Color - 21 ppm Mono - 5 ppm Color - USB, Parallel - MPN: CLP550
Strengths: Capable printer with single pass color capability. Easy insertion of toner cartridges. Nice duplex option. Uses full toner rather than starter cartridges. Post-script capable.
Weakness: Large printer occupies a significant portion of real estate. Occasional misfeed of several pages passing through at once, but no paper jams for the month I have had the printer.
I have owned several laser printers in the past, this being my second color laser printer. I really like the ease of toner insertion with the rectangular cartridges, especially compared to other entry level color laser printers which have to be cycled to the correct position. The printer is billed as having a relatively quiet printing mechanism, and this is clearly a relative phenomena. It is less clunky than the multipass laser printers, and I have found it to ne much more tolerable, but it is not silent. So far I am happy with the choice, especially since you can get good deals on this printer, and the print quality including color is quite good. I wish this printer were available when I made my first purchase of a color laser printer.
100% of readers found this review helpful. Did you find it helpful or unhelpful?
TopStrengths: Good print quality, High capacity toner, Duplex feature
Weakness: Unclear installation guide, long warm up time, mediocre finish, no toner saving mode
The printer has a fair amount of nice features, such as duplex printing, 1200x1200 resolution. The print quality is good for both color and B&W output. I tried to print a Word document in point size 3 in both 600dpi and 1200dpi. The output is quite sharp. There is no doubt about the quality.
Besides the nice features, it does have a few drawbacks. There are a few components to install - 4 catridges, 1 imaging unit and 1 transfer belt. All these components are surrounded by hard cover papers in black plastic bags. The imaging unit is covered by a black sheet of paper more. The installation guide is not clear to mention removing the papers, especially some look like part of the components.
The finish of the printer is mediocre. To install the transfer belt and the imaging unit, the top cover of the printer need to be opened. There is a button which controls the lock of the top cover. No matter how hard I pressed the button, I could not release the lock to open the cover. I tried it many times but it was in vain. Right before I decided to return the printer, I found a trick to open it. I pushed the top cover toward inside when I opened it. Then there was no problem opening it. I don't think this is the way Samsung designs as the trick is not mentioned in their installation guide.
The warm up time is a bit long. It takes around 1 minute to warm up. Once it starts to print, everything is fine. The printout comes out in a satisfactory speed (close to what Samsung claims). Bear in mind that it takes longer time to print color pictures in 1200dpi than 600dpi. I tested the printer by printing the same picture in 1200dpi and 600dpi. It takes longer to have the picture printed out in 1200dpi. Besides, this printer does not have toner saving mode like my another HP printer. It is a nice-to-have feature which I use most of the time to print draft documents.
The other thing about the printer is, when it is in ready mode, I find that the lights in my house blink every minute. To solve the problem, I change the set up so that the printer turns to sleeping mode in 5 minutes. However, within these 5 minutes, the blinking still happens but at least it stops it going after 5 minutes.
On a whole, the printer is still a good printer with respective to print quality. To me, the drawbacks are acceptable considering it is a lot cheaper than HP color printers with similar features (and HP does not support 1200dpi).
100% of readers found this review helpful. Did you find it helpful or unhelpful?
TopStrengths: Price, features
Weakness: Consumable cost -- but it's the razor / razor blade model, worse with the competitors.
The Samsung CLP-550 is an excellent buy for general color printing. While I would prefer a thermal wax or dye-sub for photographs, the price point of that type of printer is beyond what's reasonable for casual use -- and comparing the quality of this printer against those would be unfair.
In point of fact I was actually pleasantly surprised by the quality of the very first photograph that came out of PhotoShop (it was actually far better than the sample prints that I saw at retail outlets). While it's probably still a better idea to go to a photo developer to have keep sake prints made, I think most anyone will be very happy with the quality of the photographs from this printer. BTW I find that photo paper works perfectly; but really high quality bright stock works great too.
Black text on the printer isn't as good that from my HP4050TN, but it's quite acceptable -- and the duplexer and large paper trays make this reasonable as a general purpose printer.
The printer comes will full toner cartridges (make sure if you're comparing it to others you consider that) -- the only thing I would say don't bother with is getting the networked model or buying the network card later on -- $100 is too much for that, and it works fine with a USB2.0 print server ($20).
Another thing I really like is the form factor -- it's a reasonable size, and everything is nicely laid out (purely subjective -- you might hate it... but next to my HP it seems fabulous).
I would highly recommend you consider this printer if it suits your need... it won't be right for everyone.
97% of readers found this review helpful. Did you find it helpful or unhelpful?
TopStrengths: quiet, fast, full duplex
Weakness: slow warm up
i'm new the color laser market, but in comparison to the huge HP laser enterprise printers, i think this printer does the same output and volume job just as well for half the cost.
i love the full duplex feature as i print out presentations for sales.
the only thing i dont like is that coming out of sleep mode, it takes a while to warm up and start the print jobs. once it finally starts up, the printer prints out incredibily fast.
96% of readers found this review helpful. Did you find it helpful or unhelpful?
TopStrengths: Prints fast and is not as noisy as other laser printers are. Nice sleek design, holds plenty of paper and has many nice features. Price is very good for a color laser printer. Can't beat it.
Weakness: none I have found yet
Prints fast and is not as noisy as other laser printers are. Nice sleek design, holds plenty of paper and has many nice features. Can't beat the price. Price is very good for a color laser printer. Prints black and color text very nice and it also doesn't take up a lot of space which is good if you have limited room to begin with. I Reccomend it.
94% of readers found this review helpful. Did you find it helpful or unhelpful?
Top
It's not everyday that we at BFR get a chance to review a color laser printer but that's why today isn't just another day. Today the friendly folks at Samsung, who have also allowed us to review their SyncMaster 192MP 19" and SyncMaster 213T 21.3" LCD monitors, sent us their CLP-550 color laser printer and we can't wait to try it out.
Top
It is a very good printer
Strengths: Very good color printing quality
Weakness: A bit slow by transfering and buffering file from PC to printer.
Among several laser and ink jet printer I own, this is best oenn over all.
The color printing ( 1200*1200 )on regular leter size paper renders very good picture quality. I think it is perfect to print color learning books for my 2 years old son.
Thanks.
100% of readers found this review helpful. Did you find it helpful or unhelpful?