Touch screen technology has made things easier and the Gestetner DSc-424 is an excellent example of that. I am a freelancer but have been involved in some projects that require massive printing and photocopying. In my search for a combo device, I found the Gestetner DSc-424 and wasted no time in buying it. I have been using it for almost two months and results have been good so far.
Starting with the installation process, it was easy for me to install the Gestetner DSc-424. I just had to follow the guidelines of the user manual and it was a breeze. My main purpose of buying the Gestetner DSc-424 was its combination of fax, printer and photocopier along with a scanner. It is truly a great combination device with each part functioning well.
Printing options on the Gestetner DSc-424 are quite elaborate. It offers both colored and black and white printing. Printing speed is 24 to 32 pages per minute for black and white and 10 per minute for colored prints. It offers a standard resolution of 600 x 600 dpi. The user interface and connectivity features include Ethernet 10 base-T/100 base-TX and a USB 2.0, as well as Bi-directional IEEE1284 with Firewire (IEEE1394) and Wireless LAN networking (IEEE802.11b). There is also a Bluetooth Network protocol, TCP/IP, IPX/SPX, SMB, AppleTalk and other options which are also included. The printer is fully supported on my Windows XP workstation and there are no glitches in using all of its features.
Copying facilities on the Gestetner DSc-424 are satisfactory. Copying speed is the same as printing speed with up to 32 black and white pages and 10 colored pages. The machine takes up to a minute in warming up though the official time is 99 seconds. Zoom of up to 400% is available and up to 100 multiple copies can be made. Two standard paper trays of 250 sheets are available with the Gestetner DSc-424. The DSc-424 also comes with a great toner cartridge which seems to be very economical.
I do not use a scanner often but my experiences, though little, are worth mentioning. The scanning feature offers A3 and A5 sizes and supports scanner-to-email and scanner-to-folder options. TIFF, JPG and PDF formats are easily accommodated in the scanner option. I have used the facsimile function just a couple of times and there were no glitches in the whole process. It has a great modem that offers up to 33.3kbps speed unlike other machines that hardly go beyond 14.4 kbps.
On a scale of 1 to 10, I will give Gestetner DSc-424 8.5 marks for its stellar performance and great printing and copying features.
