Laser Printers

While colour laser machines tend to steal away the limelight, most businesses look to a large number of mono laser printer models to deliver quality performance. Generally, most business documents comprise text, text and more text and this means that the demand for mono lasers has been there for long. Right, the question here is, is there a demand for a mono laser printer that retails as much as £300 online? Canon thinks so, and with its i-Sensys LBP3370, it is bullish about enticing potential buyers away from gaudy but less business-centric colour devices.

The LBP3370 Laser Printer from Canon carries a substantial price tag will not be immediately obvious from the exterior of the machine. You of course will find a mono LCD, but this apart; there is hardly any hint of sophistication to boast of.  First, a look at the highs and lows of the LBP3370 before we get into its design and performance aspects.

Pros:

• Good print quality
• Reasonable running costs
• Economical & effective for strong black & white prints

Cons:

• High price tag

Features:

To start with, the casing of the Canon i-Sensys LBP3370 Laser Printer is not much polished or in any other way indicative of the high price tag. Do not be taken by surprise, as the i-SENSYS LBP3370 is tagged more of a printer built for the office environment and therefore has nothing much of a say on the aesthetic value. As for its size, the printer measures 399.7mm (W) x 378.6mm (D) x 267mm (H) and weighs 12.2kg.

Maximum Sheet Capacity: The paper inputs comprise a 50-sheet multi-purpose tray and can stretch a 250 sheet cassette. The output is a little under 125 pages. Mind you these are not outstanding numbers for a print output, but you obviously have the choice of upgrading the input capacity to 550 sheets using an optional tray. As a user, you might expect the output to be a tad higher on a model which promises a lot better for large-print jobs. In a way though, that may be missing the point of the i-SENSYS LBP3370.

PCL5e/6 support: What the Canon i-SENSYS LBP3370 ought to give to the user is functionality and here the results look pretty convincing. The integration of a 10Base-T/100Base-TX interface and some useful management software allows it to slip into any office network like a dream. There isn’t any wireless connection, but to be honest, we are nowhere close to the time when the typical office workhorse fiddles with the somewhat inconsistent Bluetooth and Wi-Fi standards. Besides 64MB of RAM, you have PCL5e/6 support that makes its way seamlessly into present-day PCL printing environments. Furthermore, Canon’s printer language Plus UFRII gives you reasonably good processing speed for faster output of text documents.

Easy network connectivity: The i-SENSYS LBP3370 has a built-in network interface which facilitates connection to your office network. There is a Remote User Interface which lets users view the machine status and oversee print jobs right from their web browser. Furthermore, administrators will be easily able to control the machine settings.

Easy All-in-One cartridge: The All-in-One cartridge is a brilliant inclusion, in that it could cut down the maintenance cost without any compromise on the output. All you need to do is replace the compact cartridge containing the drum, toner and cleaning units and the machine is about as good as new.

Performance:

No warm-up time: Most printers (including the ones we have tested on our website) come with quick speeds when warmed up. But should you need to print off a load in a jiffy, you have to play the waiting game as they take some time off to constantly warm up. The Canon i-SENSYS LBP3370 does really well and has a reputation for its zero warm up time. Thanks to its On-Demand fixing technology, the time taken for the ‘First Print Out Time’ is a mere 6.5 seconds. And there always, you have the advantage of quiet operation with most Canon printers. Talking about the energy efficiency of the i-SENSYS LBP3370, it makes use of only 5W in sleep mode, which is extremely good under any standards.

Print speeds: In practise, the i-SENSYS LBP3370 was able to print in less than 6 seconds and in our recent observations, it spurred into action almost in a flash. It still does not hit the 26ppm (pages per minute) mark, as quoted by the manufacturer. But at 22.2ppm, it came closer to the on-paper figure then is usually is the case. The Canon’s non-existent warm-up period can prove so crucial in a business environment where there is a beeline for running off little print jobs as fast as possible.
Print Quality: The Canon i-SENSYS LBP3370 boasts a professional print output with clear graphics and sharp text, courtesy its resolution of up to 2400 x 600dpi.  When you make out a comparison with slightly cheaper mono laser printers including Epson AcuLaser M2000D (as an example), the print quality is far better. Being a mono model, in all probability, you will not go for it essentially for its graphic output, though it is pretty competent here too, which we noticed in our series of complicated photograph tests.

Lower paper costs: With the Canon i-SENSYS LBP3370, you can enjoy significant cost advantages when it comes to paper input. The fast, built-in automatic double-sided printing deserves mention as the resultant document and booklet are nothing short of excellence.

Warranty details:

The Canon i-SENSYS LBP3370 is covered under one year onsite warranty which commences from the date of purchase.

Verdict:

Recommended by BLI (Buyers Laboratory Inc.) for its performance and features, the Canon i-SENSYS LBP3370 has all the ingredients of a rock-solid laser printer such that dynamic workgroups would love to have in their scheme of things. And not to mention the printer’s ideal mix of performance with clear print quality, which clearly has a cut above the rest. The price of the printer however, is a certain put off. We understand that the price tag is well over £300, and guess what; you could have gone for a decent colour printer in that price range. The running cost is pretty decent and the LBP3370 is a strong contender if you need to pick an effective and economical machine. But just at a time, when the cost of mono laser models has hit an all time low, we are not sure if the Canon i-SENSYS LBP3370 is sufficiently feature laden to justify that exorbitant price tag.

Check other Latest Laser Printers in this website.

