The most recent articles from Personal Computer World

Review: Brother HL-2170W laser printer

Emil Larsen — 2008-01-15T00:00:00.000Z

Emil Larsen, Personal Computer World, Tuesday 15 January 2008 at 00:00:00

Laser and wireless technologies combine in this £150 printer

The HL-2170W is a squat mono laser printer and one of the cheapest we've seen with built-in Wifi. As well as 802.11b/g wireless, you get Ethernet and USB ports.

The physical setup of the printer couldn’t be easier - slot in the combined toner and drum unit and you’re done. Getting hooked up to a network is simple too, as long as you don’t change your mind about wired or wireless half-way through; the Ethernet port and Wifi can’t be active at the same time.

The HL-2170W had no problem achieving its advertised 22ppm (pages per minute) in our tests, and the time to print the first page was equally impressive at just 11.5 seconds.

It’s not as quiet as the HP Laserjet p2015 when idling, due to a fan on its left side making a dim whir, but the noise isn’t over the top.

In our tests, text quality was very detailed and legible down to our hardest two-point test, but we did notice that the text was a little grey compared to the jet black produced by other lasers.

Pages work out at 2.11p per A4 side if you buy regular-sized toners (£35.24), falling to 1.81p per page if you buy the high-capacity (£46.99) version. Bear in mind that the drum must be replaced every 12,000 pages, this adds 0.51p per page. The standard toner costs are low, but the high-capacity toner and drum (£61.10) costs are expensive compared to the slightly dearer Dell 1720dn. All prices are including Vat.

The 250-page paper tray is generous, but costs have been cut by Brother, with just four LEDs, instead of an LCD, to diagnose problems. Otherwise this is a good value printer if you intend to print thousands of pages, but perhaps not tens of thousands, per year.

Review: Samsung SCX-4500 laser printer

Paul Monckton — 2007-12-11T00:00:00.000Z

Paul Monckton, Personal Computer World, Tuesday 11 December 2007 at 00:00:00

An ultra-sleek multifunction printer as much about looks as it is about printing

Monochrome laser printers are among the most uninteresting peripherals in the universe. When a monochrome laser printer grabs your attention, it’s not an enjoyable experience.

However, the Samsung SCX-4500 does grab your attention. This is probably because unless you catch it in the act, you would have a hard time believing it was a printer at all.

It has a polished piano-black finish, flat and uncluttered surfaces, and a distinct lack of scary panels and controls. Visually, it’s very quiet indeed and using one won’t make your home look like an office.

Beneath the surface, the SCX-4500 is packed with blue LEDs that glow in formation to display status information - as well as the occasional unnecessary, but very pretty animated pattern. A further LED travels the length of the unit during scanning indicating progress along your document.

Our tests showed the SCX-4500 operated close to its rated 16ppm (pages per minute) with many kinds of document and it can wake from standby to deliver a single page in 15 seconds - the same time it will take to copy a single A4 page from a cold start. It may not be the fastest device in the world, but if it were any quicker you wouldn’t have enough time to look at the pretty lights.

Toner installation is very easy; the cartridge slots in easily via a top-loading mechanism. The starter cartridge is good for 1,000 prints, with replacements printing up to 2,000 pages at a cost of around £45.

The SCX-4500 offers only basic essential functionality (networking is noticeable by its absence) and is a little pricey, but it does so with an unrivalled sense of style.

Review: HP Color Laserjet CP3505x printer

Alan Stevens — 2007-11-20T00:00:00.000Z

Alan Stevens, Personal Computer World, Tuesday 20 November 2007 at 00:00:00

A hard act to beat for fast and affordable colour printing

They may not be the cheapest printers around, but HP's Color Laserjets certainly deliver in terms of value for money.

That's particularly true of the new CP3505x, which replaces the ageing 3800, and which we found to be an exceptionally good choice for the small business looking for an effective, yet affordable, colour printing solution.

Powered by a single-pass A4 colour laser, the CP3505x is unusual in that it can print in colour at the same speed as black and white - up to 21 pages per minute (ppm). It's also quick off the mark with the first page appearing in 12 to 14 seconds in our tests, no matter how complex the document.

It's a level of performance that can be attributed to a 450MHz Motorola Coldfire V5x processor supported by 384MB of memory, which can be further expanded to 1Gb using industry standard Dimms, if needed.

We were also impressed with the quality of the output, both when churning out typical business documents and printing photographs. OK, it won't win many converts among graphics professionals, but for proofing work and as a general-purpose workhorse it's hard to beat.

We also didn't have to mess with any of the settings to get good results. It's got plenty of capacity, with two A4 paper drawers as standard on this model, one holding up to 250 sheets and the other 500. These are accompanied by the usual fold-out multipurpose feeder, although this can only take 10 envelopes at a time, so if you need to print lots of mail-outs, a laser with a proper envelope feeder would be a better bet.

