Minolta Magiccolor 2300DL $329 after MIR (Office Depot INSTORE)

[mbigna]

I have been in the market for a cheap desktop COLOR laser printer for a while and I stopped in yesterday afternoon to my local Office Depot looking for a fire safe and I noticed that they had DISCONTINUED the Konica/Minolta 2300DL COLOR laser printer.

The in-store price was $479.02 - $150.00 MIR = $329.02

There was a machine produced sale tag showing the above equation and that it was discontinued. So, at that price--I pulled out the magic plastic--and since this was going to be so cheap, I bought the one year extended replacement warrantee (to give me 2 yrs coverage). Furthermore, they were promoting their "Advantage" card, which is a free membership to track your purchases. Since I spent over $500 (before rebate), I would receive a $50 OD gift card on top of it all. The young clerk was even nice enough to copy my receipt and print out a the web page rebate form for me. All I would have to do it cut out the UPC and fill in the form and mail it.

When I got home today to fill out the rebate, I noticed two things: First, the expiration date for purchase was 12/31/2004 AND second, the rebate form states that the ORIGINAL price must be more than $595.

So, I returned to OD today and spoke with the manager and explained the situation. He said that he knew that there was a problem with the rebate and would happily just credit my card $150 right there on the spot. He said that they were closing these models out (though I don't know why, and I didn't think to ask) and was planning to honor that price until they were all gone.

SO, you all may want to check out your local Office Depot and check to see if your store is closing these out and make sure to confirm with the manager about the pricing/rebate.

It is available online for $599.99 at OD here (no mention of rebate online, however, I think if you can find one in your area, it will end up costing $399 due to some general "office machines" promotion):
http://www.officedepot.com/ddSKU.do...location_info=SG_3_DV_16_SC_1605005_SK_630757

You can read some reviews and check prices here:
http://about.pricegrabber.com/search_getprod.php/masterid=618065/ut=42de0714f37dc37a

 

[seadave77]

I was looking at these for Christmas but it was a little to rich for me but that was before the rebates. It is a good printer, we have one at work and it performs like a champ. To bad they are discontinuing it though.

 

[cursor]

How expensive is the toner for this unit? I'm guessing that you use a lot more toner in 4-color (blue yellow red black) than you do with a stright black unit (pictures and what not).

I'm thinking about price per page, and now that these color lasers are coming down in price to the level that b&w lasers were 5 years ago, it's coming closer in reach to my price limit... If the consumables don't blow the bank. I moved away from inkjets when it became clear to me that I was losing my shirt on consumables.

 

[mbigna]

The toner cartridges are around $100 bucks PER COLOR (or $400 total--more than I paid for the whole printer). However, each cartridge is supposed to run 4500 sheets. This works out to be $400.00/4500 = 0.088 (8.8 cents) per sheet plus whatever a sheet of your favorite paper costs. Still, this is MUCH less than the 30-80 cents per sheet an ink-jet will run you.

Ink jets are still the king of photo reproduction, though. But for high-volume and quickness, and overall cost per page, lasers win easily.

Lasers make the most sense for my situation. Most of my printing can be B/W with occasional spot color or photo. I would prefer to have an ink jet specializing in photos ONLY (with 6 color processes and high dpi). So I would dedicate the ink jet for photo printing ONLY. Right now I get by with a couple B/W lasers. I just couldn't pass this deal up.

I'd actually like to hear from anyone else who checked their local Office Depot about this. OD doesn't advertise their discontinued items--though it seems they drop a lot of SKU's that aren't selling in the store. You just about have to walk in from time to time to see what they are getting rid of. When you come across discontinued stuff there, they tend to mark it down drastically.

 

[seadave77]

When I was looking at them each toner cartridge was $86. So actually the cost per page would be less than 8.8 cents.

 

[mbigna]

When I was looking at them each toner cartridge was $86. So actually the cost per page would be less than 8.8 cents.

As with several cartridges, there is a standard and hi-capacity type. The regular cartridges have a rating of 1500 pages. I thought they were around $60 per cartridge. The hi-capacity cartridges were around $100 where I looked and have a capacity of 4500 pages. I don't know if you found an expensive standard or a cheap hi-capacity, but I'd expect you can find these at a discount if you look hard enough.