Pros: Very quiet, highest quality, great prints, exceeds 23 ppm rating, network support, cheap toner
Cons: Have to replace toner drum every 25,000 prints. Larger than some desktop printers.
The Bottom Line: A truly outstanding network laser printer for personal or workgroup use, with high speed, excellent print quality and cheap operating cost. The highest quality and durability too.
kubotabx2200's Full Review: Oki Electric Industry B4350n Laser Printer
I have to say this OKI B4350n printer is by far and away the best printer I have ever owned. I have been mostly satisfied with cheap desktop printers that I own like the Brother HL-2040 (see my review at http://www0.epinions.com/content_196667412100).
However the OKI B4350n is in a higher class of product in every respect. This is a printer designed for a workgroup and it shows. Moreover, OKI printers support all the common hardware standards and software standards and have great customer support. This means your printer is expandable and will work with most any kind of operating system or software. This is what distinguishes it from a throwaway printer or a Windows-only printer. This is a perfect example of the old adage "you get what you pay for".
OKI is not exactly a household name in printers like for example HP, Brother, Lexmark or Epson. Most of their business is to businesses and government agencies, not the consumer. Don't let that unfamiliarity fool you. OKI has been around for decades. Their printers have held a stellar reputation for quality and durability for many years and this one is no exception.
The B4350 is the top end in a line of printers that includes the B4100, the B4250, and the B4350 reviewed here. The printers all look pretty much the same but the capabilities (and price tag) go up by a lot when you go up the print range. Here are the basic differences in the model line.
1. B4100 (low end). Prints 19 pages per minute (ppm) . USB support. No network capability. Memory is fixed at 8 MB. Has a 200 MHz print engine. Has a simple 4 LED indicator lights instead of a control panel. Takes the standard capacity 3,000 page toner cartridge only. Supports Windows GDI print emulation only (not for Mac or Linux). Designed to print up to 10,000 pages per month.
2. B4250 (mid range). Prints 23 ppm. USB and parallel printer support. No network capability. Memory is 16 MB expandable to 272 MB. Has a 266 MHz print engine. Has a simple 4 LED indicator lights instead of a control panel. Takes the standard capacity 3,000 page toner cartridge only. Supports PCL 5e, PCL 6, Epson FX (9-pin) and IBM ProPrinter III XL emulations (supports Mac and Linux). Designed to print up to 40,000 pages per month.
3. B4350 (high end). Prints 23 ppm. USB and parallel printer support. Network support (B4350n model) with a built in Ethernet card and print server. Has a 266 MHz print engine. Has a fully functional 2-line LCD display that displays text message to you in plain English, and menu driven interface with buttons that let you view and adjust every possible setting on the printer. Takes both the standard capacity 3,000 page toner cartridge and the high capacity 7,000 page toner . Supports PCL 5e, PCL 6, Epson FX (9-pin) and IBM ProPrinter III XL emulations. Supports Postscript PS3 emulation with an optional plugin memory card. (supports Mac and Linux). Designed to print up to 40,000 pages per month.
NETWORK PRINTER OPERATION
The B4350n comes with a built in Ethernet card and print server. The B4350 can be converted into a B4350n network printer by simply removing the back cover and plugin in the OkiLAN 8100e internal print server card. This is a complete print server and ethernet card. The internal card talks to your router and automatically assigns itself an IP address for example 192.168.2.4.
It joins your network automatically -- you don't have to do anything besides plug in the printer and turn it on.
[Note: in all these examples I use IP address 192.168.2.4. But when you install the printer your router will automatically assign you an IP address for the printer that will probably be different]
The B4350n fully supports the industry-standard Internet Printing Protocol (ipp) which means it is truly a standard network printer that can be made to work in any network environment. You are not dealing with some wacky proprietary software that relies on buggy drivers or could be discontinued later by the printer manufacturer.
HOOKING UP THE PRINTER TO THE NETWORK CARD
Very simple. Starting with the printer turned off, you simply connect a Cat 5 Ethernet cable from an unused port of your router, and plug the other end into the back of the OKI B4350n printer. Now turn on the printer and let it warm up. The OkiLAN 8100e print server card that is inside your B3450N printer now goes to work. It talks to the router and acquires and IP address, for example 192.168.2.4. That was easy.
