51 of 53 people found the following review helpful:
Begotten by default
I avoided this product because of it's reviews. On Black Friday, after doing my homework, I went out and bought an HP which was incompatible with my Mac. (homework not so good on that respect) After spending a considerable amount of time with HP support I was notified that there was no driver compatibility.
I went back to the store and hesitantly exchanged my...
52 of 63 people found the following review helpful:
The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly
I bought this printer on an amazing Black Friday $99 deal thinking that it would be more economical than my inkjet for printing out the 360 pages I needed for my family's holiday newsletter. It was an unfortunate mix of good and bad...
GOOD: Small, looks nice, great price, toner relatively inexpensive, quiet, hooking it up to the Mac was a breeze. Full page...
This review is from: Samsung Color Laser Printer (CLP-315) (Electronics)
I avoided this product because of it's reviews. On Black Friday, after doing my homework, I went out and bought an HP which was incompatible with my Mac. (homework not so good on that respect) After spending a considerable amount of time with HP support I was notified that there was no driver compatibility.
I went back to the store and hesitantly exchanged my HP for the Samsung. It was cheaper after rebate anyways.
I have since burned off more than 40 presentations that have been of superb quality and I have no complants of the printer's effectiveness. I have full software control over fine-lines. The color representation has been great. There was a previous complaint of "smoke" which was probably mistaken for the warming of the toner.
My greatest concern is the cost of replacement toner which was quelled when I saw the price of the others.
This is my first review of anything ever and I would like to express my sincere happiness with this printer so far.
Scott
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This review is from: Samsung Color Laser Printer (CLP-315) (Electronics)
I bought this printer on an amazing Black Friday $99 deal thinking that it would be more economical than my inkjet for printing out the 360 pages I needed for my family's holiday newsletter. It was an unfortunate mix of good and bad...
GOOD: Small, looks nice, great price, toner relatively inexpensive, quiet, hooking it up to the Mac was a breeze. Full page photo print on premium laser paper was the best I've seen on a color laser, not as good as an inkjet running photo paper, but much better than an inkjet using plain paper.
These are all great plusses, but it wasn't all rosy.
BAD: When refeeding the paper back into the hopper to print on the back side, the printer jammed every couple of pages. The added friction of the toner on the bottom side really messed with it. The paper curled a bit and I tried to flatten as best as possible, but it kept on jamming.
Text: I thought the text was not as sharp as it could be and when I compared it to the text output from my cheapie monochrome Brother laser, I was blown away at how much more refined the Brother was. I did not get a chance to try the Samsung in monochrome mode to compare the difference, but in color mode, no contest whatsoever - slightly blurry and way oversaturated. It also printed with some odd white dot artifacts around all the high-contrast edges when I tried to use premium glossy LASER paper in it - had to stick with the mid-range paper instead of the high-end paper.
My biggest shock was how quickly the toner disappeared. I was printing a newsletter with a few small photos on each page, maybe 25% coverage, and two of the toners were completely dry after 250 pages and the other two were very low. I imagine that if I was printing full-page photos, which was my original reason for buying it, I would have been lucky to get 100 pages out of a toner set. At $150+ for a toner set, this works out to well over a buck a page for full-size, and around 50 cents for my newsletter-type stuff, a far cry from the 15 cents per page that Samsung claims. This was no longer an economical printer by any means, so after a restless night sleep, and a bit of guilt over using most of the toner, I reluctantly decided to return it. Between the double-sided jamming, barely acceptable text quality, and the high cost-per-page, I just couldn't live with this printer. (To be fair, the printer came with "starter" cartridges, and I hoped I could chalk its thirst up to that, but then I found out that Samsung's starter cartridges really have 70% capacity, so that didn't help much.)
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This review is from: Samsung Color Laser Printer (CLP-315) (Electronics)
I recently purchased this printer at Staples in Los Angeles, Ca. I was dismayed that while the printer had been out for near a month (supposedly) no one had reviewed it on any website I could find (tech saavy website or purchasing website such as this). So I decided that even though reviews aren't my normal thing I'd take a shot so everyone else could have a jumping off point.
