- CNET Editors' Rating 8.0/10 Excellent Editorial policies >>
- Average user rating from 68 users 5.7/10 Average Read user opinions >>
The good: Compact and stylish design; easy installation; good text quality; support available for many OSs.
The bad: Small output tray; poor graphics quality.
The bottom line: The Samsung is a simple, compact laser printer that offers high-speed, good-quality text printing. It's ideal for personal and home-office use.
Specs: Printer Type: Personal printer - Laser - Monochrome; Max media size: Legal (8.5 in x 14 in), A4 (8.25 in x 11.7 in); Connectivity technology: Wired See full specs >>
CNET editors' review
- Reviewed on: 06/05/2003
- Updated on:02/07/2005
- Released on: 04/28/2003
The good news is that the ML-1710 is one of Samsung's most affordable monochrome laser printers. The better news is that in CNET Labs' tests, the ML-1710's performance and print quality are comparable to that of Samsung's more expensive, high-end machines. The ML-1710 is also compact enough to fit any small desk, and it boasts a user-friendly, eye-pleasing design. If the printer could only produce better graphics, it would be the best personal laser printer we've ever tested. Still, for those who want a simple, quiet, and fast printer with excellent text capabilities, the ML-1710 is good deal. The Samsung ML-1710 comes with a toner cartridge, a power cord, a setup guide, and a software CD, but unfortunately, there's no USB cable to connect it to your computer. Once you've obtained a USB cable, the setup is easy. The printed setup guide breaks down this process into simple, well-illustrated steps that are easy to understand for even the least tech-savvy user. In case you run into problems or need more help, though, there's an electronic version of the manual on the software CD.
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| The Samsung ML-1710's simplified control panel includes only two LEDs (Toner Save and Online/Error) and a multipurpose button. |
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| While the input tray holds 250 sheets, the printer's sheet tray holds less than 30 sheets. |
With a milk-white body and a gray face, the ML-1710 boasts a friendly and somewhat stylish design. At only 15 pounds and measuring 13.9 inches by 14.6 inches by 7.7 inches (WDH), it's very compact for a laser printer. The bottom-load intake paper tray is detachable, making it convenient to load paper. Plus, the tray holds as many as 250 sheets at once, compared with only a 150-sheet capacity in the larger-size Dell P1500. On the other hand, the outtake paper tray on the top holds only a limited number of sheets. During CNET's tests, printed sheets began to fall out of the tray starting at page 30 or so. The printer also has a rear output tray that works when printing only a single sheet--on stationery, for example.
The ML-1710 driver supports Windows (98 SE and later), Mac OS (8.6 or later) and many Linux titles, including Red Hat, Caldera, Debian, Mandrake, Slackware, TurboLinux, and SuSE. (CNET Labs tested the printer with Windows XP Professional only.) The ML-1710 contains common features found on most monochrome laser printers. We really like the simplified control panel on top of the ML-1710. It includes two LEDs (Toner Save and Online/Error) and a multipurpose button, which works differently according to the status of the printer. For example, by pressing it once, you will toggle the Toner Save mode on and off. (In Toner Save mode, which is recommended for printing text only, Samsung claims that you can save up to 40 percent of ink consumption.) The button can also be used to manually load a single sheet of paper using the front manual feeder, located above the intake tray.
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| ML-1710 includes USB support, but you'll have buy the cable yourself. |
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| In Toner Save mode, you should save up to 40 percent on ink consumption. |
The printer prints text and graphics up to 600x600dpi and supports paper size A4 and smaller. It can be used with a variety of media, including plain paper, transparencies, labels, postcards, and envelopes. With a 90MHz processor and 8MB of RAM, the Samsung is ideal for personal use, but it is not suitable for a busy office. Unfortunately, you cannot upgrade the amount of RAM on the ML-1710.
The software driver allows for a few special effects, such as watermark, which embeds a dim word (for example, "confidential") on the printouts, or high-altitude correction, which adjusts the toner for use in a high-altitude location, such as Denver, Colorado. You can also choose among four layout options, including "Multiple pages per side" (for printing more than one page per sheet), Reduce/Enlarge, Fit To Page, and Poster. For its size, the ML-1710 is a fast printer. It excelled in our speed tests, pumping out 12.25 pages of text per minute and 12.36 pages of mixed text and graphics per minute--that score is above average for printers in the ML-1710's price range, and it's a text/graphics score that's among the fastest we've seen.
The ML-1710 turned in only mixed print-quality results, however. The text printouts were clear, sharp, and easy to read overall; if the small fonts weren't just a little light, we would give the ML-1710 an excellent rating. Unfortunately, the printer did a bit worse with graphics printouts. The documents showed some banding and were dark, with somewhat inconsistent gradient, earning the printer only a fair graphics-quality rating.
Thankfully, the printer worked very quietly during our tests. It also responds very quickly, taking only a few seconds to start printing.
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Laser printer speed Pages per minute; longer bars indicate better performance
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Inkjet printer quality
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Samsung backs the ML-1710 with a standard one-year, limited parts-and-labor warranty. However, if you agree to send in a survey, the warranty period will be extended by three months at no additional cost. Telephone tech support is available from 7 a.m. to 6 p.m. PT, Monday through Friday. When we called, a tech-support rep answered without any hold time. The technician was knowledgeable and helpful.
You can also find help at Samsung's site, where you can download drivers and manuals or browse the FAQ section. There's even a troubleshooting section online.
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User opinions
WRITE YOUR OWN REVIEW How would you rate this product?
-
2/10 Terrible June 11, 2004
"Cheap printer -- Expensive Toner" Read more >>
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1/10 Abysmal February 23, 2005
"Poor graphics, limited OSX support" Read more >>
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2/10 Terrible April 23, 2004
"better printer in another brand only abt.$30 more" Read more >>
- WRITE YOUR OWN REVIEWSee all 68 user opinions >>
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