Not worth the extra money

Our company has leased 7 of these machines for the past 3 years.

What a mistake. The business model for this machine is that of a copier/printer only, with "added" features for an extra price.

Want scanning enabled? Extra price.
Want network capability? Extra price.
Want FAX capability? Extra price.

That was the printer business model from the 1990s, but with the advent of consumer Multi-function copiers available at places like Office Depot and even Costco, that era is, thankfully, fading into the sunset.

This is a throwback to those days.

Our business is only able to print and copy with our base model BizHub Di1811p. It connects by USB or printer port directly to a PC.

While it is expandable to handle 10/100 Ethernet connectivity, that is an extra option that does not come with the base model.

Wireless connectivity? You have got to be kidding.

Although it is advertised as having built-in scanning functions, those are not enabled in the base package. They must be turned on, for an extra fee. That is despite the tease of putting parallel and USB TWAIN drivers for scanning on the installation CD and on the web site.

Konica is a minimally responsive company for customer service. Got a problem? "See your local service rep." Again, the service model of the 1990s. Replies to email inquiries are terse and "Why are you bothering us?" in tone.

The drivers are PCL, and despite advertising the printer as being Postscript capable, I have never been able to print a Postscript output to the machine.

While we use the machine as a network printer, that must be done through an always-on PC, used as a Print Server, or with a dedicated print server (which are cheap nowadays).

Besides, the print server option works for printing only, not other functions such as scanning and FAX. Although there are now "print servers" that are advertised as "MFC servers" and promise total functionality, the minimalist capabilities of this device make me skeptical they would function with this machine.

Now, for what it does (printing and copying), it is a quick, decent, reliable machine. If those are the only two functions you need or are willing to pay and pay for "upgrades," then it is not a bad machine. We have never had a mechanical problem with it, with a routine yearly servicing plan from our local supplier.

In April 2008 this machine goes for about $1600. We got it in 2004 for much more. I am hoping to convince the purchasing department to move into this century and replace all of these dinosaur machines.

For about one-quarter of that price these days you can get a true laser MFC that is networkable and does business the way we really do business these days.

Oh yes, last important thing. Our company is moving to Linux month by month. Because of the PCL orientation of this machine, it is completely Linux incompatible, and there is no one willing to write a driver wrapper for it, least of all Konica Minolta (they told me as much). I have tried for several months workarounds -- nothing works.