Similarly, if you want to sort, staple or finish documents you'll have to look at other models as these options aren't available on the CP3505x.

On the plus side the maximum duty cycle is 65,000 pages per month with a recommended monthly volume of up to 5,000 pages, enabling the printer to cope with the demands of most small businesses.

A duplexer, for double-sided printing, is built in and a set of full-size (up to 6,000 pages) cartridges is included with the printer. These were very easy to change - sliding into place behind the fold-down door at the front - with replacements available at around £78 (ex Vat) for black and £101 ex Vat for each of the colours.

We also found the CP3505x very easy to set up. An Ethernet network interface comes as standard, together with a built-in print server, enabling the HP laser to be shared on a variety of networks, not just Windows. A PCL6 driver is installed when you run the setup wizard but a Postscript driver is available if preferred, together with support for the Internet Printing Protocol (IPP) and direct printing of PDF documents.

Apple Mac and Linux drivers can be downloaded too and the CP3505s can be used with HP's universal print driver on Windows Vista clients.

In terms of size it's not the smallest colour printer on the market, but the CP3505x is still pretty compact with a small, but surprisingly, informative LCD screen for local walk-up management. A web-based interface is, naturally, built in, and the printer can also be managed using an SNMP console, such as HP's Web Jet Admin product, available separately.

At less than £400 ex Vat the CP3505x really is remarkably good value. If you don't need all the features or capacity, there are also cheaper models based on the same engine.

Review: Lexmark C780n laser printer

Alan Stevens — 2007-11-05T00:00:00.000Z

Alan Stevens, Personal Computer World, Monday 5 November 2007 at 00:00:00

You’ll get fast colour prints from this affordable general-purpose laser

Colour laser printers keep getting faster and the new C780n from Lexmark is no exception, its A4 engine spitting out up to 29 colour pages per minute (ppm) or 33 in black and white.

It also boasts an input capacity of over 1,000 sheets and affordable, easy-to-change consumables, making the C780n a good choice for small businesses looking for a general-purpose colour-capable printer.

Maximum resolution from the single-pass Lexmark engine is 1,200x1,200dpi, driven by an 800MHz processor with 256MB of memory that’s upgradeable to 768MB using industry-standard Dimm modules. PCL and Postscript emulations are both provided, along with direct PDF printing with the first page of any document typically appearing in around 10 seconds.

A 500-sheet paper drawer is built into the base of the printer with a fold-out 100-sheet multipurpose tray for envelopes and other odd-sized materials. A second 500-sheet drawer can then be added underneath (£220 ex Vat) along with an optional duplexer unit (£295 ex Vat) to produce double-sided documents.

There are no other finishing options, but if paper handling is important you might want to consider the next model up in this series, the C782n, based on a similar but slightly quicker (up to 38ppm) engine. Starting at £725 ex Vat the C782n is more expensive but it’s possible to expand the input capacity to 3,000 pages and add a variety of finishing options, including a document sorter and stapler.

We found the C780n very easy to set up and use. It needs a couple of people to lift it out of the box, but it is otherwise a reasonably compact device with a USB2 interface provided for direct PC/server attachment. However, we used the alternative 10/100Mbits/sec Ethernet interface to connect to our network with DHCP used to obtain an IP address automatically.

Support for mixed Windows, Mac and Unix/Linux networks comes as standard with, as well as configuration options on the front panel, remote web-based setup facilities. Network monitoring and management using Lexmark’s own Markvision software is another option.

Changing the consumables is simple, with four toner cartridges that just slot in place behind a front opening door. As shipped the cartridges are rated for up to 6,000 pages but high-yield replacements (10,000 pages) are available at around £79 ex Vat for black and £122 ex Vat for each of the colours. Used cartridges can also be returned at no cost for safe disposal.

Inevitably graphics professionals may find fault with the print quality and end up tweaking the various settings. For most general business documents, however, it should be more than adequate with good colour reproduction using the default settings even on photographs and other images. Direct printing from a USB memory stick is another useful feature and we also liked the ability to send documents and hold them, pending the input of a security code by an operator standing in front of the printer. It’s also possible to limit access to the colour facilities, although we doubt whether many small companies will take advantage of this option.

The one-year on-site warranty can be further extended and with its fast engine and easy-change consumables, the C780n is a good general-purpose printer, that can be shared on a small-business network and do away with the need for separate mono and colour devices.

Review: Brother HL-4040CN laser printer

Emil Larsen — 2007-09-19T00:00:00.000Z

Emil Larsen, Personal Computer World, Wednesday 19 September 2007 at 00:00:00

A cheap colour laser that infringes ever more on consumer inkjet territory

The HL-4040CN is one of a new range of colour lasers from Brother that are all, for the first time, powered by its own printer engine.

