Panasonic KX-MB2030 Multifunction Laser Printer

Product Description

From the Manufacturer

COMPACT AND STYLISH - KX-MB2030

The Panasonic KX-MB2030 multi-function printer is an excellent choice for small offices and remote home offices. It features a compact high-speed 24 ppm printer, diverse copy features, high-resolution color scanning up to 9600 dpi (interpolated), and standard network connection. It also comes bundled with the Panasonic Multifunction Station Software suite, which includes Panasonic's newest software, the Easy Print Utility.

SMART FEATURES

Learn about the features for the KX-MB2000 Series. Available features for the KX-MB2030 are highlighted below.

KX-MB2000 SERIES

KX-MB2030

KX-MB2010

KX-MB2000

Automatic Document Feeder

Print

Copy

Scan

Fax

Network

Toner Cartridge

Drum Cartridge

USER FRIENDLY DESIGN

At less than 30 pounds with a compact workspace size, this All in One machine is a space saver.

Angled Control Panel The control panel is angled, making it easy to view when sitting in a chair or standing.

Front Access Replacing consumables and replenishing paper are all done from the front side of the machine, for easy maintenance and access.

You can check the device status and toner level with a Web browser, and adjust system settings right from a PC.Web browser (requires LAN connection)

EASY PRINT UTILITY

High speed 24-ppm printer with the capability of printing up to 600 x 600 dpi resolution. The Windows based GDI printer driver includes the ability to add watermarks and overlays to printed documents, enlarge small documents using the zoom feature and you can even create a large poster.

The Easy Print Utility is a multi-document print application which lets you merge up to 16 different file types, such as Microsoft Word or Excel documents into a single print job or PDF file. The Easy Print Utility provides a real time preview of the print output and offers the ability to modify the print layout and page order. You also have the ability to add a custom document header, footer or watermark to your document before printing.

CONVENIENT COPY FUNCTIONS

Equipped with a 250-sheet input tray, compact flatbed.

Quick ID Copy Copy both sides of one or more ID or business cards, and then print onto a single page in the 2-in-1, 4-in-1 or 8-in-1 format.

Image Repeat Copy one original and print it repeatedly on a single page in the 2-in-1, 4-in-1 or 8-in-1 format.

Edge/ Margin For easy filing with Panasonic's exclusive feature add an edge or margin to your document directly from the machine; without editing the document before hand.

NETWORK COLOR SCANNING

Documents scanned from the KX-MB2030 printer can be transmitted in full color to a Local or Network connected PC, FTP server, Network Shared folder, or directly to an Email address.Scanned documents can be saved as a TIFF, JPEG or PDF documents.

NETWORK SHARING/MONITORING

A single KX-MB2030 can be shared by any PC connected to the LAN.

Your entire office staff can use the same machine as a network printer or scanner via the local area network.

Easily check the status of a KX-MB2030 through your web browser or from the network Device Monitor untility.

Panasonic KX-MB2030 Multi-Function Printer

Product Details

• Product Dimensions: 17 x 16.5 x 12 inches ; 28.3 pounds
• Shipping Weight: 35.9 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Shipping: Currently, item can be shipped only within the U.S.
• ASIN: B003SX0QZK
• Item model number: KX-MB2030
  

Price : $170.00
You Save : $19.95 (11%)

List Price : $189.95

Technical Details

• Easy Print Utility, high speed 24-ppm All in One
• Convenient Copy Function
• Network Color Scanning up to 9600 dpi
• 33.6 kbps Super G3 Fax w/Incoming Fax Preview
• Standard Network Connection

Costumer Reviews

Length:: 5:00 Mins

Copiers, Printers, Fax Machines, Oh My! If you have your own home-based business or small business then you know that all the gadgets that are necessary for business to function can end up taking a huge chunk of your budget -- not to mention your limited space! With the new Panasonic 2030, however, you can consolidate all those machines down to one -- one that does a heck of a job and is built to last!

