Having suddenly started generating a lot of monochrome output I decided to take the pressure off my existing photoprinter - especially as the price per page is in excess of 30p.
I did a bit of research and ended up with this one that fit my needs - I needed something with a parallel interface ... Read review
Advantages: Inexpensive cost per page, quick, parallel and USB interfaces Disadvantages: no printed manual, no cables, slightly tricky to get going
Having suddenly started generating a lot of monochrome output I decided to take the pressure off my existing photoprinter - especially as the price per page is in excess of 30p.
I did a bit of research and ended up with this one that fit my needs - I needed something with a parallel interface to couple onto a network print server I already had, or that had an ethernet interface built in. The latter pointed me in the direction of printers ... ...wanted to pay.
Anyway - enough of my life story - I bought it, it arrived and I unpacked it. It's a reasonably compact footprint for a printer - and unlike most others in the price range it has a proper paper drawer - so your unused paper stock is not out and being covered in dust. All the packaging removed, toner cartridge was installed (slight toner spill in doing so) and power applied.
Having suddenly started generating a lot of monochrome output I decided to take the pressure off my existing photoprinter - especially as the price per page is in excess of 30p.
I did a bit of research and ended up with this one that fit my needs - I needed something with a parallel interface to couple onto a network print server I already had, or that had an ethernet interface built in. The latter pointed me in the direction of printers in the £150-200 range - way more than I really wanted to pay.
Anyway - enough of my life story - I bought it, it arrived and I unpacked it. It's a reasonably compact footprint for a printer - and unlike most others in the price range it has a proper paper drawer - so your unused paper stock is not out and being covered in dust. All the packaging removed, toner cartridge was installed (slight toner spill in doing so) and power applied.
The printer warmed up and immediately gave a paper jam error. Turned to the manual to discover that the two printed books that arrived with it are the warranty and the quick start guide - neither having any paperfeed error hints. After about 10 mins of jiggling the toner/drum assembly it worked and has remained working ever since.
The config page I requested certainly fired out of the printer in under 10s from cold - and the subsequent page came out in double quick smart time following it.
Connected up to the PC to test prints from the PC and after an uneventful install of the drivers, test prints were forthcoming - again in rapid fire fashion. It doesn't live up to the 19ppm marketing hype - but then again nor does any printer ever created live up to the raw speed of it's core engine. I estimate that I'm getting between 10 & 15 pages per minute output which is stupidly fast for light to moderate personal use.
As is usual with laser/LED printers there is slight page curl in the output - but it is just that - slight. Given 10 minutes on a flat surface it's almost totally flat once more.
In operation it has a noticable fan noise - although it's no worse than any other laser/LED printer I've ever used in my opinion and it's considerably quieter than the mechanism noise on some of the inkjets I've had in the past.
Toner costs around £20-25 for 2500-3000 pages (depending upon how it's measured) which equates to 0.7-1.0p per page in toner costs.
The drum has a quoted life of 25000 pages, but perversely currently costs more than the printer itself, which seems totally mad. When mine reaches that stage of its life, I shall probably be considering replacing it though (if I need to).
...had heard say that mark OKI is very good in printers and we found one that fulfilled our necessities and the truth is that we are very contentments at the moment with it. It is printer OKI B4100. TECHNICAL CHARACTERISTICS: - TYPE OF IMPRESSION: MONOCHROME.
- TECHNOLOGY: LASER.
- IMPRESSION TECHNOLOGY: PARALLEL, USB 2.0.
- SPEED OF IMPRESSION: 18ppm
- RESOLUTION MAX. HORIZONTAL w/b: 1200 ppp.
- VERTICAL RESOLUTION MAX. w/b: 600 ppp. - SUPPORTED ... ...x 297mm). - SUPPORTED TYPES: EXCEED AND SIMPLE PAPER.
- TOTAL CAPACITY: 250 PAGES. - RAM MEMORY: 8 MB. - DIRECT IMPRESSION: WITHOUT DIRECT IMPRESSION.
- VOLUME OF MONTHLY WORK: 15000 pages. - CARTRIDGES: 1 AND BLACK.
- REQUIRED OPERATING SYSTEM: Windows XP, 2000, 98 and NT 4.0.
- WIDTH: 35 ' 5 cm
- HEIGHT: 20 cm.
- DEPTH: 39 ' 5 cm.
- WEIGHT: 9KG. Since I have commented to you in the characteristics it is a monochrome printer, it only must ...
whitegirl 20.08.2006
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Ciao members have rated this review on average: helpful Review of OKI B 4100
If you're looking to improve the productivity and lower the operating costs of your business, the B4100 Digital Mono printer from OKI is made for you. It's built for speed and efficiency. A low purchase price and fast printing speed make the stand-alone B4100 the perfect dedicated Windows printer for busy, budget-minded at-home executives. Its compact footprint lets it fit right into space-challenged dorm rooms. And its legendarily rugged OKI reliability and fully enclosed Letter/Legal/ Universal paper tray makes the B4100 the ideal choice for demanding retail and back-office applications. The B4100 delivers black and white documents as fast as 19 pages per minute. That's crisp and clear output with 1200 x 600 dpi resolution - using a two-piece consumables system for long-lasting, high-quality performance and a lower cost of operation. For fewer user interventions, the B4100 has a 250-sheet standard paper capacity. In terms of durability, the OKI B4100 has a duty cycle rated at 15,000 pages per month, which translates into 750 printed pages per day, based on 20 work days per month.
