Panasonic KX-P 7100

Author's product rating:   

Picture quality	Excellent
Printing speed	Very fast
Colour sensitivity	Good
Ease of use	Very easy
Value For Money	Excellent

Advantages:	High quality, fast, easy to use,long - lasting cartridges
Disadvantages:	Very occasional paper jams

Recommend to potential buyers:

yes

Full review

Yikes ! I can't believe that I am actually doing a computer review! But the day has come when I'm going to attempt one. I'm not the most technical-minded person in the world. Far from it. So don't expect a load of jargon etc. I'll tell you how easy / hard it was to set up, if it's any good, if it's worth the money, if we've had any problems with it, and, of course, what it actually does. And this will all be in lay person speak ! So here goes...

PURCHASING IT
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We bought the printer about 1 1/2 years ago from our local PC World. We wanted something simple that wouldn't require constant ink / toner replacement as our daughter prints anything and everything in sight ! The printer we had already got was a colour one and we were regularly buying new ink cartridges for it which wasn't cheap. We made the decision to buy a black and white printer, keep it for a few years and then replace it with a colour one when our eldest daughter got to the stage of needing one for her schoolwork.

I decided to leave my husband to it, and so off he went to PC World. An hour later. he came back with a Panasonic KX-P7100 under his arm. Well not exactly under his arm as the box was too big for that. But you know what I mean !

It cost £ 170, and he had also bought a USB cable for £ 13.99 as there wasn't one with the printer. I don't know if it is normal for a printer to come without one, or whether you always have to buy one.

INSTALLATION
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Whenever we buy anything remotely connected to a computer, whether it is a printer, Broadband, monitor or the computer itself, hubby and I always install whatever is necessary together. This way if anything goes wrong, or if we have any problems, we can take the blame together and not point a finger at each other.

Regarding this printer, it's just as well we did install it together, as we did have a little difficulty. Now I don't know if this was because of the printer itself and the instructions, or whether it was because neither of us are computer experts. If I had to choose one, I would say it was the latter, as the instructions seemed clear enough. I think we simply made a mistake.

The first thing you have to do is install the toner cartridge into the drum unit, and then install the drum unit into the printer. We managed to do this without any difficulty as there were diagrams to show exactly what had to be done. Basically, the drum unit just slides in and then you push it down. Doing this, we had to be careful not to touch the surface of the drum or expose it to light for too long.

Loading paper is easy. You pull out a tray at the bottom, fill it up with paper, and then close it again. Inside there is a maximum fill line to prevent you from loading too much, and there are adjustments that you move according to the size of the paper. On the outside of the tray, there is an indicator that shows you if the tray is full of paper, getting low, or empty. This means that you don't have to keep pulling the media tray out to see if more paper is needed.

The next step was to connect the cables. You can either use a parallel interface cable or a USB interface cable. As I already mentioned, these are not included with the printer, and so if you haven't got one knocking around at home, you will need to buy one. If you want to use the USB option, you will require Windows 98 or later.
This bit was simple even for me ! Connect one end of the cable to the printer and the other end to your computer. Then connect the power cord and it's done.

The final part of the installation was the software, and this is where we encountered our little problem. The instructions on screen and in the installation guide seemed clear and straightforward. I simply think we made a mistake and then it took us a while to get back on track. Of course, we blamed the printer !

WHAT DOES IT DO ?
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I suppose this is where the techno jargon could kick in, but like I already said, this means nothing to me. Anyway, all the specs are available on the product page. So here, I'll just use basic speak.

The printer is a laser printer that only prints in black and white. Our old printer was quite slow, so we chose this one partly because it prints 15 pages per minute. It has an auto duplex feature, and takes A4 and Legal sized paper, but nothing larger. The media tray also takes transparencies and envelopes and its capacity is 250 sheets.

It weighs 10 kg which definitely makes it a desktop printer and not a portable one.

ANY GOOD ?
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We have not had any problems with it except for the very occasional paper jam. If this does happen, a display appears on your screen telling you exactly where the jam has occurred. This makes it simple to open up the printer and locate the offending paper without too much messing around.

The quality of the printing is excellent. It is very crisp and clear, and there have never been any marks or lines on the paper. The toner cartridge lasts an extremely long time. The printer comes supplied with a cartridge that is supposed to last for approximately 2000 pages. It lasted about a year for us and we only had to replace it around 5 months ago. When you consider that we were replacing the colour cartridges in our old printer every 3 or 4 months, this has certainly saved us a lot of money. The replacement cartridges that you subsequently buy are supposed to last for about 4000 copies. It cost us about £45 which may seem a lot, but don't forget that it's going to last for a very long time.

After switching the printer on, it takes just 20 seconds for it to be ready to print. I don't know how it compares with others, but it is definitely a lot quieter than our old one. Don't get me wrong, you can still hear it, but it doesn't sound like an express train !

If you want a printer that you can carry around, then this isn't for you. It is quite heavy and bulky, and is marketed as a desktop printer.

If, like us, you have no need for a colour printer and don't want to be replacing cartridges every couple of months, then this Panasonic printer is one that I'd definitely recommend. It comes with a standard one year On-Site warranty which Panasonic call their Bronze Service Agreement. We've never had to use this which I suppose says a lot. Panasonic is a name that most people associate with quality. As well as this printer, we've had TVs and videos made by them and have never had any problems at all. If or when we need a new printer, I'd have no hesitation in buying another Panasonic one.

So there you have it. My first ( and probably last ) computer-related review. Hope it's been useful !

www.panasonic.co.uk

Thanks for reading.