My purchase of the Samsung ML-1510laser printer was, as indeed all my purchases of computer equipment are, a matter of necessity rather than decadent want. My hand was forced as I was faced a long summer of job application and dissertation writing; and my vintage Canon BJC 4300ink-jet printer became: 1. Financially unsustainable – The amount of material I am printing would have forced me to spend literally hundreds of pounds on cartridges. 2. Frustratingly unreliable – I would spend critical minutes trying to coax the machine into printing that would often culminate in me walking to the kitchen in despair to seek a cup of tea. 3. Totally unsuitable – In this modern day and age CV gurus advocate that to use anything but a laser printer when applying for a job is unacceptable, and in alliance with these gurus my trusty Canon would (when it actually deemed my documents worthy of printing) spit and drool all over the document in all the wrong places, making it look as if a child got hold of it and attacked it with a black fountain pen.
Faced with these obstacles the only solution was a laser printer, so armed with my VISA and an assurance from mother that I would be reimbursed, it was off to the internet via a stop off at my local Curry’s. The girl that served me looked very confused when I asked her to point me towards the laser printers and replied “We have printer over there.” At this point I tried to explain to her that those were ink-jets and not what I was looking for, now in a cunning bit of salesmanship she came out with the most terrific one liner that could have ever
been uttered by any sales clerk ever: “A printer is a printer isn’t it? There can’t be much difference between them, I’ll get the manager.” The next five minutes I found myself having a surreal out of body experience as a saw myself explaining what a laser printer was and that I needed one immediately to the manager of the shop. Unbelievably his response was “Oh yes I’ve seen those, we don’t stock any, we could order one for you if you want.”
I left the store in shocked despair at the state of the nation and indeed humanity and cursing whatever local or central government employment initiative had given these idiots jobs. Within twenty minutes I was on the internet hunting for bargains; it was there that I discovered the ML 1510.
The printer was undisputedly the cheapest laser printer on the market, priced at a very reasonable £69.00 (excl. VAT & S&H) from the retailer that I bough it from, making the ML 1510 cheaper than most ink-jet printers on the market. I could have easily upgraded my sights and chosen the ML 1710, which is Samsung’s next model up from the ML 1510, as it was priced at no more than £5 extra across the market and in fact was identical in price at the retailer where I was shopping.
The only difference between the 1510 and the 1710 is that the former prints at a respectable 14 ppm (pages per minute) and the later pips it at 17 ppm. The ML 1510 would suffice in my case as the printer was destined for a life of sporadic home use the extra three pages per minute would have made pitifully little difference, and indeed the only advantage would be the satisfaction that I did not buy the entry-level model. However if the printer is destined for a life of regular office type use I would recommend the ML 1710 if not something else altogether.
It was mostly the price that limited me to these two models; the subtle differences would have perhaps pushed me towards the higher model but an irresistible offer from Samsung destined me towards the ML 1510. If you were to buy the ML 1510 before 30 July 2004 you would receive a free Samsung 32MB USB Key; having considered buying a USB key or memory stick (as it is also know), this was the clinching factor in my decision. To qualify for the offer you need to fill in and print of the relevant form from www.samsung.co.uk and send it along to the stated address along with proof of purchase and completed warrantee card. I am still waiting for mine but such things normally take time and I have patience.
Having ordered the machine it arrived two days later, like a child at Christmas I open the packaging and produce the following things out of the box: 1 printer, 1 installation manual, 1 printer driverCDRom, 1 power cable. No USB cable, ah problem, on closer examination the box does state that the USB cable is not included. So it was off to the local computer parts shop and £5 later I return USB cable in hand, incidentally I am lead to believe that it has become standard practice amongst manufacturers not to include USB cables and indeed parallel cables where they are still made.
Now to the fun of installation, quick thumb through the installation manual, it’s quite idiot proof with big easy to understand pictures and instruction, and indeed the only challenging thing is finding the five pages of English in a hundred pages of other languages, luckily as with most things these are the first five. In keeping true to my geeky roots I rarely read these manuals but when the USB port eludes discovery it becomes necessary. The only other challenge that came with the printer was trying to discover the location of all the plastic shipping tags that stop bits in the printer from jiggling around and becoming damaged, some were obvious as they were in prominent locations on the outside of the printer, few were less so as they were concealed within, in the paper tray and the cartridge slot.
Having prepared the printer for operation, and plugged everything in it was time to power up. Windows reports new hardware found and that you should install the drivers for the hardware, so clearly not Plug & Play compatible, never mind that’s what the CD Rom is there for. Installing drivers . . . Thirty seconds . . . Windows reports a new printer has been installed. The CD Rom not only includes the essential printer driver but also the user manual (in English) in PDF formal, and Adobe Acrobat Reader for those that inexplicably do not have a PDF reader installed on their systems.
The manual is quite useful, especially the section that gives the technical information as to the type of paper you can and cannot use. Rule of thumb: if it’s labelled as being suitable for laser printers its suitable for the ML 1510. There are also sections on maintenance and the other media that the printer is capable of printing on, worth a read as all laser printers are different.
Fantastic, time to print the test page . . . load the paper into the tray (referring to the user guide is useful at this point) . . . hold the only button on the printer for five seconds and things start whirring. The wheels start spinning as the printer warms itself up and somewhere inside starts a squeaking with that tell tale plastic-on-plastic squeak that most budget printers make, but no problem it doesn’t sound critical and indeed as the days passed the squeak disappeared altogether. Ten seconds later the actual printing begins you hear the paper being picked up from the tray and out it comes face down a beautifully crisp monochrome printout of the driver locations.
Result! A successfully installed printer and minimal hassle.
At this point I feel it would be prudent to discuss the toner, as this is a vital consideration in buying a printer. A toner cartridge is included with the printer but I would strongly recommend buying a replacement. These cost between £47 - £57 so nearly as much as the printer itself, but they are still quite good value as they are rated to be capable of up to 3,000 pages at 5% toner coverage. The toner cartridge that is included is only half full and is stated as being capable of no more than 1,000 pages.
There is a toner saver mode on the ML 1510 that can be activated by holding the button for a given period of time or selecting the option in Print properties, this will allow you to maximise the printing potential of your toner cartridge but at the expense of print quality, so only really useful if you are printing stuff that you only need temporarily such as train timetables or route maps.
Aesthetically it is probably the nicest laser printer that I have come across. The front panel is a pleasing shade of blue-grey that sports the pleasingly bright “Energy (Star)” sticker; this offsets what would otherwise be a dull all be it a nicely shaped and proportioned computer grey box. At the moment the printer sits in the general area of a 14” TV and indeed has very similar proportions along its width and depth, but is approximately a 1/3 the height.
As it is the Samsung ML 1510 represents phenomenal value for money, and puts most other entry level products to shame with its quality of performance and workmanship. It’s more than suitable for home use but would not perhaps be best suited for an office environment, for that particular market I would recommend starting the search at around the £150 margin. It is superior to all ink-jet printers on typed documents but not suited for images, in as that as it is only a black and white printer.
I would certainly recommend the ML 1510 for those that want efficient, fast, cheap, respectable quality at home printing.
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Jul 4th, 2004
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