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Samsung ML-2251N Laser Printer Review

Company:

Samsung, www.samsung.com

Price:

Average retail price is about $250 US.

Ratings

Price:
Install/Setup:
Usability:
Cost to Operate:
Average Rating:

Pros:

• Quality exterior finish
• Clear and clean printing
• Very simple setup for USB or parallel printing
• Inexpensive monochrome laser printing

Cons:

• Network printing was a little testy to set up

Getting Started

Getting excited about black and white printing is a little difficult to do. But when you are working with an inexpensive laser printer from Samsung, the techie in you might just get a little excited.

Do you print a lot of black and white pages? If so the ML-2251N Laser printer from Samsung is the printer for you. Most businesses that have a need for large volumes of printing have traditionally relied on laser printers. Print quality is high while costs stay low. The larger the volume over time the less expensive laser printing has been. Laser printers used to be cost prohibitive for small businesses or for home office or regular home usage.

These days those initial costs are shrinking, thus making laser printers a viable option for everyone. Are you a budding novelist or are in school or have kids in school doing a lot of writing and research? Then you will want to consider this Samsung laser printer.

The ML-2251 series of printers comes standard with USB and parallel printing options. You can connect it directly via a USB 2.0 port to your new computer or make that old Pentium printer in the garage a print server and use the parallel port. This series also has the option to add a 10/100 Base network interface card or a wireless network option. This specific model, the ML-2251N comes standard with the 10/100 network interface in addition to the USB and parallel connections.

Setting up the network connection on the printer took me a little longer than I thought it would. The most difficult part was actually getting the right driver to install on one of the networked computers. The network aspect of assigning an IP address to the printer was simple. Once I had the right print driver installed I was able to connect and print to the printer. The nice benefit of the network set up is you can have multiple configurations. You can share the printer through one computer or map each individual PC on the network to it. The network interface is a nice feature included in this printer without adding a significant chuck of change.

Printing on this printer is relatively quick. I really like the option of expanding the on-board memory. If you are not doing a lot of printing on the network of from a directly connected machine then the 16 MB of memory should be sufficient. However, if you have multiple users doing quite a bit of printing, the additional memory can help speed up printing wait times and keep your PC from being tied up waiting to send the print job as the extra memory allows the printer to store the print job instead of your PC.

Cost of operating this machine is relatively low. Most documentation states you should be able to get somewhere between 3500 to 5000 pages per toner cartridge. There is a Toner Save option that can help stretch out your toner's life span. Our research showed you should be able to buy a replacement toner cartridge from between $85 and $125 US. At about $100 per cartridge that equates to between $0.02 and $0.029 per page on toner costs. That is very inexpensive compared to inkjet costs which are going to be closer to $0.04 or $0.05 per page on ink costs. So if you are doing mostly black and white printing, it might make sense to leave your inkjet for just photos and picking up a Samsung Laser printer for printing up web pages and office documents where you don't need the color and the added cost of inkjet inks.

Specifications

Adding It All Up

The Samsung ML-2251N Laser Printer will flat out save you money if you are printing a large volume of black and white pages. For the budding novelist or the busy student or even for those readers who support small businesses, laser printing is as affordable as ever. And as usual, you cannot go wrong with a Samsung product. They are built with great quality and great functionality. At only 2 or 3 cents per page, go pick up a Samsung ML-2251N Laser Printer today!

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