Minolta 2350EN Magicolor laser printer review

The Minolta 2350 EN Color Laser Printer is Minolta-QMS's latest release in its popular Magicolor family. Carrying on from the huge commercial success of the Magicolor 2300W Minolta have once again raised the stakes and dropped the price - You can find the 2350 EN on the street today for less than $800.

Minolta 2350EN vs 2300W

The Minolta 2350EN Magicolor :
A Fully Featured Color Laser Printer

The 2350 EN has three key differences over its predecessor the Magicolor 2300W. The printer's memory has been increased from 32MB to 96MB, A 10/100 ethernet network port has been added and a new color laser printing technology - Con-Tone is used to increase the number of colours and offer a wider more vibrant color range by offsetting where color is applied to the page.

The results mean that the 2350 EN is a viable photo printing alternative to photo printers from HP, Epson and Canon. Photos look vibrant and rich at 600 * 600 DPI - There is not grainyness or color blots either, our test patterns printed smooth color gradients across the spectrum.

More printer Memory than the 2300W

The 2350 EN's printer memory is scalable up to 384MB and the printer takes standard PC DIMM memory so you can reuse some of that old computer memory you might have lying around. Other Color Laser printer manufacturers could take a leaf out of Minolta's book and stop using proprietary and overpriced printer memory.

One of Minolta's Noisier Printers

The 2350 EN is noisier than the 2300W and a lot noisier than comparable printers from Hewlett Packard, Xerox and others. This is a shame as it may make it unsuitable for use in a quiet family home. If you're worried about the magicolor's noise pop into your local computer store for a demonstration.

The control panel menu is not as intuitive as HP's or the Xerox printers are - Options are placed in very hard to find places and the dial controls do not work well. The manual that ships with the 2350 doesn't help much either - browse the installation CD for further instructions.

Minolta Printer Drivers

Minolta update their printer drivers often so check their website before you install from a CD that may be a few months old. The printer was simple to setup under Windows XP and Minolta promise compatibility with Apple Macintosh computers.

Minolta 2350 EN Toner and Consumables

At 35,000 pages printed per month the 2350 EN is well suited to the home office or small office printing environment.

The Minolta 2350 EN ships with a printer drum cartridge and four standard toner cartridges preinstalled but the cartridges are only rated for 1500 pages. The larger capacity 4500 page toner cartridges are well priced compared to comparable 'High Capacity' toner cartridges from other manufacturers like HP and especially Xerox.

This printer is good with thicker paper stock and suffers fewer paper jams than other small office color laser printers in its class. This makes it great for printing company brochures and promotional material.

a flexible little color laser

Minolta have ensured a wide audience for the 2350EN by offering a USB 1.1 port and a standard parallel printer port so owners of most PC's shouldn't have any printer compatibility issues. It's a shame Minolta couldn't squeeze USB2.0 into this printer its the only area in which the printer flexibility falls short.

The printer emulates Hewlett Packard's PCL6 Printer Control Language and Linux and Macintosh 2350EN users report no compatibility issues. The Minolta Printer Management Software provided is easy to install though some networking knowledge may be required to use.

Minolta 2350EN Review Conclusion :

Color reproduction and image quality is top class and 1200 * 1200 DPI at a respectable 17 pages per minute is good for a small offices black and white print runs and mailouts.

Is $800 too much to pay for a 4 pages per minute Color Laser Printer? Not if photo quality prints are important to you. 4 color pages printed per minute isn't bad if you compare the 2350EN against some of the inkjet photo printers out there.

A Top Class Color Laser Photo Printer

We're well pleased with the Minolta 2350EN Magicolor Laser Printer and have no hesitation in recommending it to anyone looking for a small office / workgroup printer.