The price of colour laser printers continues to fall, to the point where Konica Minolta now claims that its Magicolor 5430 is the first model that's affordable enough to be considered as a replacement for a standard office workgroup mono laser. At just over £700, that's not an unreasonable claim.

The Magicolor 5430 has a maximum resolution of 2,400 x 600dpi, although the default 1,200 x 600 setting will be more than adequate for most colour or mono printing tasks. It's also equipped with 64MB of onboard memory, a 250-sheet paper tray, and USB and Ethernet interfaces, so you can either connect it to one particular PC or hook it up to your office network.

The initial setup process is very simple. The various toner cartridges slot easily into place and installing the software took just a few seconds. Our only criticism is that the printer driver seems slightly over-complicated, and occasionally seemed to revert to its default settings without asking permission. However, it is possible to save your settings, so they can be restored quickly if necessary.

Printing speed and quality were impressive, producing 10 pages of mono text in just 44 seconds. Printing full-page A4 photographic images was slower, as you'd expect, but still very respectable at just 25 seconds at 1,200 x 600 and 30 seconds at 2,400 x 600.

These levels of performance mean the Magicolor is versatile enough to function as a good workhorse for mono printing, while offering high-quality colour printing when needed. At around £700, it's more expensive than some of the mono laser printers that are available, but it does offer a viable alternative to the more expensive workgroup-oriented mono lasers that are used by many businesses.

Contact:: Konica Minolta 01784 442 225
www.konicaminoltaprinters.co.uk

Specifications:

• Single-pass 4-colour laser printer
• 20ppm mono and colour
• Maximum resolution 2,400 x 600dpi
• 64MB memory
• 250-sheet paper tray
• USB and Ethernet interfaces