Canon i-Sensys LBP3370 Laser Printer – Technical Specification Table

Manufacturer	Canon
Model Name	i-Sensys LBP3370 Laser Printer
Printer Type	Monochrome Laser
Dimensions	399.7mm (W) x 378.6mm (D) x 267mm (H)
Weight	12.2kg
Print Speed	26 ppm mono (A4)
Max. Resolution (BW)	Up to 600 x 600 dpi
Connectivity Technology	10BASE-T/100BASE-TX, USB 2.0 High-Speed
Print Quality	Up to 2400 x 600 dpi (plus  Automatic Image Refinement)
First Page Out Time	Approx. 6.5 sec or less
Media Type	Transparency, Heavy Media, Label, Envelope, Plain Paper, Index Card
Media Size	A5, A4, B5, Letter, Legal, DL Envelope, Index Card, Monarch Envelope, Com10 Envelope, Executive, Custom Size, C5 Envelope
Media Handling	1 x Cassette 250 Sheet, 1 x Output Bin 125 Sheet, 1 x Multipurpose Tray 50 Sheet
Total Media Capacity	300 sheets
Number of Input Trays	2
Monthly Duty Cycle	15,000 pages
Warm-up Time	0 seconds (Standby) Approx. 8 seconds or less (power on)
Compatible Operating Systems	Windows 2000/ XP/ Vista/ Server 2003, Linux, Mac OS X Version 10.2.8-10.5.x
Platform Support	PC, Linux, Mac
Memory	64 MB
Processor Speed	333 MHz
Noise level	Sound pressure-Active: 55 dB(A) or less Sound power- Active: 6.81 B or less
Energy Star Compliant	Yes
Print Language	UFRII, PCL 6, PCL 5e
Warranty	1 year (onsite)

Mono laser printers continue to be a stronghold of many offices and no doubt that the multi-function form of Dell printers which is normally built with a scanner having Auto Document Feed (ADF) proves to be more than useful. The 2335DN which Dell classifies in the mid-range segment claims it can deliver print speeds of up to 32ppm and this means small to medium workgroups should reap the full benefits of its performance. What else would you expect from the 2335DN which is packed with the ability to print, copy, scan and fax with the trademark quality you would otherwise look forward to from a business machine from Dell. Before we get into the design and performance aspects of the machine, a quick look at the pros and cons of the Dell 2335DN would be in place.

What is hot?

• Decent performance level
• Easy to replace paper and toner due to its size
• Pretty light on toner use
• Interface with SEOSX is perfect
• Low cost per page
• Reasonably good print quality
• Easy to use & intuitive copy, print and fax functions
• Printing is fast and much accurate when it comes to page count
• Beeping sound could be disabled when you are out of paper and opening a draw

What is not?

• Bit noisy and little big
• Set up instructions are not very clear
• Scanning on OSX seems like it needs direct connection to the PC
• Does not feed cardstock that is used for reminders (but then neither will any of the other Dell printers!)
• Scanning is relatively slow at roughly 10-12ppm
• Scanning produces huge files that are nearly 10 times bigger than the 1815DN

Features:

There is a gamut of styles one can go for when it comes to the design of a multifunction printer. Choices do vary and Dell seems like they have gone for the traditional ‘Le Corbusier tank’ look. What makes us say this? Just take a look at the blackish 2335DN and you will know why. The printer is monolithically square cut and not to mention the rectangular apertures and clean diagonals. The 2335DN is basically a black and white MFL printer built with a fax machine. It is marked by a traditional look with a black plastic and boxy shape. Take a look at its striking size which makes a bit of an impression. The multi function printer can fit more at home than at large offices and it is recommended even if you have a small team of staff than at home. The ADF looks more like a tower and add to this, a set of caterpillar tracks on the base of the printer and you have all the makings of a frightening bit of office munitions. Weighing 17.7kg, it is not often you see a bigger machine for a mono laser printer at a dimension of 46.5cm (W) x 44cm (D) x 46.1cm (H).

Interface: The interface of the machine is a let down because we had to make the same selection over again for scanning a second time, though it asks over when you are done with your scanning if you need to scan again. Nonetheless, you need to be really quick, or else it will beep at you indicating ‘scanner busy’. One thing we hate is to press a hell lot of buttons for doing one thing. And not to mention the 3-4 several arrows keys you need to enter, simply to get to where the fax number is entered. The number buttons are not good either and they respond very slowly and need a heavy bit of touch. We tried entering fax number too quickly just to find it misses a few numbers.

Control panel: The control panel of the 2335DN Laser Printer is perfectly clean cut, comprising 5-button cross of controls at the back meant for Start, job Cancel and the remaining three is intended for menu exit.  The greenish Start button is more obvious and much larger in size. Coming to the controls involving fax operation, you may find a numeric pad that helps dial fax numbers and there are a number of buttons that helps call up the fax directory and unusually to pause into a fax number. On the front panel of the machine there is a USB port which allows you to print regular graphic file types including .jpg, .tif, .bmp and .pdf, all with a USB drive. The printer does not have Wi-Fi and there is the internal USB wireless adaptor (optional) which allows you to print from literally anywhere in your office without requiring any cables.

Paper handling: The Automatic document feeder could accept up to 50 sheets. The end of the machine’s feed tray is nicely hinged, therefore one could tilt it up for removing scanned images. The paper tray of the printer is built to hold 250 sheets, in addition to the multi-purpose tray of 50 sheets which folds down pretty easily from the front of the printer. We had no trouble folding down the complete front of the machine and the toner cartridge for the drum showed up instead of just the printer’s multi-purpose tray. We felt it would have been very useful had it got an interlock.

The extra paper tray does not seem like it would work for envelopes. It is rather good if it is to hold extra paper of the same type like the paper in tray 1. You can configure the multi function printer for envelope use, but then what else can you use for unless you configure the additional button every time and the case is the same with copies.

OS Support: The 2335DN Mono Laser Printer is compatible with Mac, Linux and Windows. The print driver had issues with compatibility with Word 2007, if customer reviews are any indication.