This is my 3rd printer, first laser. My first printer was a pos hp top loading seriously cheapest printer you could buy during college sort of thing. It sucked. I still have and own my second printer an HP PSC 2410xi photosmart all in one. Why did I buy HP after my first experience? I don't know I think it was a good deal or something. It was a good choice. My only complaint with that printer is one the cost of ink refills, and two the scanner quickly developed a marking on the underside of the glass from the scanner ribbon touching the glass. This is fixable/cleanable but you have to take the entire machine apart to get under there and I'm lazy.
Now to the review you were hoping to read. I work in the entertainment industry and am always printing headshots at the last minute if I need a look I haven't had professionally mass printed. I also print scripts, and from time to time colorful brouchures for projects I work on. The Samsung CLP-315 does all of those things, faster, more efficent, and almost as well (color wise) as my HP.
It is true, the color of my inkjet as a "Photo" does look better than the laser printer, but that is so small a detail I do not mind. I am not using this printer to scrap book, and I won't lose an acting job if I printed on a laser instead of an inkjet. What I will do is save money and time, and with the amazing price on this printer (even better if you lucked out on the model it's replacing the Samsung CLP-310 (which was going for $99 at the time I purchased this one) it's almost stupid not to buy one. I was aware that the CLP-310 was notorious for paper jams. So I spent the extra $100 on the newer sleaker black one (my whole comp set up is black as well and my monitor is a Samsung 24" flatscreen so it fits in well) hoping that they newer model would have some fixes solved such as the paper jam. I haven't had one yet, but I'll update this review if I do. My ONLY complaint so far is about the confusing GLOSSY paper issue. There is a glossy paper option in program pull down menus (it was NOT for the aforementioned CLP-310 and I have read horror stories about that, I'm glad I opted for the 315 in this case), however the option strictly states... GLOSSY PHOTO 160G/M2. I don't know what that is or means, as far as my googling has shown it's paper you buy in the U.K. That is not what I purchased at my local staples. I bought HP Glossy Presentation Paper for Laser printers 34lb 95 brightness when I purchased the printer. So far it has worked fine. I have noticed with this paper the printer does become noiser and a clunking noise is heard. What is that? I don't know. I'm glad I bought the 2 year warranty. With regular paper it prints as quiet as a mouse, that, er prints paper from a quiet laser printer. So I'm not sure if the extra noise is due to the weight of the paper or the glossy aspect of it. Either way it's not my favorite thing about the printer. A drawback is that the printer comes with little documentation, no manual. There is a pdf download on the official website, but I hate pdfs. Seriously samsung. You should include a paper manual.
And now my overview of my already too long review. I've heard awful things about Samsung printers from online research. I know my recent still working HP printer is fantastic (mostly) and the one before it was crap, crap, crap. So here's my stance. I'm a broke actor. If I had $900 bucks to spend on the the top of the line color laser printer with all the bells and whistles from a top company I probably would. But I'm willing to gamble that the newer Samsung CLP-300 series printer is a vast improvement over the previous one, which was amazing at that being the smallest color laser printer and cheapest. It prints quickly, clearly, and colorfully. It's not photograph perfect, but I don't really care about that for this, plus I have my good ole trusty HP inkjet standing by for that rare occasion. (wait my quick overview is growing longer by the second)...
Appearance 10/10
Quietness 8/10
Print quality B&W 10/10
Print quality Color 7/10
Price 10/10
If you're looking for a quality color laser printer for a HUGE bargain of a price you can't go wrong. If you have lots of money to purchase the printer of your dreams, this probably isn't it. But then again you probably have lots of money because you don't squander it on unnecissary things when you can get a good deal at a fair price. ;-)
-Tim Piper (Please hire me for acting work, especially cop shows!!)
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This review is from: Samsung Color Laser Printer (CLP-315) (Electronics)
You get what you pay for! You are buying the cheapest laser printer on the market. IF you want the best quality, the fastest printer, the highest paper capacity, etc, you will not find it with the cheapest price tag. With that being said, I had realistic expectations with this printer, and they were fulfilled. I print about 100 pages a day to market to my clients. Works fine. if you have high expectations, spend twice the money. It's a simple as that.
