WHAT'S HOT: What can you say about a printer that costs so little, prints so well, and runs just a hair shy of the fastest SOHO laser we've tested? We say that's a great deal, despite some caveats. At only $199, the PagePro 1250W costs $100 less than the next-cheapest home-office lasers on the chart.

We clocked its text-printing speed at 12 ppm. That's only 0.2 ppm behind the fastest home-office printer, and faster than one of the networkable models on the corporate chart. The 1250W also impressed us with its clean, crisp black text.

WHAT'S NOT: The 1250W is a Windows-based machine; in other words, it has no processor of its own and uses your PC's CPU to process the files it prints. So if you have a slow or overburdened PC, the 1250W may not perform as well for you as it did at PC World's Test Center. (We conduct printer speed tests using a Compaq Evo D310 with an Intel Celeron 1.8-GHz processor and 256MB of PC2100 RAM, and this PC is not running any other operations at the time.) In addition, the lack of an on-board processor means the 1250W cannot interpret or render PostScript files. If you need to print PostScript documents, choose another printer, such as Minolta's $299 PagePro 1250E. The printer includes only 8MB of memory, which is not expandable, and you can't add a network interface. Its limited paper-handling capabilities--a 150-sheet input tray, and a single-sheet bypass feed for slipping in an envelope or letterhead--may not be enough for an office.

WHAT ELSE: Minolta sells a 500-sheet add-on tray for a reasonable $149. The printed setup guide provides no information about using the 1250W, but an extensive manual on the CD fills in the gaps well.

UPSHOT: The PagePro 1250W offers excellent speed at an inexpensive price, but it's best used in a single-PC environment.

SUMMARY

Minolta-QMS PagePro 1250W $