To show Brother means business, the price undercuts many others at just £352. This pulls it ever closer to home users and the unusual inclusion of a USB port for connecting Pictbridge digital cameras and memory sticks underlines these ambitions. An Ethernet port, which comes with SSL encryption, and a USB port for connecting directly to a PC, round up the connectivity.

Print resolution can be set to 600x600dpi or 2,400x600dpi. In our tests, text quality was solid but detailed photos lacked punch. There was also some banding in photos and all printouts were slightly curled at the edges.

The printer performed reasonably well in our speed tests, outgunning cheaper mono laser printers but lagging behind more expensive models. While many printers tend to fall short of their quoted print speeds, we found the Brother HL4040CN exceeded its 20ppm (pages per minute) rating.

When printing in mono, it achieved 23.80ppm and 20.35ppm on standard and best-quality settings respectively. It was a similar story for our colour and text PDFs - the speed faulted only on full-page photos, resulting in a lethargic 3ppm pace.

The printer uses a four-cartridge system, comprised of black, cyan, magenta and yellow toners. Black toner lasting 2,500 pages costs £38 with the other three cartridges costing £50 for 1,500 pages each. Based on five per cent coverage, printing costs 1.6p per text page and 3.4p per colour page, which compares favourably with inkjets and colour lasers.

The drum is an additional replacement, costing £110 per 17,000 pages, but this is still reasonable for domestic levels of use.

Review: Dell 1720dn laser printer

Simon Crisp — 2007-06-06T00:00:00.000Z

Simon Crisp, Personal Computer World, Wednesday 6 June 2007 at 00:00:00

An affordable laser with built-in duplex and network features

Dell’s 1720dn mono laser printer sits in the middle of a steadily growing band of laser printers offered by the computer giant.

This model offers a couple of features usually found in more expensive printers, namely a duplexer, networking and a 28ppm (pages per minute) print speed.

A fairly compact unit measuring 396x345x254mm (wxdxh), the 1720dn is suited to home and small business use. However, its sibling, the cheaper 1720 without duplex or network support, is probably better suited to home use.

The 1720dn comes with a full range of options to connect to a PC; USB2, 10/100 Ethernet and Parallel ports are all provided. Wireless support is also available via an optional 802.11b/g adaptor. It comes with 32MB of memory which can be expanded up to 160MB via the single memory slot.

The 1720dn features something Dell calls Instant Warm up technology, which allows the first page to be printed in around eight seconds from sleep mode.

As standard, the 1720dn ships with a toner cartridge which is good for around 3,000 pages (at 5 per cent coverage), a replacement will set you back £69.33 or £49.35 if you use Dell’s Use and Return policy. A high-capacity cartridge is also available, costing £81.08 or £57.58 (through Use and Return) and yields around 6,000 pages at 5 per cent coverage. The imaging drum lasts for 30,000 pages, with a replacement drum costing £30.55. All prices include VAT.

Dell quotes a engine speed of 28ppm for the 1720dn, something borne out under test conditions, while a A4 page test produced 10ppm; so it's no slouch when it comes to print speeds. While text results are reasonably good, graphic output suffers from banding, especially when it’s a full page.

Paper handling consists of a bottom mounted 250-sheet input drawer with a single sheet manual feeder housed in the front panel for special paper types. To up the input capacity there is the option of buying a 550 sheet drawer. Output is limited to a maximum capacity of 150 sheets.

Simple to operate, the 1720dn has just two buttons on the top mounted control panel to start and stop print jobs. These are joined by five LEDs indicating the printer’s status, paper jams and the like.

With its duplex and network features, 1720dn is ideally suited to home office use.

Review: HP Laserjet P3005dn laser printer

Alan Stevens — 2007-05-17T00:00:00.000Z

Alan Stevens, Personal Computer World, Thursday 17 May 2007 at 00:00:00

Boring it may be, but this business laser is worth a second look

With the advent of colour lasers, monochrome printers may seem a little old hat, but they still have their place with a lot to commend the new Laserjet P3005 series to small business buyers.

Gone are the exotic curves of previous Laserjets in favour of a square and somewhat squat grey plastic casing on the P3005.

Controls too have been kept to a minimum on this printer with an equally tiny monochrome LCD display to show you what it’s up to.

Inside, however, it’s a different story with a 1,200x1,200dpi laser engine capable of firing out documents at up to 33 pages per minute. It produced crisp and clear monochrome results with the first page appearing in around 10 seconds on our tests no matter how complex the documents. PCL and Postscript drivers both come as standard, with direct printing of Pdf documents another option.

