Samsung ML 2525W Printer Review

Overview:

If you are looking for a printer to use at home, Samsung ML-2525W is perfect for you because of its wireless capability and above average performances. Although it’s not the fastest printer in the world, it still performs better than similar devices in this price range.

Pros:

The older model ML-2525 couldn’t offer you the possibility to get rid of cumbersome USB wires. This device on the other hand solved this problem for you. Thankfully, you will maintain your house neat without unaesthetic cables lying in the middle of the room.

The one touch printing feature could be this device’s secret weapon that urges many people to take the money out of their pockets and make a purchase. You literally press a button on the control panel and your desktop screen is quickly printed out. Still, it’s necessary to pass about 9 seconds between the moment when you press the Print Screen button and the one when you get your print. This is absolutely normal because it takes a bit to process the information. Other printers have a longer first page out time. If you need to print only a section of a larger doc you can hold the same button down for 2 seconds and the print active window will appear to input the necessary commands.

This model could be used in home offices too, because it comes with a large paper drawer which is perfect for a relatively big volume of work. We are talking about 250 sheets paper chamber and an extra multipurpose space where you put special media like envelopes, card stock or even transparencies.

Another feature that could come in handy in a home office is the software AnyWeb which comes along with the device. This was designed to help you print data directly from the web or store it in digital formats (PDF and TIFF) for later. What’s unique about this software e is that you don’t need to crop or resize the data when you need to print it in that very moment. Simply drag & drop it in the software’s blank page and hit the print button.

Cons:

As you learnt in the first paragraph, Samsung ML-2525W doesn’t perform amazingly in terms of printing speed. The rate of 24 letter size or A4 pages can be considered to be average, but if we take a look at its overall performances we will notice significant improvements since the ML-1910 and ML-1915 models were launched. Well, nothing’s perfect and this model is no exception. If you are a speed junkie you should probably choose something else.

Read More

Samsung ML 2510 ML 2570 ML 2571N configuration page

To print a configuration page from a Samsung ML-2510, ML-2570, or ML-2571N printer, press the Cancel button and hold it down for about five or six seconds, then let go.

Read More

Samsung ML 1740 Laser Printer

OVERVIEW:  For those on a budget looking for a reliable monochrome laser printer, the Samsung ML-1740 offers no-frills, while producing sharp text printouts.

PROS:
When laser printers first came on the market, their sharp, smudge-proof ink made them the envy of anybody with a monochrome inkjet or thermal printer. However, their prices put them out of range of the home computer user. The Samsung ML-1740 provided an economic answer to an affordable laser printer.
At 17 pages per minute, this personal printer has a decent speed for a laser printer of its age. With current inkjets pushing B&W print speeds of 20 ppm, inkjets are now giving lasers a run for their money in performance.

The maximum resolution for the ML-1740 is a modest 600 x 600 dpi. This resolution is fine for creating sharp text and simple graphic images. Photographs will have a more grainy quality but still viewable.
To keep costs low and affordable, the ML-1740 comes with 8MB of memory.  8MB is large enough to print all but very detailed graphics or large 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 ML-1740 can handle most single-user print needs.

The ML-1740 has a 250-sheet main paper tray. This is almost more than double the capacity of many other personal-use laser printers have. The tray has an adjustable rear lever to allow the ML-1740 hold 11” x 14” legal-size paper, while maintaining the same footprint on your desk. There are other Desktop laser printers with smaller footprints out there. But those often gain their small footprints by having a pull-down paper tray to temporarily add paper.  Adding the 3,000-sheet capacity toner cartridge, the ML-1740 makes maintenance in an office easier with less frequent toner and paper refills.

Speaking of paper refills, the little mechanical lever on the front of ML-1740 that indicates how much paper is in the tray is an easy, simple way to know when to refill at a glance.