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This review is from: Samsung Color Laser Printer (CLP-315) (Electronics)
Just picked up this CLP at Staples. Color prints look great, for a laser printer. Don't expect photo quality prints on glossy photo paper. No laser does that as good as an inkjet. Text is crisp and clear in color and B&W. As for the smell it will go away after about 100 pages. Its even listed in the documentation if you read it. Pepole have been complaining that the paper tray sticks out an extra 3.5" from the side of the printer, I have yet to see a compact printer inkjet or laser that the tray or paper door doesn't stick out from the main body of the machine. If you have bad print quality like color mixing you might have a bad toner cartridge, so take it back. As for the people complaining of it causing flickering lights, you either have bad wiring or you have the circuit overloaded. I have this printer on the same small USP as my computer with a 1000W power supply, monitor, and a NAS, and have no flickering lights. This printer was given an Editors Choice award by PCMag I would trust them over some of the reviews on here. [...]
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This review is from: Samsung Color Laser Printer (CLP-315) (Electronics)
I bought this printer based on research I did after my last inkjet got clogged nozzles beyond my ability to clear. Some of the reviews I read gave me a feeling of uneasy but my experience with the printer proved them wrong.
Firstly, I love the compact design of the printer and the fact that it uses smaller toner cartridges than most lasers. An inkjet printer, unlike a laser, must be used to print with every now and then to keep the nozzles on the print head free of clogs. I don't have to worry about that with a laser. Also the price of replacement toner cartridges isn't astronomical.
Next, the quality of the text printed is quite acceptable to me. Yes, if you look at it under a 10x magnifier the edges are little fuzzy but I don't print things that need to looked at under a magnifier. To the normal eye the printed text looks crisp and clean.
On the subject of color images, well, this is not an inkjet printing on premium paper nor a dye sublimation printer which about $1.50 per printed page. Yes, printed images from this printer will not be a good as from an inkjet using high quality photo paper, but they are also not as bad as images from that same inkjet printed on regular paper. I printed a few images from some Corel Photo CDs and from a couple of feet away they look fine (though you will have to adjust the color settings to your taste). If I need better quality, I can always send the image to one of the on-line photo processing sites and have it printed there.
The CLP-315 does use a lot of power and its power saving mode could do a better job, but I simply leave the printer off until I need to print something and then turn it off again when I'm done.
All in all I am very pleased with this printer.
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This review is from: Samsung Color Laser Printer (CLP-315) (Electronics)
I recently purchased the CLP-315 and am very pleased with the unit as a low cost, small home printer. Its much faster and less hassle than ink jet printers I've owned. CD includes drivers for Mac OS X and Windows.
There are better printers available but not at the price this is available.
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This review is from: Samsung Color Laser Printer (CLP-315) (Electronics)
The Samsung clp-315 is my latest purchase in a long string of home and office printers. It's very small and compact for a color laser printer, almost approaching the size of the smallest black and white lasers. It's a very inexpensive printer, often sold with a substantial discount - mine was $149 retail, with a $100 rebate. Samsung is obviously following the well worn strategy of making money on the toner cartridges, not on the printer itself...but even then, there are limits with what can be offered in a $150 printer.
Pros:
- Small and compact.
- Low stand-by power consumption (advertised and measured at 5 watts)
- Inexpensive to purchase; replacement toner cartridges aren't particularly expensive ($40 - $50 each)
- Prints on many different types of paper stock
- Envelopes curl a bit, but are usable (unlike my old Brother MFC inkjet!)
- Easy to set up. The toner cartridges are preinstalled. All you need to do is remove the packing material, install the drivers, plug everything together and go. I think it took well under ten minutes total...it would have been less, but my 12 year old was helping.
- The toner cartridges (and just about everything else!) are all easily accessed by opening the front door.
Cons:
- The printer is not very fast.
- Warm-up uses almost 1000 watts for a brief period of time...the voltage drop on my house circuit causes my UPS to beep. You wouldn't want to use this a lot on a heavily loaded circuit or you're liable to pop a circuit breaker. (In common with many laser printers.)