Several different models are available, all based on the same laser engine combined with a 400MHz Motorola Coldfire processor, starting with the basic P3005 (£325 ex Vat) with just 48MB of memory and no networking interface. However, a more generous 80MB of memory was supplied on the P3005dn model we looked at, which also features built-in networking and a duplexer for double-sided printing. All models can be upgraded to 320MB of Ram using industry-standard Dimm modules.

As well as being very quick, the laser engine is good for up to 100,000 pages per month on each of the models, making the P3005 a good choice for small companies looking for a general-purpose workhorse, or larger organisations wanting a capable departmental laser. It’s also very easy to maintain with a single, quick-to-replace cartridge available in two capacities – 6,500 or 13,000 pages. The 6,500-page cartridges sell for just under £66 (ex Vat) on the web, with the larger capacity cartridges on offer for about £109 (ex Vat).

Paper handling was adequate but nothing special. A 500-sheet paper tray comes as standard with a second available as an optional extra (£79 ex Vat), which is worth having on a printer of this speed. You could also opt for the P3005x (£569 ex Vat) and get it already fitted. Both trays can handle 120gsm A4 sheets with a 100-sheet fold-out multipurpose tray at the front to provide a straight-through path for card, labels and other heavier materials.

Printed pages come out face down into a well on top of the printer, but there are no additional sorting or finishing options, which is a little unfortunate as it limits the appeal of this laser.

A USB2 interface allows the P3005dn to be hooked up to desktop PC or server directly, but most buyers will opt for network connection using the integrated HP Jetdirect adapter provided. This enables the laser to be shared on a mix of Windows, Linux, Apple and other networks with remote management via a browser using the embedded web server or, where multiple printers are deployed, using HP’s Web Jetadmin software.

We had no problems installing the printer or accompanying software, and were impressed both by the quality and speed at which documents were printed. The paper handling lets it down a little, but for a lot of small businesses that won’t be a major issue with the HP pedigree alone likely to make it a top seller.

Review: Lexmark C534dn laser printer

Alan Stevens — 2007-04-06T00:00:00.000Z

Alan Stevens, Personal Computer World, Friday 6 April 2007 at 00:00:00

Fast monochrome and colour printing in one compact device

Colour lasers for small businesses spend most of their time churning out monochrome business documents.

But they also need to be able to add colour and, on occasion, produce professionallooking colour presentations and photographs.

The Lexmark C534dn can do all this with speed and ease – and at a price that won’t break the bank.

With a 100,000-page duty cycle, the C534dn is a heavy-duty device designed to be shared on a small business Lan, despite being light enough (just) to be lifted by one person.

It also comes with the toners already fitted so installation is just a matter of sliding it out of the box, removing the packaging and connecting it to power and Lan outlets.

USB and Ethernet interfaces come as standard on this model, along with an integrated multi-protocol print server, with the usual web-based interface for remote management. A duplexer, for double-sided printing, also comes as standard and works well.

However, the built-in, 250-sheet paper tray isn’t up to scratch on a laser designed for shared network use, and we’d strongly recommend the optional extra 550-sheet tray designed to fit underneath.

Note though, that when configured to take A4, the paper trays protrude out of the back increasing the footprint by a good three inches.

On the positive side, the front of the main tray folds down to reveal the 100-sheet multi-purpose feeder, which is a very neat feature. The four toners are readily accessible from the front.

Those shipped with it are rated for up to 6,000 pages, with a choice of yield on replacements of up to 7,000 pages for colour (£111.14 ex Vat) and 8,000 pages for the black toner (£95.27 ex Vat).

Photoconductor units for the black and colour cartridges are also required every 20,000 pages. These only cost £70.47 (ex Vat) for a full set. We calculate running costs at about 6.2p per page in general use (excluding paper and power), which is competitive with other colour lasers. And while the cartridges are easy to replace, the process can be quite messy.

When it comes to quality, it’s important to stress that, like most business laser printers, you shouldn’t buy the Lexmark C534dn solely for professional graphics printing. For day-to-day business documents, however, it’s excellent and, when needed, it can also produce impressive colour presentations, with lots of controls to help tweak output.

Having said that, however, we found it best to leave these alone rather than waste time and paper trying to improve on the defaults.

Another feature of the C534dn is its intuitive user interface, with a large colour display and associated keypad. Using these, it’s possible to hold documents on the printer securely, then have them print by typing in a suitable Pin code. There’s also a USB port for walk-up printing of Pdf documents from a memory stick.

On the performance front, the Lexmark laser acquitted itself well. The first page took about 11 seconds to appear, after which monochrome A4 pages are ejected at up to 22ppm and only slightly more slowly (21ppm) where colour is involved.

On the downside, printed pages are all dumped into a well on top, with no finishing options available. Nor is it possible to add a custom envelope feeder, which could be an issue for some buyers.