The ML-1740 is one of the more quieter ML printers. It produces 50dB of sound during startup and printing, 30dB on standby, plus a sleep mode that makes the ML-1740 run silent until needed. To give you an idea on the amount of noise this means, 53 decibels is about the sound of low conversations and 30 decibels is the noise from a quiet office.
When Samsung introduced this printer on the market, USB was still new to Wintel machines and parallel the primary way to connect non-networked printers to a computer. 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 a parallel port. You get that choice with the ML-1740. The USB also makes it easy to connect a laptop to the printer.

CONS:
Unlike similar laser printers with 50-sheet multi-purpose trays, the ML-1740 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.

On the top of the printer, Samsung has 1 button and 2 LEDs for your manual print controls and status indicators. Depending how long you press that button can cause your printer to perform several other functions than just “cancel”. And, if you want to know just what the various flashing LEDs are telling you, you’ll need the User’s Manual to find the flash codes. (Or you can do what I did: copy the page and taped it on the printer.) I can see Samsung wanting to follow the K.I.S.S approach to a console control, but this went past K.I.S.S.  all the way to M.I.C.K. (Made It Complex, Kretin)!

It takes the ML-1740 thirty seconds after it wakes-up to print. Add that plus the 12-second delays between print jobs, the ML-1740 has one of the longer start times of the Samsung ML series. Think of the ML-1740’s warm-up time like the old vacuum-tube T.V. sets. If you ever heard your parents or grandparents talk about how long it took TV’s to “warm-up” when they were kids, this printer will give you a rough idea what they went through.

INK / TONER NEEDS: 
The cartridge is used in the ML-1740 (the same toner used for the ML-1750 and ML-1755 printers) has a 3,000 page print capacity. On the other hand, the toner that you get with your new ML-1740 comes with toner that is only one-thirds full. So it might be a good idea to buy the full yield toner the same time you buy the printer.

SOFTWARE:
It’s nice that Samsung recognizes there are other operating systems than the one from Redmond. The CD that comes with the ML-1740 provides software support for Windows, Mac OS 8.6-9.x, and Linux operating systems. The Samsung web site offers new drivers you can download for Mac OS 10.3 up to the new 10.6 Snow Leopard systems.

MACHINE SPECS:

Dimensions	14.2”W x 14.6”D x 7.8”H
Supported OS	Windows 9x, Me, NT, 2000, XP Mac OS 8.6 -9.x, 10.x Linux
Toner, Drum	Standard cartridge; 3,000 pages yield
Speed	17 ppm
Maximum Resolution	600 x 600 dpi
Tray Capacity	250-sheet cassette, 1-sheet slot-feed
Interface	USB 1.1, Parallel (IEEE 1284)
Memory	8MB (non-expandable)
Emulation(s)	SPL (Samsung Printer Language)
Optional features	none

   
For a cubicle or a home that needs a basic monochrome printer, the Samsung ML-1740 fills that need without costing an arm and a leg. -- Mel Myers

Read More

Samsung ML 2510 Laser Printer

OVERVIEW:  In that traditional American sprit of entrepreneurship, more and more people today are setting up their own small businesses: be it in a leased office, in the garage, or in a spare bedroom. And with every small business, there is a need to keep expenses down while you’re starting up. The Samsung ML-2510 offers speedy, sharp printouts, a decent paper capacity, and a compact size all for a price that won’t put you in the red.

PROS:
This monochrome laser (that’s what the “ML” in ML-2510 stands for), occupies an area just over one square foot on your desk or shelf.

This laser can accept a range of paper weights from 16 to 43# for both paper trays, giving its owner a wider range of paper choices than some other printer brands would allow. However, for manual 2-sided printing (you’re flipping the paper over yourself) use 20-24# weight paper to save yourself some grief.

When you flip open the door on the front of the ML-2510, it reveals the 250-sheet paper tray. The single-sheet manual feeder is above the main paper tray, for printing labels, cards, and transparencies (and make sure to use transparencies that are “laser printer safe”). The main tray can handle a variety of sizes: from postcard (3” x 5”) to legal (8 ½” x 11”). The ML-2510’s larger paper and toner capacity makes it ideal for people who rely on printing throughout the day.

