Samsung CLP 610nd

For those who really do have to print in color, the market has enough to choose from now that you don’t automatically have to go for the cheapest one any more. The Samsung CLP-610nd is a full duplex color laser printer that is well worth the extra hundred dollars or so to purchase.

The CLP-610nd is relatively quick for a lower end laser, and comes with a duplexer for double sided printing. Cost conscious companies will like the potential cost saving of double sided printing here. This machine could pay for itself over a couple of years.

As an added bonus, this printer ships with standard cartridges. Most of the time, new printers come with a half toner or in some cases less than that. The CLP-610nd comes with three full-size toner cartridges to get you started, which is another reason why this printer is such good value.

Setting up is easy, merely insert the four cartridges, plug it in, install the drivers then plug it in. There is a network port built in, so it is easy to install into an office network or workgroup. Just remember to assign it a static IP address in order for everyone to be able to see it.

The standard paper tray can hold 250 sheets, and there is also a multipurpose tray which is good for 100. An optional 500 sheet tray is also available if you need more. The built in 128Mb memory is plenty enough for most uses, but is also expandable to 384Mb for busier environments.

Performance is good, with an average print speed of 21 pages per minute for both color and monochrome. Warm up time was a little longer at 44 seconds, but isn’t outrageous for a color printer. Print resolution is a standard 600 dpi, which can be interpolated up to 2400 x 600 dpi for higher detail work. Text and image printing are both good, with text being well spaced, detailed and straight all the way down to 3pt. Charts were also well done, colors were even and accurate, which is ideal for office use.

If you’re considering buying a color laser printer but are worried about the cost of ownership, the CLP-610nd is well worth a look. A reasonable purchase price, cheap consumables that last a decent amount of time, and ease of ownership makes this printer a strong contender in the small office market.

Read More

An Affordable Personal Color Laser Printer The Samsung CLP 315

OVERVIEW:  Not too long ago, color laser printers were too expensive for even most people to justify buying one. Now that the technology has matured, prices have dropped to the point where a color laser is an affordable investment. Samsung offers for the personal user, the multi-pass CLP-315 color printer.

PROS:
At 15.2” x 12.3”, the 23-pound CLP-315 has one of the smallest footprints for a Samsung color laser. The CLP is of the few color lasers at it’s time to come in a black enclosure, with a discreet piano-black control panel making it’s overall appearance more appealing.
It takes only 35 seconds for the CLP-315 to go from cold boot to ready, with a shorter delay time than other Samsung color printers. However, since this is a multi-pass printer, color prints are 4 times slower because the paper has to go through each of the toners one at a time, making your total print time a wash.
This machine is quiet. Typically color laser printers have a tendacy to be noisier than their monochrome brothers, but at 47dB the CLP-315 prints literally above a whisper. While in idle it blends in with the background noise of a room. So, if you got to print fifty pages out at 3 a.m., you won’t be waking the entire house doing it.
At a maximum print resolution of 2400 x 600 dpi, the CLP-315 keeps text reasonably clear. It does a decent job with basic graphics, but don’t expect the photographic quality of inkjets with resolutions of 1400 x 1400 or higher.
The 32MB built-in memory allows the CLP-315 to handle larger graphics and files without appreciable printing delays. As most home users will never exceed this amount the memory is not expandable. The USB 2.0 interface allows the printer to connect to any Wintel or Mac machine.
The CLP-315 comes with a 150-sheet semi-cassette tray. Releasing a locking tab on the front of the tray extends the footprint out three more inches to hold 11” x 14” legal-size paper.  The printer can support 16 to 28-pound bond paper weights, letter or legal sizes. For printing transparencies, card stock, or envelopes requires putting the media one sheet at a time in the paper tray.
Samsung’s only provides their proprietary printing emulator. SPL-C can handle most of the print jobs home users will need, but imaging problems like “ghosting” can occur if trying to print certain Photoshop or Illustrator graphics without a PostScript print option.

CONS:
To keep costs low, the CLP-315 has no duplexing. If you want to print 2-sided, you’ll have to do it manually by turning the paper over after printing the first side. A word of advice on manual duplexing: to reduce jamming, use paper that’s at least 20# bond.
The CLP-315 prints up to 17 ppm in B&W and 4 ppm in color (remember about multi-pass color printing?). The print speed in B&W could stand to be better, especially since there are now inkjet printers that are faster than this laser. Since the CLP-315 doesn’t offer a multipurpose paper slot or flip tray, transparencies and envelopes must be put into the paper tray and printed one at a time—not the best design if you have to create several foils for presentations or using a mail list to print envelopes.
There’s a time to keep things simple, but having a single button to perform several different functions is just too much.  If the CLP-215 had a multi-line display, I could see having the single-button-does-it-all. But there are only two LEDs for communication, so it’s like having to read Morse code—or POST code from BIOS. Depending on how long the “Stop” button is pressed will perform different functions. Then there are the various flash rates and colors by the LEDs that indicate various statuses and warnings. Here are one of those times when installing the manufacturer’s monitoring software comes in handy.

INK / TONER NEEDS:
With the printer, Samsung includes 2/3-full “starter toner” cartridges. Considering full toners will only last through a couple of reams of papers, it would have been nice if Samsung topped off the toner in the first place. Order more toner as soon as you get the printer. 
The standard yield cartridges can be purchased separately, especially if the black toner gets depleted at a higher rate than the other colors. For the case of low-yield cartridges like these, it may be a good idea to get the toner in available combo-packages.
Other consumables are replacing the waste toner container every 5000 toner passes, and the imaging kit every 24,000 passes.

SOFTWARE:
The included software CD supports Window and Linux machines. The software contains basic printing features, status monitor, and an extended printer control panel.


A small footprint makes the multi-pass Samsung CLP-315 a good personal color laser for home or light office use. -- Mel Myers

Read More