konica minolta magicolor 7300 review

Verdict:

The speed, low cost of ownership and excellent output quality make A3 colour printing a realistic option for any business

Review Date: 5 Mar 2004

Price when reviewed: (£2495 ex VAT)

Reviewed By: Mike Hirschkorn

Our Rating 4 stars out of 5

We found the default colour settings to be adequate in most circumstances. However, the Magicolor 7300 comes with ICC and ColorSync profiles so you can fine-tune it to match the output characteristics you desire using the Mac OS's built-in ColorSync software. There's also a wide range of colour settings within the print driver.

We weren't impressed with the layout of the driver software. It simply provides a pane within the standard Mac OS X print dialog called Printer Features. Within this you get a further four panes called Basic Features, and Detailed Colour Settings 1, 2 and 3. There doesn't seem much logic to the arrangement, and it feels as though the choices are rather limited. It's also frustrating that Mac users don't get all the utilities available to those running Windows, such as a Status Monitor application. Fortunately, you can get a web-based status read-out by entering the printer's IP address into your browser. The main way of interacting with the Magicolor 7300, though, is through its on-board control panel.

This is a surprisingly simple unit for such a powerful printer. It has just a handful of buttons, four status LEDs and a small two-line LCD panel. The advantage of this simple approach is that it makes the Magicolor 7300's menu system relatively easy to navigate and control, but like the driver software, it feels a little overly simplistic.

These minor quibbles are far outweighed by the Magicolor 7300's benefits, though. Its speed, low cost of ownership and excellent output quality make A3 colour printing a realistic option for any business.

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