How can you fall in love with a printer? Well, I guess you can't but when something exceeds your expectations as much as this printer did for me, you can't help but try and find an emotion to summarise it. Love comes close.
As Secretary of a small am-dram club, I am responsible for designing and printing the poster and fliers for our forthcoming pantomime. This year, instead of using my HP printer, one of the members allowed me use of her Samsung ML 1210 Laser print and I was suitably impressed with both the quality of print and the printer itself.
** INSTALLATION **
I am told the printer is very easy to install. Physically the printer comes almost intact - the only piece you need to install is a translucent blue plastic holder for output paper to rest against. It doesn't come with any cables other than the power cables so you'll need to buy your own USB or Parallel cable.
The software installation is straightforward - essentially pop the disk in and follow the instructions.
** PHYSICAL ASPECTS **
so, now to the general description of this printer: It is fairly small for a laser printer, because it uses both an upright paper feed and an upright
output tray. This allows the drum to go underneath and between the two without needing a lot of extra space. It's also relatively light since there isn't much beyond the drum/cartridge mechanism and a plastic shell. The unit is quite sturdy in design and thus rarely if ever breaks down.
The main input tray is found all the way at the back of the printer. It holds 150 sheets of paper. There's a separate envelope feed area just in front of the main input slot, which I like - there's no need to remove the regular paper and fiddle with moving sliders around to hold envelopes. This area does use sliders and will also support stacks of other irregularly sized papers that are less than 8.5 inches wide.
The output tray also holds 150 sheets and for once I'd guess the manufacturers did not overestimate the capacity. There are no weight limitations (again because of the vertical design) so the only limitation is the size of the area.
The front panel of the unit includes two very convenient buttons: a toner saver and a reprint button, which will reprint the last page printed, even if the computer has been turned off. This is a lifesaver, when you've printed something, shut down the computer, then realise you need a few more copies. You can also use this feature to save time when making multiple copies of a complex page, because the page information does not need to be resent from the computer.
The front of the printer also has a thin slot you can open to feed individual sheets of specialty papers, transparencies, and the like. The entire front panel including the output tray opens to reveal the printer cartridges, which slide in very easily but require a really hard tug to remove.
Further to that, this unit comes with 8MB (unfortunately not expandable) of pre installed DRAM memory, which is sufficient for most small to a medium printing projects.
The footprint of the printer is fairly small - only slightly bigger than a sheet of paper, so it doesn't hog the desk.
** PRINTING **
The Samsung ML-1210 prints like a dream. According to the manufacturer it prints 12 ppm but quite honestly it seems faster to me. When I was printing the pantomime scripts i.e. large documents or multiple copies of smaller documents e.g. fliers & posters, I didn’t find myself twiddling my thumbs or staring at the printer waiting for it to get around to finishing the job.
It prints quietly and without a fuss. It never jammed with A4 paper, card, or envelopes. It prints crisply and cleanly with a fairly dark ink. The other notable feature of this printer is the toner saver feature, which allows you to economise and extend the life of your toner cartridge by printing at a lower resolution, and quality, where the quality of a print is not that of a big concern (quick draft printing option). It uses 40% less toner than the normal mode; the pages are reasonably dark and very readable although I wouldn't use this for important documents. I would be comfortable using this printer for professional jobs with the Toner Save mode turned off.
With the 8MB of memory, the printer handles even big print jobs quickly without slowing down the computer. I did notice however, if the printer isn't used for a while it goes into energy-saving mode. When in this state, it can take a few seconds to warm up before starting to print again. The good news is that it's practically silent when it's in energy-saving mode, so if you tend to leave your printer on all the time, it's a good trade.
Over all, I was satisfied with the print quality, which is very sharp at 600 dpi and the speed of the unit. The warm-up time is about one minute and it is very convenient to be able to print out Web pages and other documents in sharp black-and-white quickly, rather than waiting for my inkjet to crank out pages using expensive ink cartridges.
** TONER AND COST OF OWNERSHIP **
The SamsungML-1210 uses a large drum cartridge rated for 2500 sheets (3500 in Toner Save mode). Sharon (the printer’s owner) told me the ink coverage only started to get light after close to six months of fairly heavy home use. The cartridge responds well to shaking, allowing another several hundred pages of printing before finally requiring a cartridge change at a cost of approx £30.
** SAMSUNG – THE COMPANY **
Samsung has been known for a long time as a great quality product manufacturer who builds a great line of products with attention to detail, functionality and reliability, yet still priced quite affordable and way more economical than any of their competitor's based products with similar specs and features.
One of Samsung's great lines of products is their line of laser printers. Built to last, economical and with features that you will not find on any similarly priced competitor's item, they are definitely a jewel amongst the crowd and definitely worth buying if you are serious about purchasing a laser printer.
The ML 1210 is an entry range laser printer from Samsung's extensive line of laser printers, however do not be fooled by such fact as it is still robust and capable unit that has lots to offer for a home or a small office user.
** THE DOWN SIDE **
The only disadvantage, if you can call it disadvantage at all, with this, is they use a single one piece integrated toner and drum cartridge meaning every time you change your toner you will also have to change your drum mechanism. This can add a few pennies to the maintenance cost of your laser printer, but still is not such bad idea if you consider it will force you to keep your printer in top shape since drum mechanism on most laser printers is the fastest wearing component and is recommended you replace it often as part of the regular maintenance of your printer.
** THE BOTTOM LINE **
I really like this printer. For most home printing needs, it is a great buy. This printer is miles ahead of the competition. Samsung's done it again.
Pictures of Samsung ML 1210
The printer
How helpful would this review be to a person making a buying decision? Rating guidelines
Advantages: - cheap price; economical; good, clear print in text mode; fast; reliable Disadvantages: - no printer cable; no printed manual; print quality for photos & graphics not good
salsablue64 02.10.2003 ·
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Ciao members have rated this review on average: very helpful
Review of Samsung ML 1210
Jun 26th, 2004
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