The printer is now a member of your network. At this point the display will read ONLINE -- AUTO which means the printer is read to print for you.
However to start using your printer you need to know what the IP address that was assigned to the printer right? So how to you get that. The B4350 printer will tell you its own IP address on the LCD readout of the console display. Now press the MENU button on the console until the display reads NETWORK (I counted -- you press it 10 times to get to the NETWORK menu. Now you want to do two things. You want to "lock in" the IP address so it will not change later if you reboot your router. To do this press the ITEM+ button on the console until the display reads IP ADDR. -- AUTO. The AUTO setting means the printer did what we wanted it do: get an IP address automatically. But now we need to "lock in" the IP address so it will never change. Press the VALUE+ button once and you will see the display changes to IP ADDR. -- MANUAL. Then press the SELECT button. This gives the printer control of it's own IP address and locks it in. The next time you reboot your router it will be the B4350 printer telling the router "here is my IP address".
OK we locked in the IP address but how do I find out the IP address is? Simple. Press the ITEM+ key again and the display will read IP 1/4 -- 192. This is telling you the first part of the IP address is 192. Then press ITEM+ key again and it will tell you the other 3 parts of the IP address. Write it down on a piece of paper ... you will need to know this IP address when it is time to configure the printer.
Now just press the ONLINE button and you are out of the menu settings system and the display will show ONLINE -- AUTO again. All you have to do now is configure your PC (be it Windows, Mac OS, or Linux) to know about the printer.
INSTALL THE DRIVER ON WINDOWS XP
The current driver is available for download from the OKI site. Is is named 4350BPCEA.exe. You obtain this file and clik on the file. It then installs the printer driver for this printer. The default folder location that it installs the printer driver for XP is
C:\OKIDATA\B4350\English\Win2k_xp
ADD THE B4350n AS A NETWORK PRINTER IN XP
In Windows you then go to Printers --> Add Printer --> Network Printer
Then you type in the following URL
http://192.168.2.4/ipp
Windows is now talking to the print server. You click on OKI B4350 printer, and then click on Have Disk .... Browse and enter the name C:\OKIDATA\B4350\English\Win2k_xp . Then you click on the entry B4350e and it installs the printer driver.
After that you are done. You are ready to print over the network.
Note that the printer installation is exactly the same if you connect the printer directly to your computer via USB, but instead of type in a URL you would just choose "A local printer attached to this computer" option.
HOW TO ADD THE PRINTER TO LINUX
Linux operating system can be a bear to administer, but in the case of installing and configuring the OKI B4350n it is a piece of cake. Here is how to add your printer to Linux. You can skip this section entirely if you only use Windows XP but Linux users will have keen interest. I am using Red Hat Linux.
First off start your web browser, I use Mozilla Firefox. We are going to use the CUP utility in Linux which is a browser based administration utility, to add our printer to the Linux system. CUPS is shorthand for the Common Unix Printing System.
You start CUPS by typing this address into your browser.
http://localhost:631/
Now CUPS appears on the screen. Click on the Add Printer button. It will ask you to enter your username and password or the root username and password. Now it comes to a screen where you type in the printer name i.e. "B4350n" the location "My office" and description "My OKI B4350n printer" or whatever your like. Click on Continue. Next it will ask you for the Device: and there is a list of options. Select "Internet Printing Protocol (http"). All this does is tell Linux that you are using the standard ipp protocol that I mentioned earlier. Press Continue
Next CUPS asks you to enter the Device URI. Just type in "http://192.168.2.4/ipp". This is the address by which Linux will send print jobs to your B4350n. Remember back when you set up the printer and I asked you to write down the IP address? Well here is where you use it. Press Continue.
The next screen will say Make/Driver for B4350n. The version of Linux I was running did not already have the Linux driver for the OKI B4350n installed, and I did not feel like hunting it down on the Internet. However, there is no need to do that. Remember earlier I mentioned that the B4350n fully emulates the HP PCL6 print protocol? Well it does just that. So we are going to tell Linux to treat it like an HP LaserJet -- Linux will never know the difference and neither will your print jobs (If you really must download the B4350n Linux driver for CUPS I leave that as an exercise for the reader). So under brand click HP. Press Continue. The screen now says Model: Select the "HP Laser Jet 6 Series" as the printer model. Press Continue.
