Club Printer

The Samsung CLP-510N printer is a color laser that targets small office and home users. It comes with a resolution of up to 1200 x 1200 dpi and provides much appreciated network connectivity features. You could say that the CLP-510N is not only satisfying as print quality but that it kind of surprises you in a pleasant way as well, at least when it comes to color graphics. The text is not necessarily as sharp as one might expect but that’s just if you have high printing standards and needs from documents.

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When you receive the printer you’ll get a very large and heavy box for which you’ll probably require some help to move around. Upon unpacking you’ll find the four toners for the CLP-510N in the colors you’ve probably gotten used to by now (black, cyan, magenta and yellow) as well as a bunch of manuals, software CD and the device itself.

Print speed is not extraordinary but will fit most users’ needs at up to 25 pages per minute in mono and 6 pages per minute in color. Duplexing speeds are of 11 ppm black & white and 6 ppm color. The duplexer is a great feature to have in an office printer. It allows printing on both sides of the paper without having to spend time and energy twisting and turning paper, re-inserting it and hoping you did it the right way.

It also saves paper as you’ll be printing on both sides of a sheet, instead of 2 distinct sheets of paper. Some users, like me, might be annoyed by the high first page out time, especially if printing is not done on a regular basis and heavily in your office. It doesn’t matter if a printer can produce 50 copies in a one minute interval, if you have to wait for it to warm up for what seems like an eternity, especially if you’re in the rush for printing one single page. Because of this, it’s nice to know that Samsung also worked on that and lowered the first page out time to 13 seconds for monochrome and 21 seconds for color.

Lower on the front you will find the paper tray with a capacity of 250 sheets of paper while on the right side you can also make use of a 100 sheet auxiliary feeder. As opposed to the more affordable CLP-510, the CLP-510N also comes with networking capabilities. The printer can be set up to work with almost any operating system including Windows, Linux and Macintosh.

As a conclusion, the Samsung CLP-510N printer is an inexpensive solution for any small office, that offers both duplexing and networking. The control panel and the layout of the printer might be a bit confusing, and the text quality could be a little better. Fot the navigation there is a simple solution though; you can print a menu map and stick it somewhere close to the printer to see which option is where in the menu.  Overall it’s one of the better printers out there on the market.

One thing Samsung seems to be pretty good at? Providing affordable laser printers, be it color or monochrome. They are actually doing better than other brands such as HP or Ricoh. Apparently, their theory that they should provide exactly what the consumer is looking for, followed by carefully studying what the consumer requires, is really paying off.

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The starter cartridges it comes with will offer just about 2000 pages for black and 1500 pages for color. This means that if you have a small office you’ll end up changing them in the shortest time possible. If for some reason you’ve purchased this for home however, and you don’t need serious printing, the 2000 pages will do well for you. While the full cartridges will last for 7000 pages (mono) and 5000 pages (color) they are unreasonably expensive.

Samsung should have payed a bit more attention to what the consumer needs in this case, as they failed to provide networking, on a printer that targets small offices. This is sort of counter intuitive and will probably cut the target audience by at least half. They do come as an extra (both Ethernet and wireless) but one wonders why you’d have to spend more money to equip this with networking when you can buy a printer that provides that off the shelf.

Bottom line is, all you’ll be getting with the CLP-500 is USB 2.0 (no cable included so you have to buy your own). Setting up the printer is very easy though, as in the case of most Samsung products. Right after you purchase an USB cable, all you have to do is plug the printer in, and that’s about it.

Fully equipped with cartridges it will weigh a ‘mere’ 35 kg. When you consider where you’re going to be placing it also consider that it measures 51 x 47 x 40.5 cm. The Samsung CLP-500 printer could be called bulky but to some extent most color laser printers that were designed for office use are larger as size. As for paper capacity, you’ll be getting a 250 sheet output tray on the top of the device, and 250 sheet input tray. There’s also an extra 500 sheet input tray available for purchase for users that want to increase paper capacity. A multipurpose tray is on the right side of the printer but it will somewhat disapoint with it’s capacity of only 10 sheets of media. Media supported includes envelopes, labels or transparencies.

