Samsung CLP-550

I purchased this printer almost on a whim on Ebay because I was looking for a duplexing printer to print brochures for our nonprofit trails advocacy & maintenance organization (www.triangletrails.org)

In the past I've had to go to the copy store to make the two sided B&W brochures, which I then folded and distributed to those interested at street and river festivals and the like.

In considering this purchase I thought the color capability of this printer would be nice. Ink jet printing, or quick copy color printing of hundreds of 2-sided brochures, at almost a dollar a pop, was totally impractical for these brochures we give away like candy.

When I read another Amazon.com or Epinions review of the CLP-500 printer which listed a detailed consumables expenses of about a dime a page, I made the plunge.

So far, the printer has been top notch, and I would recommend it. I'm still waiting to see how fast I go through the toner cartridges though.

The auto duplexing feature on this printer is pretty much worth the price of the printer. It works very well, and has allowed me to print the brochures in house. This is the only color printer in this price range I've seen with auto duplexing. I recommend it highly. Once you use it, you'll wonder how you've lived without it.

Auto duplexing works great for regular printing as well. Now I don't have as many scrap pieces of paper with print on one side waiting to be inserted back in the printer to print on the blank side for those printing out of directions, reports, etc.

The color is very good, even on cheap, regular copy paper. I'm basically printing three or four photos with spot color for headlines, with the rest black print, in the brochure. It has worked well for this. You can get acceptable results with cheap paper.

We've noticed that these color brochures even on cheap paper, are picked up more than our old B&W brochures. The color photo on the front with color title is really eye catching. Now I hope those more brochures getting picked up brings in more members and donations. ;-)

I just purchased some more expensive glossy paper that I'm hoping to use soon. I'm sure the color printing quality will improve dramatically.

The printer is much faster than my old HP LJ4P on B&W printing. On color, it is fairly slow, but still very much acceptable for a printer in this price range. It would probably print faster with more memory, which I've been considering. However, it is much, much faster than my old ink jet!

For the downside, the printer came out of the box with right top front door latch (push to open, push then click to close) inoperative. This means that the right top front of the main or front door doesn't close all the way. It is slightly ajar, so to speak.

I called the Samsung customer support, and after explaining it, they said they would raid a new one and send me the latch. This arrived in a few days. However, it promptly fell apart upon taking it out of the envelope. I tried to put it back together, and inserted it in the hole in the printer. Parts immediately fell into the recesses of the printer, with the shell of the latch still in place. The printer worked fine. However, the parts fell somewhere totally unreachable in the printer.

I called customer support again, and they promptly sent me another, this time wrapped in tape. I've yet to install it because I'm going to have to break the latch housing - still in its hole in the printer - with pliers or something. Since the printer is working fine, with only this cosmetic issue, I'm still working up the nerve to break the housing.

There seems to be no need to bother sending back the printer or calling the year's worth of on-site support for this very minor issue. We'll see what happens and I'll include an update.

But I was very impressed with their customer service. I like the "can do" attitude. They did what they said they would do and helped me out again when the situation wasn't resolved the first time. They too were impressed that Samsung came out with the auto duplexing feature in a color laser printer at this price point.

My other issue is that this printer appears to have no way of displaying how much toner remaining in each cartridge, or conversely, how much of the cartridge has been used.

There is no report that displays this info. The only printout it offers is the number of pages or cycles printed with each color and B&W cartridge. Many HP color printers offer a percentage of toner used report or a thermometer graphic showing how much toner is left or has been used.

This may be too much to expect in a color laser of this price point. But it would sure be nice to have so I'm not left "high and dry" on a weekend when an important job is due.

Also, printer cartridges are not yet available locally at local or chain office supply stores. I'm sure this will change as more CLP-500's and CLP-550's get out there.

Again, I think this is a great printer so far. The auto duplexing feature is fabulous! This is really a great buy for all the features that come with it. It could be a boon to very small nonprofits or businesses. I hope this series of printers sells well for Samsung. While I've always been a solid HP laser printer man in the past, I'll indeed consider Samsung when purchasing printers in the future.

I like the printer so much that I created a Yahoo group for users of the Samsung CLP-500 series of printers to get advice and share experiences. Please join it at:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/samsungclp/