small of wonder
Written: Mar 02 '01
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Pros: Small in size, fast and reliable, versital
Cons: none that I can think of
The Bottom Line: Excellent small office printer, nice print quality. A great addition to a small office or home office.
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| opinionated3's Full Review: IBM Network 12 Laser Printer |
The company that I work for recently was looking to replace an older laser printer that we were using for printing letters and faxes and other smaller jobs. After much searching they settled on a laser printer from IBM. This little laser printer turned out to be much more than the company had hoped for.
The laser printer they chose was the IBM Network 12 laser printer. I know why they chose the IBM because we have been a long time users of IBM computer equipment. IBM has always meant built to last for the long haul, most of the computer equipment IBM has built in the past are still running to this day.
There were several reasons our company decided on this Network 12 laser printer, size, speed and connectivity. I will touch briefly on each of topics.
Size
The office space in our building is kind of at a premium, so the printer we needed had to be small. The problem with small laser printers that I have seen from other manufacturer, they sacrifice speed for size. Not the IBM Network 12, it's small footprint allows it to take up a smaller spot on a desk or table top. In case you are wondering what footprint means, it basically how much of an area the object will take up and it is measured by the width and depth of an object. The width of this printer is 16.6 inches and 16.3 inches deep. So as you can tell this printer will not take up much space on a tabletop or desk.
Speed
One of the first things I noticed after the printer was setup, we how fast the printer printed. Again I was comparing how fast I have seen other laser printers in this class of printers. I found out that the speed of the printer is 12 pages per minute, I guess IBM decided to use the speed of the printer to help name it's printers.I also found through a little researching on my own, that most other brands of laser printers in this class of printers only print between 6-10 pages per minute. In case you are wondering about the class I keep mentioning, laser printers as classified into categories based on work load. This printer falls into the category of personal and small office use.
Connectivity
This is how the printer is connected and talks to the computer system. Most personal printers that you have at home connect to your PC using a parallel cable. With the printer connected to a single computer, only one person can use the printer. Well in an office environment there are usually a number of user's that share the same printer. This is accomplished by networking the computers together and connecting to a central computer called a Server.All of these computers and printers are connected to a device called a network hub and the hub is connected to the Server. Using this network setup, printers can be shared by several users that are not even in the same room as the printer. Again as the name implies IBM Network 12, this printer can be used as a shared network printer. This printer comes standard with a parallel and serial interface ports, and with the optional ethernet port the printer is ready to connect to your network.
Quality of Print
I also like the quality of print that this printer produces. I am a salesman, and I have to print a wide range of different types of print jobs. I print letters and faxes and I also print mailers and small graphic presentations. Of course the graphic presentation our in black and white since this is not a color printer. The quality is still pretty nice in gray scale and the letter's I print are very impressive. This is due to the 600 dpi print quality, or dots per inch. That means this printer sqeezes 600 little dots into a one inch space and the closer you put the dots the crisper and clearer the characters look.
Reliability
As I said earlier IBM is one of the most reliable names in the computer industry. We have been using this printer for several months and besides keeping the inside of the printer clean, we haven't had any complaints. I also hear the same thing from clients of mine that have been using their IBM Network 12 for a couple of years.
Technical Specs
12 pages per min
4MB memory standard/ max. 66 MB
Optional Hard drive 810 MB
340 sheet paper capacity optional 500 sheet tray
standard parallel and serial connections
optional ethernet 10 base T and 10 base 2 connection
optional Token Ring connection
optional Coax and Twinax connections (IBM Mainframe and Midrange computers)
Multiple Operation System compatibility( Windows and Mac, AIX, OS/400, IBM OS/2 2.11 and Warp, Win NT and Novell Netware).
Another nice feature of all laser printers is the fact that it uses a toner cartridge and not little ink cartridges like inkjet printers that need to be changes quite often. The toner cartridge that this printer uses is good for about 6000 pages and then you just replace it. This helps to keep the cost per page of print low.
In conclusion if you are looking for a small office laser printer that takes up a little space, but one that has some nice features I would pick up this printer.
Recommended:
Yes
Amount Paid (US$): 999.00 est.
Operating System: Windows and Macintosh
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