On the bright side the printer comes with a duplexer, so printing on both sides of the paper will be easy and convenient and you’ll be saving up on paper and time. Speed is pretty average, 20 pages per minute for monochrome and 5 pages per minute for printing color in A4. Quality is good towards great. The graphics quality is somewhat better than the text but both are satisfactory. So, if a user is looking for an affordable color laser printer that can produce good quality prints and also includes a duplexer, the Samsung CLP-500 printer is a very good idea. However, people that require a huge output of paper should look somewhere else, as running costs may become higher than the initial buying cost.

The business philosophy of Samsung Electronics states that it’s highly important to provide exactly the product that customers need, no more no less. They also seemingly spend a large amount of time evaluating their own products through ‘the eyes’ of their consumers. One of their products, the Samsung ML 2150 is a very affordable monochrome laser printer that can be set up to work for a workgroup. When they released it, which is quite a few years ago, it was probably a remarkable product. Prices of color laser printers were sky high and it’s understandable why someone would want to save up on money and stick to monochrome.

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Since technology evolved a lot and color laser printers are already relatively affordable, there’s no telling what the purpose of a mono laser printer is nowadays. But it’s true that this printer was released quite a while ago and I guess there are still companies out there, saving up on money, specially during the recession. The ML 2150 thus is the ideal choice for an office that requires high volume black and white printing.

The Samsung laser printer ML 2150 can print on media up to legal (8.5 x 14 inches) to A4. It has a maximum resolution of 1200 dpi and a paper capacity of 600 sheets (without any optional media tray). This means that you won’t have to replace the paper in it that often, specially compared to competing products. Oddly enough its design is compact and stylish. Back in the day it was actually among the smallest printers on the market. It will work on pretty much any available operating system including Windows, Linux or Mac (and apparently SunSoft Solaris).

The printing speed (for black as it has no color) is of 20 pages per minute which used to be great but now just manages to be average. Nevertheless it’s a great speed for an affordable device. With a monthly cycle of 100,000 pages it just about fits any small office’s needs. It comes with 16MB of installed RAM which can be expanded up to 144MB and holds a processor of 166Mhz

Another feature that makes it very convenient for office use is the built in duplexer. What this means is that you can print on both sides of the page, without having to bother to re-insert the sheet, thus saving time and paper, and possibly even avoiding frustration. While it’s easy to connect the printer to a PC through the included USB port, there is also a parallel port in case older systems are still in the office.

You can still find this printer on the market, for roughly $250. It’s dirt cheap compared to other office printers. Sure, it may not provide color printing and its quality and speed may be a bit behind what more modern products are offering, but for this kind of money, the Samsung laser printer ML 2150 has great features and reliability.

When considering what printer to buy for an office, most experienced users have a few guidelines and choices. Those choices include: whether to select an all-in-one inkjet that also produces some quality photo prints, or a laser color printer that can’t be matched when it comes to speed. Whether it’s small or bigger, black or white, there are a couple of brands that you’ll check out the first moment you run into a shop (or online shop).

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These will generally be HP, Epson, Ricoh and Konica Minolta. Samsung, for example, might not be one of them. This is because they haven’t become so popular on the market with their printers, even though as a manufacturer they are reliable and they offer high quality products.

One of their offerings for small businesses is the all-in-one color laser printer named CLX-6200FX. It can color copy, scan, fax and print. So that’s just about everything you’ll ever need from an office printer. It also packs a couple of more interesting (although not mandatory) features. For example, due to a direct USB port the user can print files directly from an USB stick.

Other nice features include scan-to-email and automatic document feeder that holds 50 sheets. The manufacturer sells this printer for small businesses, but they should also mention that people interested should have a big door if they consider purchasing this. Multifunction all-in-ones were never small, and this one is actually plain bulky, weighting just around 80 pounds.

