Awful. Worst WG Printer I've Ever Used in 15 Years.
Pros:
Decent tech support. One of the engineers was wonderful.
Cons:
THE most horribly designed printer(hardware and software) I've seen in 15 years.
The Bottom Line:
Awful in every respect. Instead of this 11 x 17 printer, I'd rather tile 8.5 x 11 outputs and tape them together. It would be easier and far less frustrating.
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Overall Rating:
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Author's Review
(First: Know that we're generally a satisfied Minolta customer. We have a PageWorks 20 from five years ago that we like. The PagePro 9100N was supposed to have replaced that unit.)
There's really no way to put this delicately: The PagePro 9100 could suck no more than it does.
Let's start with the electronics and the software. From a terrible control panel interface to a basically worthless HTML interface that allows virtually no user control, the printer comes set to some pretty curious defaults. It took multiple calls to Tech to get this printer to work via TCP/IP printing either on Windows 2000 machines or Macintoshes. (The problem? Without a valid queue name, the printer ignores the job. Funny... the 5-year-old one doesn't require a queue name at all.) With a PostScript job, you need to change the protocol from "Normal" (the default) to "Binary" or your job won't print. No error messages, no flashing lights... the job just evaporates. Flash upgrades don't take, and the included software doesn't do much. (The tech guys themselves don't even use it. They go straight into the Printers control panel in Windows and set things up that way. They flat-out told me it wasn't any good.)
The notion that ANYONE in ANY ENVIRONMENT could take this printer out of the box and begin using it is just laughable. Compare this to HP, and it's clear this is an inferior product. Printouts, when they do come out, are clear and crisp, although that technhology has existed since the late 1980's. As a network administrator who's worked in cross-platform environments for years, this really is the worst workgroup printer I've ever seen. I wish there were some nice alternatives to HP, but believe me, this isn't.
The unit itself is flimsy and cheap, especially compared to its predecessor. There's a weird paper guide under the cover that basically hangs by a cable and always gets in the way of closing. The multipurpose tray door doesn't close--it always flips out and won't stay upright.
And today,after about two weeks of use (and 10 hours of tech support calls and setup), it started making a horrible grinding noise.
We're done. If you need an 11 x 17 workgroup printer, avoid this one.
