I have had a colour ink jet printer for years, and this has serviced me well, however I always used to get annoyed with the smudging that can occur whilst the ink is drying. Also when using a printed envelope the address would run if it was raining when the postman was delivering or on the way to the post box.
I had always wanted a colour laser printer but they had always been put off by the price of the printers and the ongoing cost of consumables. However I was in my local PC World one weekend and spotted the Samsung CLP-300 for what I considered a reasonable price £150, so I picked one up.
-----------The Specification-----------
The CLP-300 claims to be the world's smallest and lightest colour laser printer! I am not sure if this claim is correct but the printer does come in a small package
measuring in at 390 x 344 x 265 mm, this is very useful if you want to put it on the end of a desk, compared to the HP Colour LaserJet 1600 which measures in at 407 x 453 x 370 mm it is smaller. The printer also weighs 13.6 kg so is pretty light for the class of printer it is.
In this day and age one of the key factors to consider when purchasing any products is the green credentials of the product. The main one is power consumption, the CLP-300 claims to use 350W when printing and 17W when in standby. Compared to the equivalent HP model the Colour LaserJet 1600 which uses 12 watts (powersave), 13 watts (standby), 190 watts (active) the CLP-300 uses slightly more when printing. Another important environmental factor is the noise the printer produces whist printing or in standby. The CLP-300 produces the following noise levels less than 48 dBA (Colour printing) less than 49 dBA (B/W printing) less than 35 dBA (Standby). When printing the noise is high mostly the paper handling but it is acceptable, on standby there is no appreciable noise from the printer.
The printer resolution is up to 2,400 x 600 dpi effective which is not bad for the class of machine, the HP printer is quoted at only 600 x 600dpi. This resolution is more than high enough for a colour laser printer, if you want to print photo quality prints then the best bet is still a colour inkjet printer. The CLP-300 can print up to 16 pages per minute of black and white on A4, for colour it will print up to 4 pages per minute, based on my printing experience I think these are reasonably accurate.
The Samsung uses four cartridges to provide the colours a dedicated black which will cover around 2,000 A4 pages at 5% coverage the Yellow/Magenta/Cyan cartridges are smaller and will cover 1,000 pages of A4 at 5% coverage. The waste toner is captured in separate container that has to be replaced when full and the image drum is also separate which leads to lower cost cartridges.
The printer has a paper tray with a capacity of 150 sheets which is not perfect it would be better for it to take a 500 sheet ream of paper, however I suspect this is a limitation due to the physical size of the device. Also the manual feed is carried out through the paper tray as well, this is a little annoying if you want to print one DL envelope as you have to take all the paper out of the tray then load in the envelope.
-----------Usability----------- The supplied Samsung driver has a number of options available you can choose the orientation of the page and the number of pages per sheet and how you want to duplex the sheets either on the long or short edge. Other features the driver offers is the ability to print multiple copies of the documents choose the paper type which I assume changes the amount of toner that is laid on to the page and the fuser temperature. A watermark can also be added to each print out, there are three you can choose from or you can create your own custom water mark.
If you use USB to connect to the printer you can get some status information from the printer. It will show you the mode the printer is in, standby or printing, it will also show you the amount of toner left in each cartridge. If a print server such as JetDirect then this information cannot be retrieved, the network version of the printer gives this information via a web site.
-----------Consumables----------- There are a number of consumables for the CLP-300, they are as follows the prices are from Saverstore.
Samsung use separate image units and waste toner collectors, this is different to HP's strategy whereby the all the function is contained in the toner cartridge. This allows Samsung to reduce the price of the actual toner cartridges, however you need to factor in the cost of the image unit and waste toner box when these need replacement.
-----------Price and Availability-----------
I purchased my Samsung CLP-300 from PC World for £142, since I purchased it there has been a small price drop and you can now pick one up for £119 if you use the online reservation service of PC World. There is also a network version of the same printer the CLP-300N this is slightly more expensive but does allow the software on your PC to be able to monitor the cartridge levels and other consumables life, this cannot be done using the USB interface over the network using a print server like a HP JetDirect.
-----------Conclusion-----------
I have been very impressed with the Samsung CLP-300 printer it produces really good quality prints for black and white, for photo printing the quality is reasonable and good enough just to show people a quick picture but not good enough to print photos for your album.
I would recommend this printer for anybody that wants low end colour laser printing capabilities. For the price it is very good value, the consumables are also very reasonable.
How helpful would this review be to a person making a buying decision? Rating guidelines
Great review with plenty of info. Think I'll stick with my canon printer though - till it deciedes to die, had it 3 yrs now and still going strong ! Manda.x
Purchase genuine Samsung supplies for all your printing needs. You will be guaranteed the ... more
best quality, reliability and performance without sacrificing the useful life of your printer. Samsung is a leader in the printing industry with numerous patents ...
Dec 12th, 2007
(Jul 8th, 2007)
exceptional by (2%):
very helpful by (98%):