The speed of the Samsung printer is more than satisfying, at least on paper. When it comes to real life, warm up time can prove to be annoying. It does actually hit the speed of 20 pages per minute, but over 20 seconds spent to wait for the printer to come out of standby may sometimes be annoying. This is unfortunately something you may have to get used to when working with a color laser printer.

Quality of the Samsung CLX-6200FX is great and the prints look pretty sharp and rich in color. The printer has four toner cartridges (the usual black, yellow, magenta and cyan) that will last for approximately 2500 printed pages. Since you won’t change them very often, the cost of the toners (pretty high) won’t bother you that much. The input capacity is of 250 sheets and the multipurpose tray holds an extra 100 sheets. A secondary (optional) cassette feeder can also be installed. It works for a workgroup, but wired. Wireless networking is not available for this printer.

As a conclusion, this printer is a good choice for people who require a fast device that produces high quality prints. It’s relatively easy to set up and works well in a work-group. Only thing you will have to worry about is having it moved to your office (it really is quite heavy). If you must have wireless networking then the more expensive big brother of the CLX-6200FX Samsung printer, the 6210FX might be just the thing for you.

A color laser printer is a type of printer that produces high quality text and graphics at fast speeds. The tehnology used in laser printers is very similar to the one of digital copiers and multifunction printers and named xerographic. There are many advantages to laser printers, including much faster speeds than in the case of inkjets.

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The cost of the technology is usually higher though. But with the help of several nice features a lot of money can be saved after the purchase (such as duplexing, that can cut the paper cost in half and improve speed). Samsung’s CLP-315 color laser printer is a bit of an exception to the rule. It’s actually small, light, easy to fit in an office, and not as expensive as you might expect.

It’s price tag of around $ 200 makes it a viable choice for home use as well. The design of the printer is very pleasant, meaning that it’s not the white (that turns yellow) you’ve grown so ‘fond’ of. It’s shell is made out of matte and high-gloss black. The only controls you can find on the printer are a single button and six leds. To keep its size so small, Samsung had to cut down on certain features as well as paper capacity. This is why the paper drawer has a limit of just 150 sheets.

As for connectivity, the Samsung CLP-315 color laser printer has a single USB port on the back. If you’re interested in networking, a better choice would be Samsungs improved version of the CLP-315, the CLP-315w that also includes Ethernet and WiFi.

Setting up the CLP-315 is very easy, you’ll receive it with its toners already in place, so all you have to do is get a USB cable, plug it in the printer and run the software from the CD you get in the box. After install you’ll have several smart applications, such as Smart Panel that shows the remaining level of ink, Dr. Printer, for diagnostics as well as the driver with a series of options like watermarks, multiple pages per sheet or overlay.

Print speeds are not extraordinary. Samsung claims a 17 page per minute for monochrome and just a 4 page per minute for color prints. There’s also a 20 second warm up time that will add to the overall printing time, and since this one is not a heavy duty printer that you’ll use all day long, you’ll feel those 20 seconds worth of warm up as well. The toner cartridges will last for around 1000 pages (in color) or 1500 pages (black). Cost/page is not as small as you’re used to for laser color printers.

As a conclusion, the Samsung CLP-315w may be a color printer but it only acts as one in terms of quality. The rest, cost, size and features, reminds you more of an inkjet. It’s inexpensive to buy, but makes up for it with replacing consumables rather often (that aren’t exactly cheap).

Upon invention, color laser printers would bleed your pockets dry if you would dare to consider acquiring one. Nowadays you can easily find some pretty affordable models like the Samsung CLP-315W color laser printer. It’s for sale for a mere 200$.

One great thing about this printer is the piano black gloss design, after having seen more than enough white printers that tend to turn beige after only a couple of months of use. Controls and alerts are also elegantly simple and you will find a single power button on top, and a few led lights that let you know whether ink is low, your wireless connection is down or if paper suddenly gets stuck for no reason at all. It’s relatively small and lightweight for a color laser printer and it won’t take up a whole desk if someone decides to take it home.

