Browse » home» » » » » » » » » » The Samsung SCX 4300 3 in 1 Multifunction Printer

The Samsung SCX 4300 3 in 1 Multifunction Printer


OVERVIEW:  Once in a while you might need to scan an official document to be e-mailed or you may need to print copies of the neighborhood newsletter for distribution. Rather than drive to the local print store, a personal B&W multifunction printer like the Samsung SCX-4300 can save you time and gasoline while providing monochrome laser printing.

PROS:
A black case and a footprint of only 16” x 15” allow the SCX-4300 to fit unobtrusively in home or office.

The SCX-4300 has a 250-sheet main paper tray. This is almost more than double the capacity many other personal-use laser printers have. The tray has an adjustable rear lever to allow the SCX-4300 to hold 11” x 14” legal-size paper, while maintaining the same footprint on your desk. For heavier paper weights, types, and sizes, the SCX-4300 has a 1-sheet manual feed slot. So if you want to print 30 invitations from a Word mailing list you will have to stay by the printer feeding the envelopes one at a time.

It takes less than 11 for the SCX-4300 to go from Standby to print. Having a print and copy speed of 19 pages per minute, this personal printer has a decent speed for laser printers a few year ago.  However, nowadays current inkjets are pushing B&W print speeds of 20 ppm, and are giving lasers a run for their money.

While in standby or Sleep mode you won’t even know that the multi-function is even on at 28dB. And when it fires up the 53dB, the SCX is no noisier than low conversations. While 53 decibels may not be loud, it is annoying if the printer is sitting next to you printing 99 copies.

The color scanner portion of the SCX-4300 is compatible with TWAIN & and XP/Vista’s WIA standards.  The 600 x 2,400 dpi optical resolution can be digitally enhanced to 4,800 x 4,800 dpi.

The control panel on the SCX-4300 has a 2x16 character LCD display and controls for manual copying.  Copy options include changing image magnification from 0.5 to 2 times the original size, and up to 99 multi-page copying.

CONS:
The 600 x 600 dpi resolution is the lowest printing resolution since the entry-level ML-1430 personal laser printer. At 600 x 600, I would expect print speeds to be a lot faster than the 19 ppm the SCX produces.

It’s funny for a printer to offer the pre-XP TWAIN scanner support (a pre-XP standard) and not have the ability to connect to older computers with parallel ports. While PC’s with a parallel interface have become few and far between, it’s nice to free up a USB port if your computer still has one.

For a multi-function printer, 8MB of non-expandable memory seems a little skimpy.  It’s true that 8MB is large enough to print all but very large scanned images or Acrobat files. However problems may occur if the printer is shared across a workgroup as print jobs fill up the queue. For one office or cubicle, the SCX-4300 can handle most single-user print needs.

There are no PostScript or even the standard HP Printer Control Language (PCL) emulators. Instead Samsung uses a proprietary printer emulator. Most users won’t notice any changes in the way things print, unless they use a lot of advanced features in any high-end graphic or photo editing software.

INK/TONER NEEDS:
The monochrome toner that is included is only 50% full, which is something to remember before you decide on copying several hundred pages a shot. Available standard cartridges give an average yield of 2,000 pages.

SOFTWARE:
Being a multi-purpose printer, one would expect the software to provide full functions for all the computer platforms Samsung claims it supports.  The software in the CD-ROM is primarily for Windows compatible machines. For Windows users, the SmartThru4 software provides the most features, supporting not only scanning and printing, but offering an advanced printing section that allows for booklet printing, creating a large poster mosaics, and watermarks.

The Linux software package is not included with the CD and has to be downloaded from Samsung’s website to support printer and scanning functions. The Linux Unified Driver Configurator software allows for scanned images to manipulated and edited.  For Macintosh users, the CD-ROM has a couple of basic drivers for printing and a TWAIN driver for scanning. There is no additional software support: you either must have a 3rd party application that manages scanners or use the Mac’s own Image Capture (only available on Mac OS 10.4.7 and higher).
Advertisement