Installation: Talk about the installation and it is as simple as pie! How do you go about the set up? Strange enough, you need to connect both USB cables and power between the printer and PC, before you run the setup routine. Thankfully, both Postscript drivers as well as a PCL are supplied by Dell for this printer, although both of these are in printer emulation. You may also find Nuance PaperPort (a copy of it) for handling OCR and scanning. This software also lets you archive documents efficiently and quickly. The machine is completely networked off the shelf and is integrated with the Dell’s net configuration utility that is web-based. And with this you will have no real problem setting up the printer for sharing it across the Ethernet link.

Performance:

Print speeds: Dell claims a maximum print speed of 32ppm, but on testing, we found it was way short of the speed it claims as it took more than 10 seconds, in fact 19 seconds to be precise for printing a five-page text print and the equivalent speed generated is 15.8ppm. We stepped up the page run to 20 pages to record a print speed of 25.5ppm. We had to admit that this in no way is closer to the rated speed, but it is fairly decent for a printer that carries a price tag of about £250. The quoted speeds are that of the single-sided printing speed. Try printing a text document duplex of 20 sides, it takes about 15spm (sides per minutes) or 1:20, and this is generally because of the little pause when you are printing between each page’s first and second side.

The automatic double-sided printing mode is not quick either, though it still managed a swift 14.4 ppm. When the machine is relatively warmed up, you can see the first page popping out at 8 seconds and that is good by any standards. When the machine is on standby mode for sometime, you still have to wait for 23 seconds and this by no means is poor. It is only after you turn the printer off and switch it back on again that it makes you wait for long. Time taken for the first page is 50 seconds. So we do have to say the measured times are slightly above average in comparison with other machines on the market.

Printing Quality: When it comes to printing quality, the manufacturer with its print driver claims a 600 x 600 dpi resolution for producing professional quality graphics with jagged detail. Now whether the software provided plays a role in enhancing the resolution is not obvious. Take for the photo print samples, which were chalk and cheese, no matter what resolution we selected. And again the random toner spatter spoils the party, which we suppose was the dubious toner cartridge and printer drum.

Digging deeper into it, we found a nice, deep black and sharp individual characters. Also discernible are the edges of few letters, which is a little bit of staircase effect. The bars in the chart have gradients which are clearly illustrated in the graph. If not, the text is clean and stands out pretty well on a B & W background. The nicely reproduced contrast deserves appreciation. The 2335DN’s functionality makes it a clear choice in workplaces, if it was not for its printing foibles. There was a column of dots that are evenly spaced down the right side of the page. We suppose this has more to do with the slight defect on the cartridge’s drum (a brand-new one!), however the warranty allows you to get it replaced in no time.

And not to forget the miss-feeds. During our tests, we noted 2 double-sheet feeds and this generally is two more than what other multi-function and laser printers are built with. Then finally coming to taking out photocopies of the graphics and text test page, which is the usual ‘test copying’ routine on multi-function printers, it  gave out irregular and banded grey patterning with a fair amount of  dark background tones and this made our life difficult when reading the black text that is being printed over them. These copies are not at all usable. Overall, the printer’s reasonable good print quality is not consistent over photocopied documents. There is way too much of contrast and here the chart had different lines that are virtually invisible, though we found the text legible.

Cost per page:  What is the source for getting the consumables for this printer? It is Dell alone which will cost you a £53 for the 6000-page, cartridge’s high-yield version and guess what, the print costs is rated at 1.7p/page which still challenges to be the lowest possible page cost for a laser printer at this buying price, given that black and white printers itself would cost you about 2.2 p per page on an average. Go for a high capacity cartridge, you may see the cost still coming down to a mere 1.15 p.
Energy Consumption: The machine consumes 80W when it is on standby mode for an extended period. And this for all intents and purposes, is particularly high for a machine that is doing nothing. When it is in the printing mode, the number escalates to 450W on an average with stark contrast to an inkjet printer which requires only about 20W. We were not able to find an option for disabling the power saving mode.  And so any sort of efforts to fax or copy anything from it after setting the machine in the ideal state for 60 minutes or more will require the unit to warm up for 15-20 seconds before you could even set things off.

Noise levels: The Dell 2335DN has turned out to be a pretty loud printer and if our tests are any indication, the machine has a noise level that averages at 62 dB when measured at a distance of 1m in our testing suite.

Go green: ‘Green Printing technology’, an initiative of Dell helps lowers the carbon footprint. The machine is ENERGY STAR complaint and the manufacturer claims that it is at least 25% more efficient than most conventional MFL printers. There is an environmental paper drawer that allows you to make use of recycled paper and encourages re-use of freshly-printed paper sheets. You can automatically reduce multiple pages, printing on one sheet.

Scanner & Copier: Though the 2335DN is capable of printing only in black and white, it could scan in colour. It scans at a decent speed, though it is not the most impressive of scanners. It took about 12 seconds for a preview scan. To scan a 4” x 6” photo, the machine took about 22 seconds. There is nothing special about the quality. We revere the content though the colours are slightly dictated by reds. Scans look pretty sharp and there is detail in plenty. We found that it copies documents fast and in just under 11 seconds it is able to copy a single-page document.

The scanning software is not by any means effective. The real problem lies when you have to interact with the machine. It is hardly unbelievable when you need to click through a lot of menus simply for scanning a document and we would rather appreciate if anyone can help us out in disabling these prompts. And mind you it would still prompt you even though you set the defaults. It is also not easy to get duplex scanning working and we had to make a call to Dell who helped us out in getting it to work in the software.