Review: Kyocera FS-C5025N colour laser printer

Alan Stevens — 2007-03-07T00:00:00.000Z

Alan Stevens, Personal Computer World, Wednesday 7 March 2007 at 00:00:00

Add colour to your documents and still save money

Touted as offering rock-bottom cost of ownership, Kyocera’s FS-C5025N is a 20ppm (pages per minute) colour laser with an 85,000 page per month duty cycle, which is beefy enough to be used as a small company or workgroup laser.

USB and Ethernet interfaces come as standard, with the usual multiprotocol print server emulations, together with web and SNMP management.

Paper is fed from a 500-sheet A4 drawer with a fold-out multipurpose tray to handle transparencies, card and other awkward materials.

A further three trays can then be added underneath (£188 ex Vat each), bringing the printer’s capacity up to 2,000 sheets altogether. Other optional extras include a duplexer (£215 ex Vat) and a powered envelope feeder (£189 ex Vat).

All this makes for an impressive printer – although nothing outstanding, with lots of alternatives available capable of matching or exceeding what the FS-C5025N has to offer. However, few can match the low cost of ownership, with toner being the only consumable required in day-to-day operation.

Four cartridges are involved (cyan, yellow, magenta and black), each clicking quickly into place under the lift-up top. The original starter cartridges are good for about 4,000 pages (at five per cent coverage), but replacements can cope with double that.

The £300 ex Vat price tag may seem a little hefty but, unlike most other colour lasers, there’s nothing else to buy, other than a maintenance kit to service the long-life optical drum every 200,000 prints or so (£450 ex Vat). Added to this, the toner that needs to be replenished most often (black) sells for just £53.88 ex Vat – less than on some mono lasers.

According to Kyocera, taking this approach can drastically reduce running costs, especially if you cost it over three to five years (the typical life of this kind of printer). Indeed, if you believe the comparison tools on the Kyocera website, you could save hundreds of pounds compared with the leading brands, even when you factor in the cost of the hardware and warranty terms.

On the downside, the print quality – although good – is far from exceptional. Designers and other graphics professionals will soon find faults, especially with the resolution, but then they are not the printer’s target market. This is a general-purpose laser printer and for printing general-purpose documents, it’s more than adequate.

The FS-C5025N is also pretty quick to print, taking about 13 seconds to eject the first page of any document sent its way and printing boring old text at a rapid rate. More complex pages naturally take a lot longer, but the PowerPC-based controller coped well, even when we tried the booklet printing and watermark options.

We liked this machine a lot and we also appreciated the way it looks. Design, of course, will always be a matter of taste, but to our eyes the FS-C5025N is one of the neatest looking network lasers around. This is mainly because Kyocera has eschewed fancy plastic mouldings in favour of a no-nonsense cube, which simply gets on with the job. A clear operator display is another plus, accompanied by large, easy-to-understand control buttons.

OK, it may not get the pulse racing, but it works and if it lives up to Kyocera’s claims, it could save you a packet of money to boot.

Review: Oki B2500 MFP multi-function printer

Will Stapley — 2006-12-21T00:00:00.000Z

Will Stapley, Personal Computer World, Thursday 21 December 2006 at 00:00:00

A compact multi-function laser with a low RRP, but high running costs

Oki's B2500 MFP is a budget mono laser printer, scanner and copier aimed at individuals. It's a compact unit and the relatively small footprint means it won't take up too much space in a home office environment. It's also silent during standby, which will similarly appeal to home users.

A control panel sits at the top and provides quick access to photocopying and various other menu options, with a two-line LCD indicating what's going on.

Setup certainly shouldn't pose too many problems. We managed to get the printer up and running in just five minutes - all you need do is remove the packaging, load some paper and slap in the toner cartridge.

A 250-sheet input tray is situated at the bottom of the unit, while a single sheet feeder allows quick loading for other paper types. There’s no real output tray, instead the sheets are spat out just underneath the scanning unit; a flip out piece of plastic stops them from tumbling to the floor. The downside of this method is that only 50 output sheets can be handled at any one time but, for home users, this shouldn't be too much of a problem.

Print quality is very impressive considering the price of the unit. With budget lasers we often see quality issues, but text printed by the B2500 MFP is incredibly sharp and clear.

As far as speeds go, Oki quotes the B2500 MFP’s print speed at 16ppm (pages per minute). Indeed, our plain text tests showed this to be pretty near the mark, with a rate of 14.7ppm. Our sample pdf took a little longer to be printed at 12.13ppm.

As with all printers, and indeed any product that requires frequent maintenance, total cost of ownership is an important factor when it comes to making a purchase decision. The RRP for the printer is £149, but it can be picked up for around £120 inc VAT.

