Good Value for Home Office
Pros:
Price, 64MB RAM included, double sided print capability, easy set up
Cons:
Big and heavy, toner cartridges are expensive, mediocre resolution capability (1200 DPI)
The Bottom Line:
Excellent price and full features. Ideal for your home if you want to be able to print business documents outside the office.
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Overall Rating:
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Author's Review
Overview:
This printer comes loaded with features, and with current rebates out there, a good color laser printer for under $300 is hard to pass up. I was looking for something for my home office, where I could print my own color business documents without having to be in my company's office to do it. Big things for me were the 64MB of RAM already installed, and the ability to do two-sided printing. Print is crisp and clear. The resolution is only up to 1200 DPI, good for business documents but not optimal for photos (typically resolution 2400, 4800, etc). But Samsung is not even trying to market this for the home photographer, its really more of a workhorse for business use. I have had 2 samsung printers prior to this one for years, their stuff has been very reliable for me. It was very easy to set up, literally just took a few minutes. Its a great printer if you want a real, full size color laser.
Key Features and Comments:
- Speed; About 5 pages per minute color, 21 for black and white, its around 5-6 pages per minute if you are doing double-sided.
- First page comes out in about 30 seconds
- Resolution is up to 1200 DPI.
- Connection; Standard connection is USB only; don't get out your old printer cable, it won't work with this. It has the punch-out slot for the parallel cable but the jack is not there, its not standard. You can also optionally get a network cable connection. You will need your own USB cable, one does not come included. Which I kind of like, why have Samsung make the printer pricier to include the USB cable; where you pay for a short cable that may not work for you, or pay for one longer than you need. This way you go and get the right length for you and get the best price. I needed about a 12 footer, the standard 6 foot if included would have been useless to me.
- Paper Capacity; 250 sheet standard tray (half a packet of paper). You can get an optional tray that will hold 500 sheets. The output tray can hold 250 sheets before it starts falling on the floor.
- Cartridge Life; Capacity for print cartridges is supposed to 5,000 color and 7,000 pages monochrome. I have not had mine long enough to give a reading on that. But of course the type of stuff you print is going to determine how fast you use up your ink.
- Printer Memory; Standard RAM is 64MB, you can upgrade up to 128MB. Access panel on the side that is pretty easy to open gets you to the memory slots. I find that the standard 64MB is plenty for my uses, which include some fairly sizable business documents with graphics, and powerpoint documents.
- Compatibility; according to specs, its compatible for Linux and MS Windows (95 up thru XP), I don't know about the MAC.
- Replacement Toner; Cost of replacement cartridges will run you between $2-300 for all four total. However what full sized color laser is going to have cheap toner refills? Refills for any color laser are going to be pricey. Shop online for deals, you can find some places that will give you new cartridges for better prices than places like Staples, etc. Of course its up to you but I do not advise you to re-fill on your own, I have had a bad experience with that in the past and it will void your Samsung warrantee (which by the way is 1 year, parts and labor).
- Cartridges are VERY easy to replace, slide in and out.
- The printer is heavy, about 75 pounds and awkward to carry because its also pretty big (20x19x16). Unless you are a bruiser you will need help moving it around.
- Placement of the printer; you will need to put it somewhere where you can have access to at least 2 sides of it; one side is the paper trays and toner cartridges, the other is the feeder for special forms. It has a LCD window that gives you basic messages as well. Anyway its not suited well to be crammed into a cluttered spot.
- It runs pretty quiet for a big full featured color printer. Its not whisper quiet but it's not "loud" either.
- There is a network version of this (550N), or you can upgrade the 550 to an network printer.
- Special forms; you can load envelopes, pre-printed check forms, etc into the the side. A panel pops open and there is a feeder. I print checks from quicken frequently, it works great.
Conclusion:
I love this printer. It runs great, has never jammed, and for my business documents prints clearly and crisply.
