The Way We See It
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 |
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| Excellent |
| Good |
| Average |
| Poor |
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| Setup |
8.8 |
| Print Quality |
9.3 |
| Speed |
9.4 |
| Paper Handling |
7.8 |
| Supplies |
8.9 |
| Service/Reliabilty |
8.8 |
| TOTAL |
53.0 |
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In Short: The new Konica Minolta 5550 and the faster 5570 are the latest and fastest desk-top color lasers from this manufacturer to date. These models replace the popular 5400 series. This new engine is coupled with a feature rich controller powered by a 733MHz processor on the 5550 and a faster 855MHz processor on the 5570. The result is a fast desktop network color laser with above average print quality and solid all around performance. The new magicolor 5550 and 5570 both ship with 256 MB, PS3 & PCL emulations, 10/100/1000BaseTX Ethernet, parallel, and USB ports. The Gigabit Ethernet interface seemed to be an advantage in overall performance during our testing. The printer was easy to set up once it was unpacked. The four standard toners and four imaging units are already loaded in the printer when shipped. In fact, like the previous model, all supplies load from the front of the printer which is a plus. The main change that Konica Minolta implemented in this latest engine design is the separation of the toner from the OPC unit. This allows the user to replace just the toner when needed resulting in a significantly lower than average cost per page. Installing the printer on the network proved to be fairly straight-forward. Like the 5400 series the front panel display has been enlarged to display more information to include a continuous toner status display. Printing at clocked speeds up to an impressive 27.3 pages per minute in full color for the 5550 and up to 31.7 PPM for the 5570, these models finished consistently near the top of our benchmark tests. The print quality on the 5550 and 5570 was very good overall. The quality of the black text was above average but the color text was especially good. Both models did a very good job printing smooth gradations. There was some slight banding in some solid color areas but we find that to be the norm on most all color lasers and copiers. The 600 dpi engine coupled with Minolta’s resolution enhancement called Photo ART, produces consistently good output and in most cases outshined the other current color laser models we tested. Another new feature is a “glossy mode” that is enabled via the printer driver under the color options. The 5550 and 5570 have a standard 500-sheet letter size feeder and a 100-sheet MP tray for heavier stock or other sizes. Options for this printer include additional paper feeders, internal hard drive, and additional RAM. Auto-duplex printing is available via upgrade for automated two-sided printing on plain paper as well.
The Bottom Line: The new Konica Minolta 5550 and 5570 are two speedy network color lasers with above average print quality. With print speeds up to 37 PPM monochrome / 31PPM color and a duty cycle of 120,000 prints per month, the 5570 and 5550 are more than adequate for most office applications. These printers works well in the Mac OS, UNIX, and Windows environments.
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