Dan Littman

Minolta-QMS PagePro 1250W

What can you say about a printer that costs so little, prints so well, and runs just a hair shy of the fastest SOHO laser we've tested? We say that's a great deal, despite some caveats. At only $199, the PagePro 1250W costs $100 less than the next-cheapest home-office lasers on the chart. We clocked its text-printing speed at 12 ppm. That's only 0.2 ppm behind the fastest home-office printer, and faster than one of the networkable models on the corporate chart. The 1250W also impressed us with its clean, crisp black text.
The 1250W is a Windows-based machine; in other words, it has no processor of its own and uses your PC's CPU to process the files it prints. So if you have a slow or overburdened PC, the 1250W may not perform as well for you as it did at PC World's Test Center. (We conduct printer speed tests using a Compaq Evo D310 with an Intel Celeron 1.8-GHz processor and 256MB of PC2100 RAM, and this PC is not running any other operations at the time.) In addition, the lack of an on-board processor means the 1250W cannot interpret or render PostScript files. If you need to print PostScript documents, choose another printer, such as Minolta's $299 PagePro 1250E. The printer includes only 8MB of memory, which is not expandable, and you can't add a network interface. Its limited paper-handling capabilities--a 150-sheet input tray, and a single-sheet bypass feed for slipping in an envelope or letterhead--may not be enough for an office.
Minolta sells a 500-sheet add-on tray for a reasonable $149. The printed setup guide provides no information about using the 1250W, but an extensive manual on the CD fills in the gaps well.
The PagePro 1250W offers excellent speed at an inexpensive price, but it's best used in a single-PC environment.

Buying Information

Minolta-QMS PagePro 1250W $ http://