The first thing that impressed me about this office machine was how well it was built. Weighing in at a hefty 30+ lbs, this guy is not made of cheap materials that will break the first time you bump into it (and trust me, the first few days I had it I bumped into it a lot until I moved it!) It's designed to take the constant use and abuse of a small office and keep right on going. Once I got it all setup I was equally impressed with the features -- everything you'd expect, and then some. Scan, Print, Copy, Fax -- and a few twists on them as well. You can scan to e-mail, an FTP server or a network location all with just a push of a button. Fax from multiple PC's located across the office and even setup print queues so that everyone can get their work done without bumping into one another.

As this guy was designed for a business setting I should point out that it is rather loud. I would not recommend it for a home printer because of the noise and just because most of the features will never be used. This guy was designed for business, and will do its best when in a business setting. Some of the fax and scan features make use of ftp servers and SNMB shares on a network, things you probably don't have setup at your home!

Standard connectivity includes a usb hookup, but to get the maximum functionality out of the printer you should connect it up to your network via the ethernet port. That way you can get all the cool print/fax/scan features as well as a handy web interface to check on the printer and make setting adjustments. It does not come with a wireless hookup, so you will need to make sure you have a cabled connection nearby for it to use.

The toner cartridges are reasonable priced and will average you about 2000 copies; and the document feeder is one of the most robust and sturdier ones I have seen on a printer in this price range for a long time.

All in all, a great business product that can really save you money and space no matter where you do business!

I thought I'd try the Panasonic multi-function printer since I figured it might help me in my home office. I've only really got a printer so the idea of having a scanner, copier and fax machine I could use for basic tasks sounded good to me. I'll break this down by task/feature.

Setup

The printer was real easy to set up. Plug in a phone line, plug in a network cable (I'm using it on my home network) and plug in power. Install software. Done. The software isn't even really required. Now, the downside is, if you're looking to plug this into your computer because you honestly are just using it on one machine and don't really have a network setup then you're out of luck. It's got a USB port so you can do just that (plug it into your computer directly) but it doesn't come in the box. You have to go get one yourself. Not nice in my opinion. It's one thing to say "Network Ready" and another thing entirely to be "Network Required". That being said, you still can use it as a printer, copier and fax machine if you don't plug it into anything except the phone line.

One other thing to note, the printer cartridge included in the package comes in two parts. One smaller part fits into a slot in the bigger cartridge (with the ink) and needs to be opened (you rotate a drum that presumably exposes the print head to the incoming paper). I'm a big and strong guy and I had a whole lot of fun trying to get that drum rotated during the setup. Granted I was afraid I'd break it but the piece you're pushing against is pretty solid plastic. It was more about how much resistance there was there. It's possible it was just a freak thing with my cartridge but you'd think it would either be easier or not require you to assemble the cartridge in the first place (my other laser printer has one cartridge).

Printer

As a printer, the Panasonic is pretty straightforward. I think the best part of it is that it's a laser printer. I'd always been used to seeing inkjet versions of these multi-function printers which has turned me off. It supports up to 600 dpi print outs with decent results. I did have some trouble getting the printer set up in Windows (using Win 7 64-bit) as the installer installed a printer in Windows that didn't seem to go anywhere. You could print to it but the documents just disappeared in to the ether. I deleted that and reinstalled the printer (just using the built-in/available driver that Windows offered which could still be the same drivers) and it worked great. It can push out 24 ppm and though I didn't run a speed test to check this out (not gonna waste paper on that...I don't print that much in a week) what I did print out came out in a snap.

Scanner

I was really looking forward to the scanner part since I have a more "pro" scanner but it's largely mothballed so it's a hassle to break it out to do any scanning. It was real easy to run a scan though the results are a bit iffy. For most documents, it was just fine. Scans were clean enough on regular paper. But, when I used paper that had even a slight gloss to it (I'm not talking magazine gloss, I'm talking matte coated paper), I'd get glare artifacts all over the place. Basically, the light from the scanner was (and I'm just theorizing here, not an expert) reflecting back enough to create something like a feedback loop. And, this didn't cover the entire page, just certain chunks of it. Even more odd was that the patterns, while consistent from scan to scan for the same document, were different from those when using the copy function. So, I can't say if this is a fault of the machine or the technology itself.