Fax:  If there is an adjective to describe the performance of the fax, then it should be ‘unreliable’. Thanks to its incapability to do more than a task simultaneously. When you fax a document to a busy number, the scanning, copying and printing functions are virtually rendered unusable unless it has effectively re-faxed the document or has attempted three times and timed out. The fax dial speed might get you in a spot of bother. Anyone who might have used fax machine before will tell you the easiest way to send fax is to simply click a # and then hit send. Strangely enough, it is a lot quicker to simply enter the phone number instead of having to click thorough speed dial menus located on the machine‘s front panel. Another downside is that there is no SSL support whatsoever offered by the scan to email, which most ISP’s now need for SMTP service (sending emails). We also had trouble assigning codes to outgoing faxes.

Recommended by BLI buyers laboratory: The Dell 2335DN was tested at the BLI buyers laboratory, the industry’s top independent authority which provides competitive intelligence, evaluation, reviews and testing on printers, scanners, copiers, multifunction machines and other software products and solutions. Moreover, it has been highly recommended by BLI as a quality MFL printer for the year 2009. There is also a comprehensive, unbiased BLI buyers lab report in the manufacturer’s website that you can go through for an exhaustive evaluation of the printers’ performance.

What is in the box?

• Dell 2335DN Laser Printer
• Installation software
• Instruction manual CD (Printer driver & other software in multiple languages)
• Standard black toner cartridge from Dell 2335DN (3000-page yield, hardware recycle program label, instructions & set-up placemat)

Warranty Details:

The product is covered under the manufacturer’s standard one year limited warranty for hardware in addition to a 1 year warranty for advanced service. For those who like to have increased protection of the machine can go for an optional 5 year extended warranty.
ProSupport Printer Services: This is a value added service from Dell that offers expert technical support from technicians (who are ISF-certified), diagnosis, on-site exchanges and support on 3rd party software, etc.

Verdict:

In terms of value, the 2335DN raises to the occasion as a fabulous workgroup printer for offices, home and small businesses. With the integration of duplex printing capabilities, optional paper drawer and network adaptor, the purchase price of the printer is unsurpassed in the B&W laser machine segment. But label it as a multifunction machine, it falls way behind other machines.  Assuming the dots and spatter observed on the printer pages were cut off to the specific consumables provided with our expert team, the 2335DN is a reasonably good mono laser MF printer.

The printer is nicely specified with standard features including fax, walk-up printing and duplex print built-in functions, however the excessively dark graphics print copies that we were able to produce discounted its very effectiveness in terms of scanning and copying. Whilst the machine is quiet user friendly for the beginner, it is built with its own limitations for use in an advanced small or medium business environment. To wrap up things, we would like to have the following built into the machine in its later releases:

• Standard Paper Input: 500 Sheet Tray
• Optional Envelope feeder option
• Reduced prices on printer toner (6k yield) as the toner cost is a tad higher than the Dell 1815DN

Dell 2335DN Multifunction Laser Printer – Technical Specification Table

Manufacturer	Dell
Model Name	Dell 2335DN Mono Multifunction Laser Printer
Product Code	2335DN
Case Colour	Black
Printer type/Technology	Multifunction Laser Printer (Print/Scan/Copy/Fax)
Dimension	46.5cm (W) x 44cm (D) x 46.1cm (H)
Weight	17.7 kg
Standard Memory/ Maximum Memory	256 MB/ 512 MB
Max. Printing Resolution	600 x 600 dpi
Max. Page size	A4
Max. Print Speed	Up to 33 ppm (A4) -  Black & White
Speed details	Printing-33 pages/min (A4), Letter A: 35 pages/min Scanning- 15 pages/min, 30 pages/min (Colour) Copying-20 pages/min (A4), 21 pages/min (Letter A)
Expansion Slots	No
Total Media Capacity	Input capacity: 550 sheets; Output capacity: 150 sheets; 250-sheet extra drawer (optional)
Supported Media Type	Thin, Recycled, Plain, LetterHead; Labels, Cardstock, Bond, Transparency, Coloured, Preprinted, Recycled, Envelope, Thin, Thick, LetterHead
Duplex print options	Yes
Monthly Duty Cycle	60,000pages/month
Standard Paper Input	250 sheets (inc.50-sheet multipurpose tray)
PC Connection	USB2.0 (Type-B connector), Fax port, RJ-11 telephone, RJ45 Fast Ethernet 10/100 Base-T
Standard printer languages	PCL 5e, PostScript  Level 3 Emulation, PCL 6
OS Support	MS Windows XP Home Edition, MS Windows XP Professional, Mandrake Linux 9.2 – 10.1, MS Windows Vista (version 64-bit), Novell NetWare 6.x, MS Windows Server 2003, Red Hat Linux (8.0 – 9.0), SuSe Linux 8.2 – 9.2, MS Windows Server 2008, Red Hat Fedora Core 1-4, MS Windows 2000, MS Windows Vista, Novell NetWare 5.x, MS Windows XP Professional (x64 Edition), MS Windows Vista, Apple Mac OS X 10.3 – 10.5
Printing Software	Dell Printer Status Monitor, Dell ScanCenter, PC-Fax software, Firmware Upgrade Utility, Dell Printer Configuration Web Tool (EWS), Printer Setting Utility, Set IP Address Utility, Toner Management System, Scan Manager, Nuance PaperPort
Package contents	Dell 2335DN Laser Printer Installation software Instruction manual CD Standard black toner cartridge
Noise levels	62 dB
Recommendations (if any)	BLI buyers laboratory recommended
Power Consumption	450W (Printing), < 80/18 (Standby/Sleep)
Warranty type	On-site
Technical support	ProSupport Printer Services
Manufacturer warranty	Standard 1 year limited warranty Advanced service 1 year warranty Optional 5 year extended warranty

The ML-2525W Mono Laser Printer from Samsung is pretty straightforward by nature and can only print black, nevertheless you can enjoy the many advantages that manual two-sided printing gives you.  In addition, you also have the advantages of wireless networking and single sheet printing tray. For all this and more, the Samsung ML-2525W is an excellent choice for students, small businesses and home offices. Its price tag of $150 is reasonable even if you are picky about the price. This price point obviously makes it the cheapest mono laser printers that we have tested till date. There are no real issues as regards the capability of the prints and it gives you an impeccable print in no time for quite a fabulous price.