- Solid blocks of color are a little blotchy
- Small black type doesn't seem as sharp as some other monochrome laser printers (but is perfectly usable unless you like printing 4 point text!).
- USB connection only...no direct network connectivity. (The clp-315w has built-in wireless networking.) The printer can, of course, be accessed by any computer on the network as long as the host computer is turned on. (Note: I only use Windows at home...I haven't tried a Mac or Linux system)
- Paper tray feels flimsy, but no worse than most inexpensive printers.. (A minor annoyance...when removing the tray after printing a small envelope, the paper size settings in the tray move. They have to be readjusted for each envelope.)
- As reported by some other reviewers, the printer initially had a nasty smell when printing...something from the factory was burning off. The bulk of the oder faded in the first few hours and was completely gone after a day or two.
- This printer, like all color lasers, does a poor job printing photographs. If smooth tonal quality is of primary concern, you should purchase an inkjet printer.
Conclusion: This is not designed to be a heavy-duty, high speed printer, but it works well within the boundaries of it's design. It's perfect for the kids and their homework assignments or for printing correspondence or Quicken reports. I'll report back in a year or so, after we've really broken it in...or sooner if something unusual happens.
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This review is from: Samsung Color Laser Printer (CLP-315) (Electronics)
Update (12-26-2009): It's been a little over a year, and this printer is still going strong. I finally had to order replacement CMY toner today for about $100, which is not bad for annual toner replacement costs (we print homework and web pages daily). The original black toner cartridge went months ago, but its replacement is doing just fine. My only regret is not buying the networked version of this printer. I'm using a DLINK print server, and although it works most of the time, I have to reboot it fairly often.
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I bought this printer because I was tired of buying little cubes of ink for $40 for our inkjet printer. Inkjet is a great technology for printing on photo paper, but it's too expensive for everyday printing (Mapquest directions, homework, Fandango tickets, etc).
At the current street price, I think this printer is a bargain. It was only twice what I was about to pay for replacement ink for our inkjet! It comes with enough ink for 700 pages, according to the manual.
I connected it to my D-Link NAS, which has a built-in USB print server, so now we can print from any PC in the house. Setup was fairly simple, and the first pages came out looking nice.
The unit seems a little noisy to me, but it's in a network closet so that doesn't really matter for us. The top gets very hot, which I admit is a little concerning to me. I assume that if it was a real fire hazard, there would be a recall, right?
The print quality is very good for the price. Small text is very easy to read. Photos print out nice and even, with accurate colors. On plain paper, the print quality is better than our HP inkjet.
One feature that I like is that you can tell the printer to only use black ink for text, and to make it a bit darker so it's easier to read. I'm guessing that this will save money, since it won't blindly print "very dark gray" using the 3 primary colors.
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This review is from: Samsung Color Laser Printer (CLP-315) (Electronics)
I had bought the HP CP1515N at Costco, first-- Came upon the Samsung printer CLP-315 at a much cheaper price over a 50% difference on sale. So I bought it, thinking to return the HP-- my mistake.
Colors were off compared to the HP-- green page borders were green on HP matching my computer screen; Samsung, however, recognized it as a very dark, dark green almost to the point that it was black. My company logo is a faded light blue to navy blue image with text. The Samsung printer printed as one solid dark blue color-- no color fade. HP did well. In short, Samsung had an UNACCEPTABLE performance for color text.
For pictures it did well better than the HP. Edges were sharper more detailed and crisp. HP had fuzzy edges, but acceptable quality.
The burn smell form the other reviews are correct. It filled my home office with a weird smell and the printer runs very hot.
Positive: toner cartridges are smaller and not to bad at the price level $40 each. HP can print more pages per cartridge but expensive at $70-$80 each. In fact all four replacement toner cartridges are more expensive than the printer for the HP.
If you're a student and can live with the smell pick it up on a fire sale-- it does the job. Do not pay full retail. If you're a professional or in the real estate business do not buy-- don't even consider it. I'm just wondering if there is a bad batch of printers out there. I can't believe all of them are like this.
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