[When I contact OKI customer support asking what driver to use they told me the same thing -- the OKI B4350 perfectly emulates the HP LaserJet series printers so it is perfectly fine to use the HP device driver with the OKI B4350n]
The next screen should say "Printer B4350n has been added successfully." And the word B4350n will be in blue which means it is a link. Click on that link. The next screen is that status of your B4350n printer. It should say " Printer State: idle, accepting jobs. " That means you are ready to go. We are 99% done. Now just 2 more things to do. Click the Print Test Page button and in a few moments your B4350n will print a test page sent to it by CUPS, that has some text and some graphics. OK fine -- the printer works -- now press the button Set As Default. From now on anything you type will be sent do your printer.
USING THE PRINT SERVER
One of the very best and slickest things about the internal OkiLAN 8100e print server card is that everything is controlled by a web browser interface. That's right -- there is absolutely no printer administration software that needs to be installed on your machine. Quite a refreshing change from the bloated HP printer software that you may have used in the past.
So, how do I administer the printer? you may be asking. The answer is real simple. You open your web browser, be it Internet Explorer or in my case Mozilla Firefox.
Then simply you type in the following web address.
http://192.168.2.4
You are now talking to the print server in the your printer through a web based interface. You will see B4340 status page and it will show you the current status of your printer the same thing you would see on the control panel of the printer itself for example ON-LINE AUTO means the printer is online and is ready to print.
This OKI print server has some of the finest control software of any printer I have ever seen. It will even tell what percent is left in the toner cartridge and the toner drum. Remember you are not running some software you had to install on your PC -- you are talking to the B4350n printer directly using a web brower interface. It doesn't matter whether the B4350n is connected to a Windows PC, a Mac, a Linux box or all three at once -- the printer server app looks and runs exactly the same on all of them, because the app is running on the print server inside your B4350, not from some software you had to install on your PC.
B4350n CONTROL PANEL
The B4350/B4350n printers have a fully functional control panel that has a 2 line LCD display that displays words in plain English, a MENU button, ITEM+ and ITEM- buttons, VALUE+ and VALUE- buttons, a SELECT button, a CANCEL button and an ONLINE button. This is a feature packed front panel that lets you see and control everything you would want to know about this printer. And the printer tells you more about itself than and "personal" or "workgroup" printer I have seen. You can see how many pages the printer has ever printed, how what percent of life is left in the toner catrridge and print drum, all the network options, and too many printer control options to list. This is truly a professional quality printer designed for business use. If the printer should have a paper jam for instance, it tells you how to fix it like PRINTER JAM -- OPEN TOP COVER and the like. You can press the Cancel button to cancel any print job. You can even control how many copies of a document the printer will print, right from the control panel. Of course you can do this from Windows in the printer driver, but the point is you don't have to.
By the way when I mention "paper jam" error message here I am speaking in the abstract because I never got it to jam. The only time I ever had a jam was once when I overfilled the 250 page printer tray by stuffing in too much paper. I easily cleared the 1 misfed page and pressed the Online button and the printer continued with the print job and has never jammed again.
PRINT CARTRIDGES AND TONER
One of the best features about Oki printers is that they are designed for the long haul. Look at an inkjet printer, their ink cartridges are only good for 200 pages and they cost $20-40 or more. The OKI has a standard toner catridge that only costs about $20 and prints 3,000 pages. This fits any Oki B4100/B4200/B4250/B4300/B4350 printer. However Oki also sells a $45 large capacity toner cartidge that prints a mammoth 7,000 PAGES before you need to refill. That is more print than 35 inkjet cartridges. If you look on e*Bay you can also find these large capacity catridges as cheap as $20. Compatible cargidges (non OKI brand) sell for as little as $13 for the 7,000 pages capacity. I have been able to find genuine OKI new in the box toner cartridges as cheap as $14 apiece including shipping which means it prints 500 pages for one dollar.
