As we mentioned, the machine uses a combined drum and toner cartridge and this is the only consumable. The cheapest source we could find was just over £55 including VAT, for a cost per page of 2.80p.
This is quite a bit for a mono laser page, where even competitors in the same price range average out closer to 2.1p - equivalent to a £42 cartridge. There’s a trade off, of course, between the asking price for the printer and its running costs – the more you pay up front, the cheaper it is to keep running.
Fit this, or your prints end up on the floor
Samsung claims a good noise figure of 45dBA for this laser, thanks to its "NoNois" [sic] technology – basically a consequence of the engine design. We measured our sample at peaks of 54dBA at 50cm away, which is louder than that, but still quieter than a lot of its rivals, which often peak at over 60dBA.
Verdict
Samsung has succeeded in producing a better-looking laser printer than most. The print quality’s good, it prints reasonably quickly and quietly and is easy to maintain. However, the page cost is high and its paper tray capacity is low, so it’s best for those whose printing needs are modest, but who like shiny stuff.
Samsung ML-1630W wireless network mono laser printer
COMMENTS
2 to 3p a sheet?
Ouch. Even our all-in-one ink jet does better than that, albeit using non-Canon cartridges. Bet it's better at photo-printing too. Sure, it'll be slower, but you don't buy a laser like this one for high volume printing where speed really matters.
CLP-510, Ubuntu
I've got a CLP-510. Unlike the CLP-310, it's a bit of a boatanchor (check out online photos, it's like twice as big and probably 10x as big as the ML-1630W). But, I got it for like $250, color, duplex, works well for me. Don't know about the ML-1630W, but the CLP-510 uses a Xerox print engine. Ubuntu has a driver for it, when I used it about a year ago the color was a little off (I think that's fixed now). Samsung *also* has a binary-blob Linux driver for their printers, which hooked into cups nicely so it just shows as another choice of printer model (my recollection is the Ubuntu-supplied stuff was listed under "Samsung" and the company-supplied were under "SAMSUNG" 8-)
Since I'm on an Ubuntu box I looked, ML-1630 is listed. 1630W isn't, but it appears that's just the 1630 with wireless. JBR, I think you're in good shape!
agreed on the wifi setup
I got a Samsung CLP310 color laser a few months ago - US$196, incl tax and free shipping - rather nice-looking compact black unit, fairly light for a color laser @ 27 lbs., fairly quiet, too.
Have to agree with the rather painful wifi setup. The 'easy' setup didn't work, due to the printer being assigned a strange default IP address - a 191. iirc rather than the standard 192. that most home networks use.
Had to use a crossover ether cable (fortunately, supplied) to connect it directly to my PC, then use a little program on the install CD to manually assign a new address. Then I could at least see the printer.
However, the web-based interface refused to correctly load the Settings page to set up the wifi info (WPA passkey, etc.), returning an error message, using IE6 on w2k; using IE6 on XP did the trick. Still not sure why that should make a difference, unless it's some .NET thing.
Once set up, it works a charm.
B&W printing quality is, as on your reviewed model, lovely. Color is ... meh (and pokey, @ 4ppm) but, hey, it *is* color.
@ Limited printing
I've always found it fiddling to feed envelopes into any printer. Easier to use window envelopes, or a dedicated label printer.
oooooh shiny
i like it a lot
i'm trying to find a reason for needing a mono laser printer instead of a colour inkjet, and i can't yet
but when i do, i think i'll be getting this one