We are pretty impressed with its high performance printing and the compact design of the printer should offer you a fast, simple and wireless connection. Users may adapt to their workspace without any sort of compromise on the quality of printing. Continue reading the review of the ML-2525W Laser Printer in the following review, but just a quick look at the highs and lows of the machine.

What is hot?

• Reasonably priced
• USB, Ethernet & Wireless connectivity
• Can print high-quality graphics and text
• Smaller footprints

What is not?

• Ships with starter toner cartridge
• Short of autoduplexing
• Pretty small toner capacity

Design features:

Most Mono laser printer models have got a tarnished name for their ‘not too exciting design’ and though the  Samsung ML-2525W Wireless Mono Laser Printer (Model Code: MLT-D1052L/ MLT-D1052S) does not stray  much from the pack, the manufacturer has designed and built several bits and pieces of flair that makes the ML-2525W stand apart from the rest. The physical aspects and features have not changed a lot since the ML-2851ND, except that you can find a smooth black finish, besides, the covering on the top of the machine’s paper tray has a textured check pattern. Somewhere down the way, the manufacturer has managed to reduce the weight to 16.9 lb and that is almost lighter by 9 pounds when compared to the Samsung ML-2851ND. It is a bit smaller and the overall dimension goes like 360mm (W) x 389 mm (D) x 197mm (H). Coming to the output cover, it adds a bit of streamlined look to the machine, in addition to minimising disturbance and keeping the printing noise level fairly down.

Control panel:

The most impressive thing about the printer’s stylish design that it can suit any office environment, besides providing some practical advantages. You may find that the power switch is conveniently placed on the top and this means you will have no trouble turning it on or off. The two LCDs indicate network status and print activity. There is also a switch for cancelling a print job and another button meant for demo print.

Enclosed cassette tray:

The ML-2525W makes use of a cassette-type paper feed system. The printer’s input tray is designed to feed into the machine’s bottom. You can also find the customary manual tray placed just under the tonner-access handle that will allow you to supply single print media sheets directly into the machine.

Sleek exterior:

Another impressive thing when it comes to the design is the stylish streamlined exterior and the design of the machine is such that it can fit perfectly into any sort of professional business adding a touch of style.

Simple & quick wireless connectivity:

Samsung gives you a number of ways for connecting this printer to the machine. On the other side of the machine, there is an USB 2.0 connection port for the purpose of wired access; however you also receive 802.11b/g server meant for wireless network and an Ethernet port for the purpose of wired networking. In all the three methods, you need to link or connect the machine onto USB 2.0 connection initially before you sniff out networks. Did we mention that we had no problem establishing a link to our office’s wireless network making use of the step-by-step instructions on the driver? Samsung’s effort to provide its users, installation to hassle-free wireless connectivity is appreciable considering that it consumes only up to 30 minutes. But the ML-2525W makes use of a high speed connection providing all its users a single step process of installation in about 5 minutes. Not to mention that any installation process allows users in setting up the wireless printer efficiently and quickly.

Simple set-up:

Setting up with Mac:

We had no problem installing the machine to notebook with XP Pro. But having said that, Samsung should have been focussed on the installation instructions. The installation sequence is indicated with basic diagrams and theoretically should be simple stuff. If you are engulfed with any problem of getting the wireless connected, you may refer to the instructions as provided in the Samsung’s website. Though we had this printer up and running for several hours, our immediate impressions are that it is a little, great printer. We had users having concerns over using it with a Mac, but we had no trouble whatsoever. We had a MacBook Pro running 10.6.4 and setting up via WiFi or USB. At first, we plugged it directly into a USB port and the Mac was able to download driver and we were up and away in a couple of minute’s time.
For linking it to our home wireless network, we made use of the installation disc, following the instructions for establishing a wireless network. Having set it up on the Mac, setting up on the other Macs was pretty simple and straight forward. We then found the printer making use of the Print & Fax from System Preference. If you are a Mac user running Mac OS X Snow Leopard, connecting the printer via USB is simple enough. When you switch the printer on, Snow Leopard would automatically ask you if you want to install and download the suitable drivers (the machine’s specific model was automatically recognised). On doing so, the printer at once was available as a local printer and we did not need the driver CD.

Wi-Fi setup:

For Wi-Fi set up, we made use of the Wi-Fi Setup utility from the driver CD for selecting the Wi-Fi network and then enter the required password. The default configuration of the printer is linked to an access point and you will get an IP address through DHCP that worked absolutely fine and you also do not have to tweak any of it. There was a certain delay initially when you are waiting for the Wi-Fi utility to end; however we resolved it by simultaneously adding the printer through Bonjour on the iMac (System Preference -> Print & Fax).  The machine was available wirelessly and we chose to share the machine via the iMac and it was immediately available to all the machines on the local network, without any need for further configuration. The complete process from taking out the printer from the box to printing test pages consumed only about 15 minutes.

For AirPrint support:

For AirPrint support, we utilized Printopia, a third party utility (again on the iMac) which enables the printer or any other that are available wirelessly for printing from iOS devices (iPhones, iPads and iPod touches making use of the iOS 4.2 or later). This machine does not provide support AirPrint natively (only particular latest HP models at the time of writing). However Printopia lets you to slightly enable AirPrint for any machine that your Mac recognises, in addition to this one.

