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