Samsung CLP-315W color laser printer has four individual toner cartridges, one black and three color, that can be found by opening the panel on the faceplate. Since each can be changed separately, its owner won’t be forced to replace them all at the same time. This translates, obviously, into money saving.

Laser printers are generally more expensive than inkjet printers. A customer will most of the times be drawn to the cheaper product out of two, by the logic ‘they both print just as well, and one is cheaper’. But a laser printer might just be the affordable one in the long run, with much lower printing costs.

According to the manufacturer black printing speed is of up to 16 ppm in A4 while color speed is up to 4 ppm. Realistically speaking, most people report performances of 2-3 ppm in color. This is slighly lower than your average laser color printer, and most users will find it a slow device. In small offices or home offices, that will be just a slight inconvenience, but bigger workgroups will most likely prefer to look for some other product.

Samsung commercializes two separate versions of the CLP315 printer, the standard CLP-315 and the CLP-315W that comes with built in wireless networking apart from the standard USB connection. The CLP-315W does great at printing black text, but not so well as similarly priced printers when the user decides to print photos. One very enjoyable aspect is that you can actually tell the difference in sharpness when you print plain black text.

To sum everything up, good things that this printer has to offer include : compact size and a great, very eye-pleasing glossy design; independent cartridges that will save you money in the long run ; compatibility with basically all operating systems (Windows, Linux and Mac) right out of the box, with all drivers included.

There apparently are just as many bad points to it though, including very slow printing speeds comparing to most of it’s rivals. The quality of the prints, while not bad, isn’t as great as you might expect it to be either. There’s also no duplex printing option and the 150 sheet tray might be ok for some, while others might tend to find it a bit small.

Samsung presented the SCX-5530FN, a network-ready Four-in-one printer. The printer has built-in Windows, Macintosh and Linux compatibility and its 10/100 Base-TX network connectivity, the SCX-5530FN can easily be integrated into customers’ networks, delivering extended print, scan and fax functionality. Customers can also connect directly with Hi-Speed USB 2.0 and IEEE-1284 parallel ports.

The Samsung SCX-5530FN delivers delivers high-quality, high-resolution documents with 1200 dpi effective output. It produces crisp, color scans with up to 600 x 600 dpi optical and 4800 x 4800 dpi enhanced scanning resolution for capturing photo-quality color and sharp black and white text. (more…)

Behold the smallest colour laser printer in the world: the Samsung CLP-300. Bow before its staggering lack of girth. Gasp in astonishment at its remarkable absence of height and roll down your sleeves as you realise you’ll be able to carry it home from the shops without breaking your back.

It weighs just 13.6kg and is positively svelte (for a laser printer) at just 390mm across, 260mm high and 340mm deep. That’s about the size of two Shih Tzu puppies standing side by side. Admittedly it’s not as tiny as some inkjets, but it’s still pretty impressive considering some colour lasers are the size of a small outhouse. (more…)

PcMag has a very interesting article about affordable and reliable photo printers. Here are some of their conclusions.

One of the advantages these printers have over either a kiosk or an all purpose printer is that they’re small and light enough to take with you anywhere. Some, like both of the Canon printers included here—the Canon Selphy DS810 and Canon Selphy CP510 Compact Photo Printer—include battery options so you can print photos without a power outlet. If you want the flexibility to take photos and hand them out on the spot—at a little league baseball game, for example—that’s a must-have feature.

Another advantage this category has over all-purpose printers is that, for some printers at least, it’s easy to find out exactly how much it will cost to print a photo, so you can factor that cost into your buying decision. Two of the printers included here—the Canon CP510 and Samsung SPP-2040 Digital Photo Printer—are thermal dye printers, which means they print using dye rolls with repeating panels of cyan, yellow, and magenta dye, plus a clear panel that coats the print to protect it. (more…)