For such an affordable laser printer, the ML-2510 prints extremely fast. After the initial warm-up time, letter-size paper prints at 25 pages per minute, making this one of the fastest of the ML series.

Having a maximum resolution of 1200 x 600 dpi, the ML-2510 is great for printing text and simple graphics. Photographs will have a more grainy quality, and if you are a stickler for details the ML-2510’s resolution may not have the sharpness you desire. The Toner Save feature, only available in 600 x 600 dpi resolution, still produces printouts that are clear and readable.

For small-press desktop publishers using Wintel machines, Samsung’s software CD gives advanced printing features, like booklet printing and large-format poster creation. Sorry Mac and Linux users-- you’ll have to find those features in whatever publishing software you are using to get the same results.

As expected for a printer of its price, the ML-2510 only comes with 8MB of non-expandable RAM. 8MB is more than enough for everything except but large Adobe files and graphics. Instead of the standard HP Printer Control Language (PCL) emulator, Samsung opted to use its own proprietary printer emulator, SPL. Most users won’t notice any differences in their printouts, unless they use a lot of advanced features from high-end graphic or photo-editing software.

It’s nice that Samsung recognizes there are other operating systems than the one from Redmond. Samsung provides software support for the “Big 3” (Windows, Mac OS, and Linux). Now you don’t have to be chained to one operating system just because your printer can only support one.

An external network attachment will give the ML-2510 the ability to be a network server. But without a way to increase the printer’s memory, the ML-2510 will struggle with simultaneous job requests. For the cost of the network attachment, you can upgrade to a more powerful network printer.

CONS:
This is not so much a problem with the printer, just with the printer’s users. One disadvantage to the ML-2510’s smaller size is many people think it can be wedged anywhere without regard to its ventilation needs. To keep from cooking its internal parts and to prolong the printer’s life I would recommend (1) don’t put the printer where the air-vents are going to be blocked (leave 3” - 4” clearance), and (2) turn the printer off at the end of the day. (Remember what your mother would tell you about turning the lights off when you leave a room?)

In start-up, wake-up, and in operation, the ML-2510 produces 53 dB of sound, and 35dB of noise in standby. Think of 53 decibels as the sound of low conversations and 30 decibels as a quiet office. While 53 decibels may not be loud, it is if the printer is sitting next to you chugging off 50 pages.

The ML-2510 has a 25 second wake-up delay, with a 9s delay between print jobs.  A long delay when you turn on the printer in the morning isn’t a big issue, but the ML-2510 goes automatically into a power-saving sleep mode when it’s inactive. Add all this up and the 25 ppm speed boost is lost with all the delays.

INK / TONER NEEDS:
A big disappointment is the ML-2510 ships with a toner cartridge that’s only 1/3 full. This so-called “starter cartridge” prints about 1000 pages, or 2 reams of paper. So it might be a good idea to go ahead and buy the full yield toner the same time you buy the printer.

The ML-2510 will use the same toner cartridge as the ML-2010, with a standard yield of about 3,000 pages, or six reams of paper.
The Samsung does not offer a high-capacity toner for the ML-2510.

SOFTWARE:
The ML-2510 has one of the better software packages. Not only does it have the basic printing properties for Mac and Linux systems, but for Windows users there’s also an advanced printing section that allows for booklet printing, creating a large poster mosaics, and watermarks.

Read More

Samsung ML 1430 Monochrome Laser Printer

OVERVIEW: 
How many of you have bought a personal printer because of it’s small size and footprint only to discover that in order to use it the printer needs at least 10 more inches just because of the horizontal paper tray or output bin? Let’s face it: the length of the paper used in printers ultimately determines the space a printer occupies. Somewhere, a smart engineer sitting in the back of a meeting said, “If horizontal space is a premium, how about using vertical space?”  After the head-slapping stopped, the Samsung ML-1430 was born.

