color laser printer. In fact, it will be a while till manufacturers actually give a lot of thought to the size of an office color laser printer. Reason for this is simple, you buy it, you set a corner for it, and you don’t move it because you won’t really need to. Its size also allows for a higher paper capacity.

It comes with a 500 page paper tray and a 100 sheet manual tray. If you’re looking for even more, optional 500 sheet drawers are available for purchase and you can add two more for a total capacity of 1600. The duplexer is also optional and can be purchased for around $400.

You’ll get a backlit 16 by 2 line display that will show you status messages and work for indicating ink level. You’ll also get a well-structured control menu and easy navigation. For navigation you’ll be using the four directional buttons that have a confirm button right in between. You’ll also find a small orange button for canceling.

Its printing speeds are more than satisfactory, with 27 pages per minute for both color and black and white. The USB and Ethernet ports on the back will also allow you to set the printer up for your network. One minor problem the Magicolor 5440 DL has is that setting it up, unboxing it and getting it to work is a long and tedious process. You will be provided with an installation guide which a large number of steps to follow.

Text quality (both color and mono) is sharp and very clear. Image quality is not brilliant but will do for an office. Generally it has problems in the contrast/saturation area, so it won’t do such a good job in an office where users need to print high-resolution imagery.

You’ll be able to print directly from a PictBridge compatible digital camera, but will have to wait what seems like a lifetime for a photo to actually print at letter size on photo paper. Still, it remains a great printer for an office that needs to handle a lot of paperwork in either color or black or white. You might also end up paying more upfront (since this Konica Minolta Magicolor printer is on the rather expensive side of the offering) but it will be forth it when you discover that keeping it working and in top shape doesn’t require much money at all.

With brand-new models of color laser printers now selling for around $300, inexpensive color laser all-in-ones (AIOs) are no doubt around the corner. For the moment, however, the Konica Minolta magicolor 2480MF is one of only three sub-$800 color laser AIOs I’ve seen. It’s quite a capable machine and certainly belongs on your short list.

Like the other two AIOs in this category—the Epson AcuLaser CX11NF and Brother MFC-9420CN—the 2480MF is a hefty beast, measuring 20.9 by 23.1 by 18.7 inches (HWD) and weighing in at 70.4 pounds. Its large size makes it most appropriate for a small office, but I can see the AIO squeezing into a home office, if you have the space available. (more…)