Solid Windows Network Fax/copier/scanner/printer

I have found the Dell 1815dn to be quite servicable for a home office or workgroup all-in-one and a very good value if you are a Windows user. I'm quite happy with mine. I've had it for about a year and a half and have experienced no real problems. Text quality is excellent and the other functions work well. The Windows software that comes with the printer is very good. If you are a Mac or Linux user there are better choices.

I bought the Dell 1815dn for my home office after becoming quite familiar with it at work. We haven't had any problems with any of the several purchased. I already had an HP 1220 laser printer/scanner/copier, but needed a fax. The price was right and does what I need. It came with the usual starter cartridge that you always seem to get these days, but that's lasted more than a year with the fairly light use it gets. I just ordered the first 5000 page replacement cartridge from Dell for $79.99 delivered. I believe this to be in line with cartridges for other lasers and actually a deal for an OEM cartridge that includes an imaging drum. There are now a number of sources for remanufactured toner cartridges for this machine and toner refill kits. The high yield cartridges are definitely a much better deal than the 3000 page carts.

Printing:

I find this to be an excellent printer. Text output quality is excellent. I have no complaints on that front. Double sided printing works well as long as the paper isn't too humid, then there is some crinkling. I've run into that with other duplex printers. I have not had any problems with jamming. The Windows drivers are more robust than the Mac drivers, but I'm happy on both platforms. It is very slow to warm up for the first page, but it is quite speedy once it does. Slow warm up once the printer is asleep is quite common now, since they now have to be put almost into a coma in order to meet Energy Star requirements.

Faxing:

Manual fax works well. Network faxing works well under Windows. It would be nice if Mac OS was supported, but since this comes from Dell, just having printer and scanner drivers is unusual. I find the fax forward to email feature very useful. When this is set up, incoming and outgoing faxes are sent to an email account as a PDF file. I've had some trouble when feeding multiple sheets through the ADF for faxing, but only with wrinkled, crumpled or damaged sheets.

Scanning:

Scanning of text is great. I've not used it for scanning graphics or photos. I've mostly used the scanner to archive documents to PDF files. Network scanning uses a push methodology. You connect to the computer you want to scan to using the front panel controls after setting up a client on a Windows PC. A 4 digit PIN number is used to secure access to the PC for scanning. At first I didn't like this setup, but since you need to be at the unit to feed the scanner, it makes for sense than pulling from a computer on the other side of the room or building. Scanning to a USB connected Windows computer can be push or pull. When pushing to a computer, you can select an application or folder to scan to if the Windows software is installed. If you scan to Word, the OCR software that comes with the unit will run to convert the page to text before opening the document in Word. I usually scan to PaperPort which handles document management well. One interesting feature is the ability to scan to a USB flash drive. I've used this to scan files for use on my MacBook Pro.

Copying:

No surprises here. The copier function works as expected. Other than the occaisional ADF jam problem mentioned earlier I've no real complaints. The contrast adjustment could have a wider range.

User Interface:

The user interface from the front control panel can be very irritating. You do seem to need to press a lot more buttons that should be required. A few more dedicated funtion buttons could make life a lot easier. The Dell 1600n, which I believe was also made by Samsung, had these and was easier to use. You have to navigate too many menus on the 1815dn. Network faxing gets around this if you have the option.


Specifications (from Dell Web Site):

Print Speed
•    Up to 27 ppm Letter
Maximum Print Resolution
•    Up to 1200 image quality, 600 x 600 dpi (Dots per Inch)
Monthly Duty Cycle
•    Up to 25,000 pages per month
Standard Paper Input
•    One 250-sheet drawer 50-sheet Multipurpose Tray
Auto-Duplex (Two-Sided Printing)
Maximum Scan Resolution
•    Up to 4800 x 4800 dpi interpolated, 600 x 1200 optical (Scanning supported in both 24-bit color and black & white)
50-sheet Automatic Document Feeder
Processor
•    300 MHz
Standard Memory
•    64 MB (on board) 32 MB (included in DIMM slot)
Maximum Memory
•    192 MB (including standard 64 MB, replacing 32 MB included in DIMM slot)
Maximum Paper Input Capacity
•    550-sheets (with optional 250-sheet drawer)
Optional Paper Input Accessories
•    One 250-sheet drawer
Standard/Maximum Output Capacity
•    150-sheets
Media Types Supported
•    Xerographic, Bond, Dual-purpose, Recycled Bond, Transparencies, Greeting Card stock, Continuous Form
Media Sizes Supported (Main Tray)
•    A4, Letter, Legal, Folio, Executive, B5
Paper Weights Supported
•    16-24 lb drawer, 16-43 lb manual
Standard Interfaces (Cables not included)
•    USB 2.0 High Speed
•    USB 1.1 Full Speed
•    10/100BaseT Ethernet

Printer Languages
•    Host-based (GDI)
•    PCL6
•    PS3

Compatible Client Operating Systems
•    Microsoft®  Windows VistaTM , Windows®  (ME, 2000, Server 2003, XP, XP 64bits, NT 4.0)
•    Mac OS X
•    Linux (Red Hat 8.0~9.0, Fedora Core 1~3, Mandrake 9.0~10.2, SuSE 8.2~9.2)

 Printer Dimensions (Width by Depth by Height)
•    17.7" x 17.2" x 18"
Printer Weight
•    17.5 kg/38.5 lbs
Included in the Box
•    Dell Multifunction Laser Printer 1815dn
•    Up to 3,000 page Toner cartridge
•    250-sheet standard drawer

Software Included (Windows only)
•    PaperPortTM  10.0 business software2
•    Dell Toner Management SystemTM
•    Dell Printer Web Tool
•    Local Printer Setup Utility
•    TCP/IP Setup Utility