USB installation:

First, the USB installation is pretty lightweight. Secondly, the printer is set to use DHCP by default. This really is an issue for most of the users as there will be a change in the address on the network. The driver installation on client PC’s hard-wires into the set-up of the current IP address during the installation. The result obviously is that the moment you reboot the printer, the printer would no longer work and this is not at all smart. The obvious fix of assigning a static address and putting into port configuration on client machines is perhaps beyond the skill capability of most home users.

Once you set off things, you may access function, paper size, toggling auto-duplexing (helps to print on both the sides of the paper sheet), besides several other normal settings via the general settings or you could change the intricate option via the print driver menu including the print resolution (up to 1200 dpi maximum resolution), toner darkness, network information, security and lots more. A modest status monitor is automatically installed into your Windows taskbar; however it does not show up the status/progress of job or alert the users when the consumables of printer are running low.

Another downside to the use of ML-2525W Monochrome Laser Printer is the cost of consumables. The manufacturer provides an affordable cartridge of high-capacity which according to Samsung would last for 2500 pages, but one should do note that the Samsung ML-2525W is shipped with a ‘Starter Toner Cartridge’ of 1000 pages, a tricky cut that will persuade you to shell out more money on printer consumables sooner than you actually know it and that again depends on the standard print volume.

AnyWeb Print:

AnyWeb Print from Samsung is an easy and quick way of gathering web information together. This software helps you choose, drag and drop content from several web pages into a blank, new page on your screen. This helps you save this page as a pdf or print or tiff file.

Excellent Performance:

Printing speed:

The Samsung ML-2525W Laserjet Printer is not the flashiest of printers on the market, however it surely has set the pace for several other monochrome laser printers when you take into account output quality and print speed. It is perhaps not often you see a machine crank out graphics, text, besides PowerPoint presentations, all at the similar speed, though the ML-2525W is able to maintain a reliable 20 pages/min all together which gives the same amount of speed as that of the Samsung ML-2851ND.  On the other hand, Samsung claims the printer to have been built with a FPOT (First Page Out Time) of 9 seconds, in addition to a 24-page per minute (ppm) print speed which is reasonably good under any standards. The sleek and compact design is integrated with a 250-sheet cassette input capacity and this means you do not have to spend more time on replenishing paper. The monthly duty cycle of 12000 sheets comes in quite handy for a small office environment.

Average cartridge yield:

It will be pretty interesting to see how closer it will get to the 1000 pages with the cartridge supplied by the manufacturer. If you are not a heavy user, we believe it should last for a while. Again if you are fed up with the unreasonable price of the Canon MP640 (a great printer though) and at the same time if you are a low volume user, you will end up using up a remarkable amount of ink via the print head clean cycles and this is a real waste of time when you are basically printing out monochrome documents. The wastage can be reduced with the ML-2525W.

Print quality:

The print quality of the ML-2525W is pretty good with a satisfactory warm-up time from a cold start and is slightly fainter when you are using Toner Save. Like most of the mono laser printers, the text quality results of the Samsung are excellent with bold fonts having even thickness, dark lines, besides large lettering. If you navigate through the print driver, you will find several options for printing all the text to black and darkening it and the printer does exactly what it says. They enable the machine to make the dark text and lines even darker, increasing solid characters for added emphasis which you can find right throughout the page, particularly on larger blocks of black colour.

The ML-2525W is an improvisation on the earlier iterations that did struggle a bit with graphic documents that were tested. The test page from the ML-2525W has fine movement from black-to-white gradations and the good thing is that it is well within the varying degrees of shading. We do not look forward to many users going for the mono laser version for photographs; however our samples comprising detailed images are pretty satisfactory particularly for use in a professional environment.

Service & Support:

Samsung offers toll-free technical support and its Online Support Centre provides an FAQ, how-to-guide, in addition to software downloads including manuals, firmware upgrades and manuals.

What is in the box?

• Samsung ML-2525
• 700 pages Black Toner Cartridge
• CD/DVD (Utilities/Software/User Manuals/Drivers)
• Setup & Installation Guide

Manufacturer warranty:

The ML-2525W is supported by Samsung with a limited warranty of one year.

Conclusion:

The Samsung ML-2525W mono laser printer is not packed with extra features. However, it gives you appreciable improvements over its predecessors in terms of quality and output speed. With lower noise levels less than 51dBA, the wireless installation was up and running, through the CD download for installing multiple languages. If you are someone who is ready to sacrifice quality for the sake of quantity, then you should have no problem going for this wireless workhorse!

Check all Latest Laser Printers,  other Samsung Laser Printers Reviews in this website.

Samsung ML-2525W Manual Duplex Laser Printer – Technical Specification Table

Manufacturer	Samsung
Model Name	Samsung ML-2525W Wireless Mono Laser Printer
Product Code	MLT-D1052L/ MLT-D1052S
Printer type/Technology	Workgroup printer-monochrome-laser
Dimensions (W x H x D)	360mm x 389mm x 197mm
Weight	7.3kg (16.09lbs)
Standard Memory	64MB memory /storage
Max. Printing Resolution	1200 x 1200dpi
Drivers & Utilities	Yes
Max. Printing Speed	Up to 24 ppm – (Black & White) – A4 (210 x 297 mm)
First Print/Copy Out Time B/W	< 9 seconds (from Ready Mode)
Total Media Capacity	Input capacity: 250-sheet cassette (One-sheet manual tray) Output capacity: 80-sheets face down (One-sheet face up)
Supported Media Type	Paper type: Thin, Plain, Punched, Bond, Recycled, Pre-printed, Transparency, Envelope, Cardstock, Label, Letterhead, Postcard, Cotton, Thick, Archive, Coloured
Paper size	A4, A6, A5, JIS B5, ISO B5,  Letter, Executive, Oficio, Legal, Folio, Custo
Media Feeder(s)	Autoload – 250 sheets – Legal (216 x 356 mm)
PC Connection	USB , Ethernet 10/100Base-TX, 802.11b, 802.11g
OS Support	Windows 2000/Vista/XP/2008 Server/2003 Server/7, Linux OS, Mac OS X 10.3~10.6
Power Consumption	360W
Connectivity Technology	Wireless, wired
Processor	360MHz processor
Noise Level	50dBA (printing), < 26dBA (standby)
Language Simulation	SPL (Samsung Printer Language)
Package contents	Samsung ML-2525 700 pages Black Toner Cartridge CD/DVD (Utilities/Software/User Manuals/Drivers) Setup & Installation Guide
Average cartridge yield	2500 standards pages (plus 1000 pages Starter Toner Cartridge)
Monthly Duty Cycle	Up to 12000 pages
Manual Duplex Print	Yes
Manufacturer warranty	1 year

