Dell 3110cn user reviews

Pros Price, Quality, Output

Cons A little bulky

Summary We have a variety of laser printers on our domain (8 Dell 3100's and 2 3110's) plus Xerox and Brother, but the new 3110's are my favorite. I am the IT admin for our network so I see or here about any and all problems that employees have with our equipment. Everyone loves the Dell's ease of use and, of course, the print quality and speed. Problems with the Dell's have been almost non-existant. Out of the ten we have, only one had a problem and it really wasn't much of a problem. A toner cartridge did not work properly so I called Dell, told them about the issue I had, and they overnighted me a replacement with twice the capacity (factory installed was a 2000 page and the replacement was a 4000 page!) How can you complain about that? You can't. Now I have only had the 3110's for a couple of months but they have performed flawlessly. The 3100's (which are almost identical to the 3110, minus a few improvements) have worked nicely for about a year and a half which is why I choose to buy the 3110. If you have thousands to spend on a printer, obviously you can get a superior model. But for the money, I highly recommend the 3110.

Pros speed, solid workmanship, text and graphic/photo quality, quiet

Cons none so far

Summary I agonized for a couple of weeks over which color laserjet to buy. I read all the reviews everywhere on HP, Lexmark, Oki, etc. and it seemed like there wasn't an obvious choice.

I'm pretty well branded by HP for printers so the idea of going to Dell for a private label printer was a bit scary. Also, I read all the negative reviews for the 3100cn and I was definitely concerned. Although in fairness, every printer has both positive and negative reviews.

Nonetheless, I saw the 3110cn on Dell's site for $374 plus tax and free shipping and I bought. It arrived in two days in very secure packing. Like the first reviewer, it took very little time to set up on my wireless network. I must say that I've only printed a few items, including photos, graphic logos, and text, and I'm very pleased with the quality. I think the printer is very quiet. It's certainly a bit quieter than my HP 3380 MFP. I was expecting lots of noise based on other reviews, but I can't support that criticism. It's also much faster than I thought it would be. This is a huge benefit over comparably priced HP laserjets. It is a big black box but it is nicely designed nonetheless. It's VERY SOLID. I had read reviews about cheap workmanship, but I don't agree with that either.

So, in general. . I don't think you can beat this for a $375 every day color laser printer. The photos came out remarkably nice, much better than I would have expected, even on "standard" settings.

One thing is that I don't see where you can easily change the color settings (dark/light). Not sure that this is even possible with color lasers. . I probably need to adjust my monitor presentation to match the output.

Will write more once I use it more.

Pros Good B&W text performance, cheap consumables

Cons Miserably poor color performance

Summary When I look at the good reviews this printer seems to have, it makes me wonder if mine is broken. As a graphics professional, I have used a LOT of printers over the last ten years, from $50 Epsons to 32-up printing presses. For $450, this is a decent black and white printer: it has fast output, sharp text, and doesn't jam any more than the norm. But the color features of this printer may as well not exist. It's output quality for printing out mixed media is roughly equivalent to a Tektronix solid ink printer I used to use in 1996 (Phaser 300 IIRC). The two major problems are that the Dell doesn't appear to have any sort of halftoning, and that it has the worst overprint ghosting I HAVE EVER SEEN! (That is, black text on top of a colored background appears as though there's a white blur behind it.) But let's get back to halftoning: when printing a solid block of color there's noticable patterning in the ~133dpi range, which is entirely unnacceptable for a printer from 2006 even if it's only $450.

If all you do is print out excel sheets, this will be okay, but you'll still be annoyed by the text ghosting. The Ricoh Afico CL3500 with duplexer runs for $700 these days, and is a much better value. On the lower end, a decent Epson on HP inkjet is also a much better value. I would not recommend this printer to anyone.

Pros Fast, quiet, solid build and excellent print quality

Cons It's big but I have the room

Summary I just got this on Sept 8th. Box is heavy but manageable. Setup was a no brainer. I put it on my wireless LAN and set it up from a wireless laptop. I had it up and running in 25 minutes. People not familiar with networks may have to do a little reading, but the manual is fairly extensive for a printer and well laid out. The software was easy to install and produced a test print within minutes. Let me say one thing; this printer is fast… I was expecting a delay as the paper feeds through the paper path but this happened so fast that it appeared immediately. Wow! The print quality is fantastic! I tried many documents with mixed graphics and plain text and all were printed quickly. I printed a couple of photos and was impressed at how well they turned out. While they won’t look as good as a high quality ink jet or dye sub, it’s pretty darn good. The software provides facilities for monitoring printer status, configuration and toner levels from any connected computer. It also allows you to password protect the system from users or restrict them from printing in color. While these features would be handy in an office environment, they won’t be used by many home users. Another nice feature is that most of the consumables are built into the toner cartridge thereby reducing the per-print page cost and overall maintenance cost. The printer seems well built and solid. It also consumes less power than my older B&W laser. Adding options like extra memory and a duplexer is easy. I put these options on within 5 minutes. $199.00 for the duplexer is a bargain compared to what others charge. I purchased 512mB from Crucial.com for about $58.00; which is cheaper than Dell. The printer itself cost me $358.00 plus tax. In all, you cannot touch another brand with these features, print speed and quality for the price. Be careful ordering this over the phone, Dell sales people messed up my order three times with the first one resulting in being sent the wrong printer. Order online to ensure you get what you ordered.