The standard toner cartridge costs £71 and is good for 2,200 pages (3.2p per page, assuming 5 per cent coverage), but the printer actually ships with a 1,500 -page cartridge as standard. This is common with laser printers and basically allows manufacturers to reduce that all important initial outlay for the printer.

Should you be happy splashing out a little extra when the starter cartridge is on its last legs, a high capacity 4,000 (£90/2.3p per page) page version is available and offers better value for money.

Although this isn't outrageously expensive, the Dell 1710n mono laser we recently reviewed is a fair bit cheaper to run with a 3,000-page toner at £64 (2.1p per page) and a 6,000-page version for £81 (1.4p per page).

Aside from the toner, there are no other consumables to replace and each new toner cartridge comes with its own image drum.

The maximum monthly duty cycle for the B2500 MFP sits at 2,000 pages. If you think you’ll exceed this, you’d be better off opting for a more expensive model. Oki has various models in this range. This model is the cheapest, while the B4525 MFP sits at the top with a duty cycle of 12,500 pages.

If you're prepared to pay the reasonably high running costs, the B2500 MFP is a great printer that's hard to beat in terms of ease of use and print quality. Finally, it's worth noting that this is a Windows-only printer.

Also consider:

Dell 1710n

A cheap mono laser with low running costs

Samsung CLP-300

Samsung combines inkjet-like convenience with laser-quality documents

OKI C3300n LED single-pass LED printer

A fast alternative to a laser printer for small workgroups and home users

All laser printer reviews

Review: HP Laserjet p2015 printer

Emil Larsen — 2006-11-24T00:00:00.000Z

Emil Larsen, Personal Computer World, Friday 24 November 2006 at 00:00:00

Thanksgiving Day brings a small business printer with a small footprint

An American from the software industry recently told me that Thanksgiving isn't actually about giving thanks to God close to the harvest season.

Instead it's a day where families across America can see their parents just before Christmas. That way they don’t have to spend Christmas with the old folks and instead can just relax at home. It isn't a religious weekend but a weekend built for a purpose.

The HP Laserjet p2015 is not an exciting product to look at, but it too is here to serve a purpose, with simple colours and even simpler lines that whisper ‘small efficient business’.

Start-up times were amongst the best we've even seen. We tested time to first page in standby mode at 7.5 seconds. Blank pages went through the system at 25ppm (pages per minute) and we achieved the same rate for pages of text and images.

Results aren’t particularly pure, text appears dark and dark grey but not truly black. It is extremely sharp though and we were impressed by the quality overall.

When not in use the printer is essentially silent. When printing a fan comes on but is never particularly disturbing, and it turns off a few seconds after printing has finished.

We tested the base model from HP. Other p2015 versions pack networking and/or duplexing (automatic double sided printing) capabilities. It's a shame the duplexing model costs £261 because this is a really useful feature on laser printers.

The p2015's biggest challenge is justifying its added cost over Dell's excellent 1710. We have already reviewed the networked model (the 1710N). HP’s p2015 costs £199 inc. VAT which is £53 more than the Dell.

A replacement black ink cartridge with a yield of 7,000 pages costs £109.99 inc. VAT. By comparison Dell charges just £81 for a 6,000 page black cartridge. This means the Dell is also cheaper to run.

Despite all that we really liked HP’s offering. It's quiet, efficient and easy to use but we're disappointed it is priced so high, particularly considering how cheap you can pick up comparable products elsewhere.

Also consider:

Samsung CLP-300 laser printer

Small, well designed and easy to use

Dell 1815dn mono laser printer

Well priced for the features, Dell's 1815dn is ideal for the home user or small office looking for a well balanced multifunction device

Dell Laser 1110 budget laser printer

If all you need is a small, fast laser printer that prints text well without any fuss Dell's Laser 1100 is worth looking at, but despite the low RRP it's not the cheapest to run

Review: Samsung CLP-300 laser printer

Paul Monckton — 2006-11-03T00:00:00.000Z

Paul Monckton, Personal Computer World, Friday 3 November 2006 at 00:00:00

Samsung combines inkjet-like convenience with laser-quality documents

With a desktop footprint similar to that of an inkjet printer, the CLP-300 will fit just about anywhere and can be installed in a home environment without dominating a smaller-sized room.

It has a fully covered, 150 sheet paper tray. This protects your paper from dust and will accept a variety of paper types and sizes, including regular A4 sheets, envelopes, postcards and transparencies.

The paper tray has an innovative telescopic design that allows you to convert it to various paper sizes by expanding and contracting it into different configurations.

In terms of ease of use, the paper tray is undoubtedly the most complex part of the printer. Everything else about it has been made very simple, from initial setup to driver configuration and troubleshooting.

On opening the box, the first thing you’ll see is Samsung’s large, easy set-up guide which shows you wordlessly how to install and configure the printer in a few easy steps. All you have to do is remove some packing materials, pop in the toner cartridges and let the automated software installation do its thing.