The OCR software included with the printer is functional but nothing fancy. And when I say "nothing fancy", I mean it. The UI is incredibly retro (the software has a copyright of 2002). Whereas you'd expect to be able to use your mouse's scrollwheel to either scroll or zoom in/out, the app constrains you to set zoom levels (50% of actual, fit to window, etc.) and you have to click around between the horizontal and vertical scrollbars to get where you want to go. You can then use boxes (no magic wand or anything for you PhotoShop types) to define areas that have text, images, etc. It includes a feature that lets you edit the OCR's attempt at recognizing the word, number, punctuation though it can get tedious and the font they use to display the replacement character is terrible (sort of like a blobby Courier) to where you can't always be sure if you're looking at a zero versus an eight or a comma versus a period. The recognition itself is as good as the quality of the scan so your mileage will vary. Clean scans (non-glossy paper, straightforward fonts/text) work nearly perfect (line spacing might take a hit with a slightly misaligned original...especially since you can only rotate 90 degrees within the software). Anything else is a grab bag that usually results in missing sections or something that looks like a ransom note. If you really need OCR, you'll want to find something better.

Fax

Another feature I was looking forward to. As much as faxing is on the decline (unless you're dealing with companies that really just don't trust online signatures for legal or other reasons), I still find myself wishing I had a fax handy at times. I usually end up heading to the Fedex store or letting my wife do it from work. By default, the fax feature is on and working. In my case, I don't have a dedicated fax line and I was only really planning on using this on an as needed basis. It took a sec to find the right place in the instructions to figure out the correct setting (in fact, the machine's own menu system had a print option to print a sheet of instructions related to that feature which helped the most). Once I did it though, I was golden. I faxed a doc off to someone (the one time I needed it in six months) and it went off without a hitch. They e-mailed me what they got as a PDF and it looked as good as you'd expect (it was an IRS form so text-dense, no graphics). Even better is the PC Fax feature which lets me "print" to the fax feature and fax something directly without having to print it out. The feature shows up as a printer and, when you print to it, prompts for a number to fax to--even offering a delayed send option so you can have it send out an hour later or something (say to avoid interfering with the phone during business hours). Very cool. The only down side is the software log that shows you sent and received faxes doesn't seem to retain those faxes despite setting it up NOT to delete sent faxes and the like.

Copy

The copy feature is yet another function I've been wanting for a while. Of course, with a scanner, it's effectively a scan and a print but as I mentioned before, my scanner isn't exactly a convenient option. The copies worked well and, as you'd expect, are as fast as they can be with a fast scan and a 24 ppm printer. I didn't try a large copy job but I don't expect this thing to be some refrigerator-sized Xerox beast that churns out books in a few minutes. For the one-off copy, it works great.

As mentioned above with the scanner, with certain paper types, you do see some artifacting but strangely the pattern is different from the scan. This could be because the copies are lower resolution than the scans (sort of a fast scan) so there's less opportunity for "feedback" from the light source but it's strange nonetheless. For the record, the copy scan looks better than the scan.

Conclusion

All in all the product is good enough. I don't have a previous product that this is replacing (at least not one I've used in the past decade) so I can't really compare it to other products. But, if you're in the market for a multifunction printer that does it all and you aren't worried about the aforementioned scanning artifacting (i.e. it's not about the quality of the scans, just that you have a digital copy you can use), then go for it. The Panasonic includes all the features you'd expect but upgraded with tech that used to be only in dream machines that did just one thing. Just something about having one of these printers as a laser printer rather than an inkjet that seems to make it feel so much better than it used to be when buying one of these devices.