PROS: 
Introduced in 2002, the ML-1430 is one of the first consumer-level affordable laser printers on the market. If this printer’s design looks familiar, that’s because HP also has two vertical laser printers—the 5L & 6L—that are similar in design and function.

For a small printer it carries a lot of features on its control panel. The Demo button also performs drum cleaning, and operates the manual input tray. The 1-touch Toner Save adds 40% life to toner. The cancel button doubles as a Reprint button—it will preprint the last page of the last print job.  This feature is almost like having a copier in your house and is nice when you realize you wanted multiple pages after you closed your application.

The maximum 600 x 600 dpi resolution produces sharp text and decent details on simple graphics. Photographs and higher resolution graphics will appear grainy but are suitable for publishing the community newsletter.

When the ML-1430 was first introduced to the public, the15 ppm print speed was a fairly decent speed for a laser printer. Printer warm-up time takes 30 seconds, also normal for printers of its age. The noise level on this printer 49dB when printing, 35dB when the automatic Power Save puts the printer in standby. To give you an idea on the noise level, 50dB is the level of low conversations and 40dB is whispering.

For computer connectivity Samsung offers either USB 1.1 & Parallel IEEE 1284. The slower USB speed is fine for the ML-1430’s slower print speeds.

The ML-1430 can hold up to 150 legal-size sheets in its rearward input tray, with a 1-sheet manual tray in front for envelopes, transparencies, card stock, labels. For paper versatility the ML-1430 gives you two paper feed output options. A simple flip of a switch on the printer changes feed direction from vertical to the more traditional horizontal printing for heavier paper, envelopes, and transparencies.

As expected for a printer of this type, Samsung only installed a fixed 8MB RAM for the ML-1430. 8MB is fine for text printing, but large Adobe files and graphics will fill up the ML-1430’s memory and will slow printing. There is no PostScript or even the standard HP Printer Control Language (PCL) emulator. 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 of professional graphic or photo-editing software.

CONS:
After about 3 years, ML-1430’s start developing a paper feed issue. Just like with the HP5L, the 2” pick-up roller band will either require cleaning or rotation. If you like to work on your own cars, getting to the roller shouldn’t be a problem. For those who don’t like to disassemble things, usually keeping the feed tray full seems to bypass the feeder problem.

Due to the age of this printer, software support for Macs is only available for OS System 8.6 to 9.x. If you still have the choice of running Classic on your OS X, the ML-1430 should be able to still run.

INK/TONER NEEDS:
1000-sheet starter toner comes with printer is less than half the capacity of the 2,500 page standard cartridge. Unless you plan on going through two reams of paper in a week, the starter cartridge should last long enough while you order a regular yield toner.

SOFTWARE:
The CD comes with basic printer drivers for the printer to run on Windows and Linux operating systems.
Samsung no longer offers OS X support for this printer, but you may be able to find other web sites with copies of the original drivers.

Read More

Samsung ML 2571N Network Laser Printer

OVERVIEW:  Sometimes you just want more. First, you wanted a compact, affordable laser printer; Samsung gave you the ML-2510. Next, you wanted a compact, affordable laser printer with more memory and better resolution; Samsung came up with the ML-2570. Now while it’s nice that a network option is available, you want a compact, affordable, laser printer with more memory, better resolution, and a built-in network.  Samsung said, “You want it, you got it.”    Like the ML-2570, the Samsung ML-2571N offers higher resolutions for sharper B&W prints, more print memory, decent paper capacity, and a compact size. But this printer has network capability built right in, ready for group use in an office or a classroom.

PROS:
This monochrome laser (that’s what the “ML” in ML-2571N stands for), occupies an area just over one square foot on your desk or shelf.

This laser can accept a range of paper weights from 16 to 43# for both paper trays, giving its owner a wider range of paper choices than some other printer brands would allow. However, for manual 2-sided printing (you’re flipping the paper over yourself) use 20-24# weight paper to save yourself some grief.