The Printer holds 250 pages of paper that is half a ream of paper, and the paper is hidden in an internal paper drawer that slides out from the printer. Nice. The print tray holds a whopping 150 pages of output.
The OKI printer has a separate print toner drum assemly that is separate from the toner cartridge. This is good for up to 25,000 prints for "continuous printing" -- however nobody prints continuously. Figure on about 17,000-20,000 pages of drum life. The drum doesn't "run out" like the toner but it wears out and the print quality starts to suffer, then it is time to replace the print drum. These are fairly expensive about $130 apiece but again look on the auction sites you can find them for much less like $55-70
PRINT SPEED AND QUALITY
Simply put the OKI B series have the best printed text quality of any personal printer on the market, period. I have seen all the others Brother, HP, Samsung and even own them -- they are not even close. The OKI print quality blows them all away.
They advertise 23 ppm and if anything it is even faster than that. I think it was CNET that did a printer test and the B4350n was faster than a Lexmark laser that was "rated" for 30 ppm and a Konica office printer that was rated for 35 ppm!! This OKI is screamingly fast. It starts printing after 6 seconds.
I have personally tested print speeds by printing text documents with no graphics, and it consistently prints at or near 30 ppm. I timed it with a stopwatch from the moment the first page comes out. If you print just one or two pages you don't notice how blindingly fast this small printer really is. However it is when you start printing 10, 50 or 100 page documents that you see peoples' eyes widen at how fast the pages are flying out of this printer. It is really refreshing to see a product that exceeds the rated performance, in this case by an impressive 30%.
The graphics quality is good for black and white graphics.
Although this is classed as a Laser Printer, OKI in fact uses an LED array. What does this mean to the end user? Nothing really. Except that the LED is much more durable -- OKI guarantees it for 5 full years. The rest of the printer is guaranteed for a year, with free overnight replacement from OKI if anything fails.
Don't expect anything to break on the OKI B4350 printer for a long, long however -- it is rated for a lifetime of 150,000 pages. Yikes. That is 300 reams of paper, or 30 full cases of printer paper.
BUILD QUALITY
The build quality of this machine is superb. This is not a cheap throwaway printer for $100 that some manufacturers sell you to so you will buy $85 printer cartridges. The printer is 23 pounds and the plastic is heavy. Nothing cheap or chintzy about the OKI B series printer. You will be impressed or maybe even shocked the first time you see one.
AVAILABILITY
The B4350 printer is consider an "end of life" product which means it is being discontinued. The printer is still available for sale new. It is being replaced by the B4600 which in some respects is improved and in others well I am not so sure.
However if you look carefully you can find amazing deals on the B4350n. This printer regularly sells for around $400 and if you buy a one new that is what you can expect to pay. However you can also find fantastic deals on "off lease" printers. OKI leases printers to businesses and to government, and when the lease is up the customer returns the printer to OKI and usually leases a newer model from OKI. Sometimes these lease models turn out to have been very lightly used. I just bought an off-lease B4350n for an exceptionally low $99 at an auction site!! It is practically brand new and only had about 60 pages printed on it -- the printer drum and toner cartidge at 100% and the printer was only used to print 60 pages. I printed way more than that the first time I used it. That means when I got the printer it still have 149,940 pages of life left in it, at a purchase price of 25c on the dollar compared to buying "brand new". The printer looks new smells new with that plastic-y smell of new electronics.
So lets see get a $400 printer for $100, get 7,000 page toner cartridges for $14 apiece and a spare printer drum for $60. That is going to last me 50,000 pages or 10 full cases of paper. This makes the OKI B4350n perhaps the greatest laser printer value on the planet. I kid you not. The printer is fast, quiet, extremely well built with super print quality, and the lowest operating costs I have ever seen. You absolutely cannot go wrong buying one of these. I guarantee that this will out last 4-5 of the$100 printers you would buy at Best Buy and maybe outlast 10 of them.
I give this printer my highest possible recommendation and probably higher than any tech product I have ever rated on epinions.com
Epinions.com periodically updates pricing and product information from third-party sources, so some information may be slightly out-of-date. You should confirm all information before relying on it.
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