magicolor 2550EN

The Konica Minolta Magicolor 2550EN boasts Emperon technology, Simitri polymerised toner and Enhanced Image Density Control. But if the Konica Minolta Magicolor 2550EN is heavy on buzzwords - Emperon is simply a marketing term for Konica's own-brand printing system and interface - it's light on features.

Not only does the Konica Minolta Magicolor 2550EN look ordinary, with a generic beige finish and darker graphite print tray, the build quality is ordinary. The finish looks flimsy compared to the more solid lines of some of the competition, while the styling is mediocre. Ergonomically, the Konica Minolta Magicolor 2550EN's most useful feature is a kill job button. This is missing from other models, but is a fast and effective paper and toner saver.

The Konica Minolta Magicolor 2550EN's installation went fairly smoothly, although some of the dialogs in the drivers were in Spanish. The supplied software includes a fairly corporate selection of tools, including plug-ins for the Enterprise Management System and Novell's NDPS network print environment - which may interest businesses, but are less useful at home. The remaining software is a collection of standard remote print and management utilities. The most useful is a built-in web server, which makes remote management easy when combined with the PageScope Web connection tool.

Taking a minute to ready itself and with a colour output rate of 5ppm, the Konica Minolta Magicolor 2550EN isn't quick off the mark. Monochrome speeds are more respectable at 20ppm, but running costs are among the highest here. And quality is mediocre, too - it's acceptable for business graphics, but not for reproducing colour photos effectively.