One of the recent technologies that has found its way into the printer market in quick time is wireless. No doubt that a Wi-Fi connection is integrated only on a fewer models in a range and then in the premium, more expensive product segment, but now it is becoming growingly ubiquitous. You can count on the HP’s sparklingly new £100 LaserJet P1102w built with wireless, complete with a button so that you can turn it on and off.  Continue reading the review to find out what the HP Laserjet PRO P1102W Printer has in store for you.

Monochrome laser printer:

The HP LaserJet Pro P1102W (product code: CE657A) is a basic monochrome laser printer built with a few surprises, namely Wi-Fi and print speeds that seem better than you would have expected. As a matter of disappointment, its rather expensive toner offsets its quite affordable machine cost. The HP laser printer comes with very modest dimensions; basically its input and output trays fold out only when it is required. This laser printer is an entry-level, multifunction Wi-Fi black and white printer for the home and it guarantees print speeds of 18 pages per minute. The printer size can remind you of the ML-1660, which is particularly impressive for its quick ‘print screen’ button. A standard 802.11b/g wireless (including USB) offers a nice lift to an otherwise normally configured low-end laser printer.

Small & compact:

Small, compact and pretty cheap, this new PRO P1102W HP laser printer is built keeping the varied needs of home users and small work groups in mind. Measuring just 349 mm (W) x 238 mm (D) x 196 mm (H) in size, it weighs only 5.3 kg and should be perfect if space is at a premium. Decked out completely in an all-black chassis having a glossy front panel, the machine looks quite attractive.

Hardware features:

The 150-sheet input tray could fold down itself from the front panel of the machine where it seems to be a little out of place and you will find that the paper stop can slide out to the machine’s front and help keep the output documents neat. Whenever there is a paper in the input tray, you have to have a small flap at the machine’s front open. This seems to end up making it a bit messy, though unlike on other printer models, we have seen the flab is somewhat securely attached and should therefore be able to take a few knocks from passers-by.

The top panel of the HP Laserjet PRO P1102W Wireless Laser Printer is designed with a textured black insert, whilst the surround is simply high-gloss black plastic having a little control panel down the left side, plus indicators for wireless connection, two buttons, one for wireless and the other for job cancel, in addition to errors and power. The two buttons of the control panel and three LED’s all come with icons, but has no word icons and this means you have to check their meaning in the documentation that is HTML based which to its credit has appreciable animated translations of the LED sequences.

You may find that the blue wireless indicator tends to go off when the machine switches to ‘sleep’ mode and that is illogical because the printer would not wake to print ink if it finds the link still inactive. Most of the wireless printers tend to leave the connection light in the ‘ON’ state, even when sleeping.

Paper handling:

The 150-sheet main input area is a foldout front panel instead of a full-fledged tray having sliding width guides. There is a 10-sheet priority feeder for special media or envelope that is brilliantly positioned above the main tray and this is pretty unusual in a printer at this end of the market.  The machine is also built with manual-feed slot for thicker form of media. The top-loading output tray is built with the capacity to hold 125 sheets. Though these parts have been impressively built and are sturdy, you will find that their markings that are stamped into the black plastic without any contrasting colour and are almost difficult to decipher. There is also the manual duplexing that is present on both Mac and PC with useful on-screen prompts. There is a small cut-out at the back of the left-hand side panel that could take a USB cable and if you intend to make use of the printer through Wi-Fi, a temporary USB connection is essential.

Setting up the printer:

Setting up the machine is a breeze. The drum and toner cartridge is small and discreet that slots rather deep into the bowels of the machine. You can access the toner cartridge by lifting the top cover of the printer. Rated at 1600 pages, you will find this to be the only consumable in the machine and can be fitted easily. Thanks to the easy step-by-step guide in the printer’s instruction manual as we did not face any problem when setting up the printer.

USB & wireless connections:

The Laserjet PRO P1102W printer is provided with both USB & wireless connections. If you go for the latter, you still have to connect the USB cable temporarily for configuring the wireless setting. Impressively, the HP has a USB cable in the package. We were a bit disappointed to find out that HP has only seen fit to integrate the LaserJet P1102w with 802.11b/g wireless, given that most businesses and homes now make use of the far-reaching 802.11n wireless standard. You are also not provided with the wired Ethernet option, which is a shame.

Operating system:

HP gives you 32-bit and 64-bit drivers for Windows Vista, Windows XP and OS X from version 10.4. There is also a Linux driver that is available for download and other than these, there is not much that you can say about other available software.

Printing Speed:

HP has rated this laser printer at 18ppm, which is comparatively good speed for a personal laser printer. Printing a 5-page text took 27s and that is equivalent to a speed of 11.1ppm, nevertheless increasing the page count to a 20-page document can take the speed up to 15.8ppm which is more than 75% of the rated speed. The 5-page graphics and text document that is printed at 13ppm and a 15 cm x 10 cm size photo on an A4 sheet consumed roughly about 13 seconds at the printer’s maximum resolution termed FastRes 1200. At the standard FastRes 600, it consumed just nearly 10 seconds. These speeds are comparatively good for an entry-level printer compared to the recent Samsung models namely the ML-1915 and ML-2525.

