Small, Networked, Postscript, Fast and Good!

I bought this printer as part of a printer replacement plan; my old do-everything inkjet was being replaced with two printers:

1) a much higher end photo printer (Epson R1800) that had to live in the basement because of space limitations in my office, and

2) a laser printer that was supposed to be fast, but still small, for everyday cheaper black and white prints.

My old inkjet is plugged into a USB Print Server. My new R1800 is also plugged into a print server. I bought an HP Laserjet 1020 which was meant to plug into a print server.

Turns out that HP 1020 will not work on a print server. It is "host based printing" meaning they cheaped out on the guts of the printer, and they make your computer do most of the work forming the image and the page. No printer language at all installed on the HP, not even PCL. No drivers for Linux of Mac!

I returned the HP, and spent a lot of time trying to find a network printer that would do what I want. There are large expensive printers that fit the bill, but I needed something small. The Samsung stood out as the best option -- shallow enough to fit on my shelf, network support built right in. Postscript as an added bonus!

When it showed up I dedicated the evening to getting it installed -- I had fought with the HP for hours and hours before giving up on it. With the Samsung, within a short period of time it Just Worked. Everything was a dream, fits beautifully into the bookshelf, I can print from all of my computers. Fast output. I took the rest of the evening off!

I haven't had a laser printer for many years so cannot comment on the relative print quality compared to other modern laser printers, but I can say that I am very very happy with this. Especially after the nightmare experience with the Hewlett Packard.

The only downside I see is that it is almond -- the rest of my equipment is black or silver. It looks out of place.

I'd like to say more about this printer but there is very little to say. It does everything it is supposed to do fast and well. No jams so far, no driver problems, absolutely nothing wrong with it at all. All the quality you expect from a high resolution laser printer, none of the hassles.

I will note however that although the printer is advertised as only 11" deep, the paper tray sticks out another 4". This works for me as the printer is tucked into my bookshelf and my paper tray just sticks out a bit. But if you are trying to put it into a very tiny space be sure to take this into account. Also the clearances for heat dissipation are recommended 3" on the back and sides (and considerably more on the front). You probably need 3" on the back for cord clearance anyways, but be sure to take this into consideration if size is a primary concern of yours.

I do not have the power-save problem that the other reviewer had. Mine goes into power save mode but wakes up all by itself just fine.

Also I did not need to use the Set-IP program (a Windows-only program) to set the IP address. (Mac users have reported having to borrow a friend's Windows machine to get this computer set up the way they want on their network.) The printer found a temporary IP address from the DHCP server on my router, then I was able to login to the printer from my web browser and change the IP that way.