At the end of the hardware setup, the CLP-300 will automatically print out a congratulatory page telling you everything is working and asking you to wait about a minute and a half for the printer to become ready.

Being a four-pass printer, the CLP-300 takes four times as long to print a colour page as it does a monochrome one, so while mono pages pop out at a reasonable 16ppm (pages per minute), colour ones slow down to, at most, 4ppm, which by today’s standards is quite slow. First page out time is 14 seconds, but this increases to 26 seconds when printing in colour.

Being a budget printer, you don’t get a fancy control panel or LCD. Instead, you get one LED indicator for each toner colour, a stop button and a changing-colour status LED. All other printer communication takes place via the pop-up status panel, provided with the driver software.

Here you will find information on remaining toner, as well as a quick link to order replacements online. Should a paper jam occur, instructions also appear via a pop-up. During testing we found that removing printed sheets before a long job had completed could easily trip the paper jam sensor, causing us to have to go through the motions of clearing a non-existent jam before printing could continue.

The driver software is very easy to use; simple without ever becoming patronising, yet with many flexible printer options that you can save in your own named configurations.

In many four-pass designs, four toner cartridges are fitted into a drum mechanism that rotates each toner colour into place in turn. Installing toner cartridges in these printers requires the drum to be rotated to the correct position before each coloured toner can be inserted or removed.

In the CLP-300 the toner cartridges remain fixed in position. This gives you direct and very easy access to the cartridges for installation and comes with the added benefit of fewer moving parts, improved performance and greatly reduced operating noise.

In a printer of such small proportions there’s not a lot of room for toner - and the CLP-300’s toner cartridges are really tiny. The black cartridge is the largest of the four and the size of a small teacup while the remaining three colour cartridges are smaller still.

While smaller cartridges mean more frequent replacements, they do give the printer a friendlier feel. They’re very easy to install and are rather reminiscent of a child’s toy - you just pick them up by the built-in handle and push them into place in the correct hole.

At five per cent coverage, cartridge yields are 2,000 pages for black and 1,000 pages each for cyan, magenta and yellow. A waste toner collector must be replaced every 5,000 mono or 1,250 colour pages and the imaging unit is good for 20,000 pages.

Each colour cartridge costs £26, while the larger black cartridge costs £31. If you buy all four at once you can save money and buy a multi-pack for £88. The waste toner collector costs £5 and when the time comes to replace the imaging unit it will set you back £99.

These prices are reasonable for a low-cost colour laser, but if you’re planning on printing a lot of pages we’d recommend stepping up to a larger printer with cheaper toner in larger-capacity cartridges.

Image quality, while acceptable, is nothing special. Laser printers simply can’t compete with modern inkjets when it comes to printing photos and, considering the CLP-300’s target market, we feel it’s fair to make this comparison. When printing other types of document, we’ve certainly seen better results from more expensive laser printers, but the output of the CLP-300 is satisfactory at this price.

Also available is the CLP-300N which adds a network port and support for printing from Windows NT 4.0.

Being so small and with such a low RRP, the Samsung CLP-300 will no doubt appeal to home users, but if you're looking to regularly print large documents the slow speed and low-capacity toners will probably force you to look elsewhere.

Also consider:

OKI C3300n

A fast alternative to a laser printer for small workgroups and home users

Brother MFC-8860DN

Fax, copy, print and colour scanning combined in a laser multifunction device

Dell Laser 1110

A mono laser for under £100 but the starter toner cartridge is disappointingly small

All laser printer reviews

Review: Dell 1815dn mono laser printer

Simon Crisp — 2006-10-16T00:00:00.000Z

Simon Crisp, Personal Computer World, Monday 16 October 2006 at 00:00:00

A cheap multi-function mono laser

Dell's been busy releasing printers of late, one of the most recent being its 1815dn - a mono laser multifunction printer that offers fast print speeds and a host of features at a reasonable price.

Feature-wise there's not much the 1815dn doesn't offer; 600x600dpi resolution, 25ppm (pages per minute) print speeds, fax, scan and copier. It also comes with a built-in duplexer, 25,000 page a month duty cycle, and both USB2 and Ethernet connectivity.

Impressively, Dell has managed to keep the price to just £338 including Vat and delivery.

Straight out of the box the 1815dn comes with a 300-sheet paper input tray, but you can increase this to a maximum of 550 pages with the addition of a second 250-sheet draw (£88)

To replace the standard 3,000-page toner cartridge costs £41, while a high-yield 5,000-page cartridge costing an extra £11.75.

In addition to the rear-mounted USB port, there is another at the front of the 1815dn to allow you to print documents direct from a flash memory key. It will also scan to a USB key, but the resulting scans are low-resolution Jpeg files so, while a useful feature, it is best used for basic scans only.