Print quality:

It is not easy to mention anything about the print quality of latest, monochrome laser printers, as almost all manufacturers have got the fundamentals sussed. Text at regular point sizes from 10-12 point shows no piece of art of any consequence and is black and dense. While home users may be able to point out the difference between letterpress print and this laser output, for many business users, there will be small obvious differences and the print quality is more than sufficient for printed materials that are meant for the general public and internal reports. Greyscale print is also somewhat good with normally smooth greyscales that are available for different types of business graphics, however for the most part, graphics and business chart look clean and smart.

Even photo images, something that no mono laser printer would like to work on, looks quite well detailed and realistic, whilst areas of sky look a little spotty, at least they are not covered in dark and light bands as is more often the case with less pricey laser engines. Also the level of detail in the darker areas of photo is far better than average, with not much of the image turning to black. Overall, on large text (60 pt and over), jagged areas were discernable on what should be curved, smooth edges. It is a big concern though and smaller text looks sharp, clear and it is just about readable reduced down to 2pt in Times New Roman.

Cost per page:

The single-piece toner and drum cartridge is available in only one capacity, although HP is able to more than halve by providing an introductory cartridge excellent for simply 700 pages. We suppose it is legitimate to provide a new machine with the lesser of two capacities of printer consumables, if both of them are available to purchase, however to produce an exclusive, low-capacity cartridge just to ship with a new printer strikes us as pessimistic. And the question that arises here is that why should new customers not enjoy the benefit of the standard yield cartridge? At the cheapest price, we were able to find for the consumable, the page cost is found to be 0.7p for paper. This is not especially good. When you compare this with two Samsung machines, you are looking at around 0.8p more per page with the HP Laserjet PRO P1102W Printer. The reason is that the HP cartridge is relatively new to market either or it has been already made use of in other HP machines.

Power consumption:

HP has made a good attempt to keep power consumption level down and in standby mode, the power draw was measured to be just 2W, which is quite low. In this mode, the machine just takes about 7 seconds for churning out the first page. The printer should be started from cold though and wait goes on to increase considerably to over 50 seconds, something that can prove to be a pain if you have to print in a rush.

What is in the box?

• Documentation on CD & Printer software
• Power cord
• Starter Cartridge: 700 pages according to ISO/IEC 19752
• USB install cable (of length 1m)

Manufacturer Warranty:

The HP PRO P1102W Printer carries a limited manufacturer’s warranty of 1 year from the original purchase date.

Bottom-line:

Before we move on to the end of the review, here is a quick glance at the pros and cons of the P1102w.

Positives:

• Low energy consumption both in running and standby mode
• First page is quick to print, even when coming out of standby mode
• Wi-fi connection

Negatives:

• Single function machine for the cost of an all-in-one printer
• Comparatively high price per page for laser which is 2.7pence
• Start-up toner provided which is 700 pages and is almost half the amount you may find in a standard.

Overall, the HP Laserjet PRO P1102W Printer is a worthwhile, low-cost, entry-level mono laser printer with good, fast print quality pages and wireless connection. This said, it is relatively pricey to run though and costs roughly about 25% to purchase than its competition. There is the Espon’s brilliant machine namely the Epson Aculaser M1200 which is available online for under £50, giving the user far cheaper cost of running. But the P1102w does seem to sound a lot more expensive. Unless you are a devoted HP customer, you will obviously find other printers that are solid contenders here.

HP Laserjet PRO P1102W Laser Printer – Technical Specification Table

Manufacturer	HP
Model Name	HP Laserjet PRO P1102W Printer
Product Code	CE657A
Printer type/Technology	Personal printer – laser – monochrome
Dimensions	349 mm (W)  x 238 mm (D) x 196 mm (H)
Weight	5.3 kg
Standard Memory	Std: 8MB,  Max: 8MB
Max Printing Resolution	Up to 600 x 600 dpi (with HP FastRes1200: 1200 effective dpi)
Duplex print options	Manual (driver support provided)
Max Printing Speed	Black (normal, A4): Up to 18 ppm
First Print/Copy Out Time B/W	8.5 sec (from Auto-Off)
Maximum paper input/ Output tray capacity	10-sheet priority feed slot, 150-sheet input tray/ 100-sheet face-down bin
Supported Media Type	Paper (plain, laser, rough, photo, vellum), labels, envelopes, cardstock, postcards, transparencies
Media sizes supported	A4, A6, A5, B5, postcards, envelopes (DL, C5, B5)
PC Connection	WiFi 802.11 b/g, Hi-Speed USB 2.0 port
Custom media sizes	76 x 127 to 216 x 356 mm (priority feed slot), 147 x 211 to 216 x 356 mm (150-sheet input tray)
OS Support	Windows Vista (32-bit/64-bit), Windows 7 (32-bit/64-bit), Server 2008 (32-bit/64-bit), Microsoft Windows XP (32-bit/64-bit), Server 2003 (32-bit/64-bit), Linux, Mac OS X v10.4, v10.6, v10.5
Power Consumption	370 watts (Wi-Fi enabled), 2.0 watts (auto-off), 0.6 watts (manual-off), 2.7 watts (Wi-Fi enabled)
Processor	266 MHz
Operating temperature range	17.5ºC to 25º C
Monthly page volume (recommended)	250-1500
Standard printer languages	Host-based printing
Package contents	Documentation on CD & Printer software Power cord Starter Cartridge: 700 pages according to ISO/IEC 19752 USB install cable (of length 1m)
Monthly Duty Cycle	Up to 5000 pages (A4)
Manufacturer warranty	1 year (limited)