When you flip open the door on the front of the ML-2571N, it reveals the 250-sheet paper tray. The single-sheet manual feeder is above the main paper tray, for printing labels, cards, and transparencies (and make sure to use transparencies that are “laser printer safe”). The main tray can handle a variety of sizes: from postcard (3” x 5”) to legal (8 ½” x 11”). The ML-2571N’s larger paper and toner capacity makes it ideal for people who rely on printing throughout the day or an office having multiple computers sharing a single printer.

For such an affordable laser printer, the ML-2571N prints extremely fast. After the initial warm-up time, letter-size paper prints at 25 pages per minute, making this one of the fastest of the ML 2000 series.

Having a maximum resolution of 1200 x 1200 dpi, the ML-2571N is great for printing text and B&W photos. The Toner Save feature, only available in it’s 600 x 600 dpi resolution, still produces printouts that are clear and readable.

For small-press desktop publishers using Wintel machines, Samsung’s software CD gives advanced printing features, like booklet printing and large-format poster creation. Sorry Mac and Linux users-- you’ll have to find those features in whatever publishing software you are using to get the same results.
As your business grows, the ML-2571N will still be able to meet your print needs.  With 32MB of non-expandable RAM, the ML-2571N can handle larger print jobs and multiple jobs (if shared or networked with an optional adapter). Understanding the printing needs of today’s businesses and the software applications and suites they often use, Samsung has installed PostScript and PCL6 emulators, as well as their proprietary SPL.

It’s nice that Samsung recognizes there are other operating systems than the one from Redmond. Samsung provides software support for the “Big 3” (Windows, Mac OS, and Linux). Now you don’t have to be chained to one operating system just because your printer can only support one.
Decisions, decisions. With the choice of Parallel, USB, or Ethernet connectivity, no matter how old or new your computer is, the ML-2571N can print from it. The 32MB RAM allows this little laser printer to easily handle being a network printer for an office or a classroom.

CONS:
This is not so much a problem with the printer, just with the printer’s users. One disadvantage to the ML-2571N’s smaller size is many people think it can be wedged anywhere without regard to its ventilation needs. To keep from cooking its internal parts and to prolong the printer’s life I would recommend (1) don’t put the printer where the air-vents are going to be blocked (leave 3” - 4” clearance), and (2) turn the printer off at the end of the day. (Remember what your mother would tell you about turning the lights off when you leave a room?)
In start-up, wake-up, and in operation, the ML-2571N produces 53 dB of sound, and 35dB of noise in standby. Think of 53 decibels as the sound of low conversations and 30 decibels as a quiet office. While 53 decibels may not be loud, it is if the printer is sitting next to you chugging off 50 pages.
The ML-2571N has a 25 second wake-up delay, with a 9s delay between print jobs.  A long delay when you turn on the printer in the morning isn’t a big issue, but the ML-2571N goes automatically into a power-saving sleep mode when it’s inactive. Add all this up and the 25 ppm speed boost is lost with all the delays.

INK / TONER NEEDS:
A big disappointment is the ML-2571N ships with a toner cartridge that’s only 1/3 full. This so-called “starter cartridge” prints about 1000 pages, or 2 reams of paper. So it might be a good idea to go ahead and buy the full yield toner the same time you buy the printer, especially if this is going to be a networked printer.

The ML-2571N will use the same toner cartridge as the ML-2010, with a standard yield of about 3,000 pages, or six reams of paper.
The Samsung does not offer a high-capacity toner for the ML-2571N.

SOFTWARE:
The ML-2571N has one of the better software packages. Not only does it have the basic printing properties for Mac and Linux systems, but for Windows users there’s also an advanced printing section that allows for booklet printing, creating a large poster mosaics, and watermarks.

For a classroom or business that needs a decent network printer without breaking their budget, the Samsung ML-2571N can be a good investment. -- Mel Myers

Read More