The 1815dn will scan in 24-bit colour up to 4,800dpi (1,200dpi optical resolution). Scanning a magazine cover at the default 300dpi took just 15 seconds but the scan looked slightly pale on the screen and the resulting mono printout shows a loss of detail in the shadows; they're certainly usable for normal office duties though.

Overall print quality, however, is very good with text being printed crisply and accurately.

Considering its wealth of features, the Dell 1815dn is great value for money.

Also consider:

OKI C3300n LED single-pass LED printer

A fast alternative to a laser printer for small workgroups and home users

Brother MFC-8860DN mono laser MFD

Fax, copy, print and colour scanning combined in a laser multifunction device

Dell Laser 1110 budget laser printer

A mono laser for under £100 but the starter toner cartridge is disappointingly small

All laser printer reviews

Review: OKI C3300n LED single-pass LED printer

Paul Monckton — 2006-08-23T00:00:00.000Z

Paul Monckton, Personal Computer World, Wednesday 23 August 2006 at 00:00:00

A fast alternative to a laser printer for small workgroups and home users

OKI has a long history of producing LED-based colour printers that have delivered laser-like quality at high speeds.

Previously, we looked at the C3200n as part of a group test .

The new-look C3300n and C3400n use a very similar basic design while offering enhanced performance and print quality, along with more flexible media handling.

Inside the printer, a narrow, deep case holds four horizontally mounted toner cartridges arranged in parallel from front to back.

Using what is known as single-pass technology, the page runs beneath each cartridge in turn, on a single journey through the print engine.

This gives a potential four-fold increase in speed over the majority of laser printers that must pass the page through the print engine for each toner colour separately.

The C3300n is capable of up to 12 pages per minute (ppm) in colour and, by moving colour components aside and speeding up the mechanism a little, up to 16ppm in monochrome.

The C3400n is a little faster, at 16ppm and 20ppm respectively.

In our tests, the first page came out in a reasonably fast 12 seconds for monochrome and 15 seconds for colour, however the C3200n was rated faster, at nine and 14 seconds respectively. This delay time is crucial as most print jobs are only a couple of pages long.

The 'straight-through' print path also has the advantage of allowing more flexible paper handling. There’s no need to keep the page stuck to a curved drum, so paper stock of up to 203gsm can be used without fear of jams.

Unlike the C3200n, the C3300n doesn't come in a non-networked, USB-only version; both the C3300n and C3400m coming with 10/100 Ethernet as standard.

Also missing is the C3200’s LCD status panel, which is replaced by a row of LEDs.

Although they’ve certainly improved over the years, we’ve never been great fans of the colour photo print quality from LED printers.

The C3300n has improved print quality over the C3200, but LED printers always lag slightly behind standard laser printers in terms of photographic-style output.

The C3300n is no exception to this rule. There are no problems in terms of resolution and smoothness, but colours appear somewhat dull and skin-tones aren’t as lifelike as we’ve seen from other printers.

However, print quality depends a lot on source material; landscapes with plenty of blue sky and trees produced quite vivid results. You shouldn't, however, have a problem with colour in graphics and presentations.

Driver support for Windows is good and it comes with integrated help and links to OKI’s online support pages, which are also very useful and easy to navigate.

OKI’s supplied Webprint Utility makes printing from web pages easy without wasting paper of problems fitting the browser image on your page.

A top-loading mechanism makes toner installation simple. It’s always easy to see what you’re doing and the cartridges simply slot in and lock with a lever. These cartridges are small, which makes them easy to handle but also means they’ll run out quickly.

The 1,000-page capacity is equivalent to only two standard packs of paper. Black cartridges cost £23.50, while cyan and yellow cartridges cost £33; strangely, magenta is £1 less.

Multi-colour value packs are available for both toner and imaging drums, but these save you only around £5 compared to buying the items separately.

Other consumable items include one imaging drum per colour, which must be replaced every 15,000 impressions. These cost £29 for black and £26 each for colour.

At 30,000 pages you’ll need a new fuser unit, at £56.50 and every 50,000 pages, the transfer belt will need replacing at a cost of £56.50.

By comparison, Dell’s toner charges amount to only around £10.56 for 1,000 monochrome pages and £18.21 per 1,000 pages in colour for its similarly priced 3110cn colour laser printer.

Dell’s alternative is also faster, can cope with almost double the monthly duty cycle and will print from a variety of operating systems, whereas the C3300n is limited by its Windows-only compatibility.

Overall, the C3300n is fast and easy to use, but the print quality could be better.

Related reviews :

Brother MFC-8860DN mono laser MFD

Fax, copy, print and colour scanning combined in a laser multifunction device