Samsung CLP-510N

Pros: quiet when not in use

Cons: quality, speed - poor, poor value

Summary: I wish I had been here before all the trouble I went through to get one of these.

The CLP-550N was at such a competitive price I hunted for it with 3 of my suppliers - and 7 weeks later there were still no confirmed stock of the printer. I eventually opted for the CLP-510, but I imagine the 510, 510N, 550 and 550N are all the same printer but with NICs and more memory. Toms Hardware had this rated very well and I read some other reviews that gave this printer a good rating. We have a Xerox Phaser 7300 and Epson Aculaser - and the Epson is an old, dying printer - and both give results worthy of a colour laser printer.

This Samsung printer is so bad, I have tried to get my supplier to take it off me and sent a written letter to Samsung (because they don't handle complaints over the telephone, apparently). I've had no response yet but we are after getting our money back for this - it's not even worth a dollar to me - not with the cost of the cartridges to replace! We might as well have purchased a top of the range inkjet and still had better results than this!

To clarify, the ink DOES drop on the paper (does not guarantee your prints will be CLEAN), the text quality is poor (SHODDY) - far from what I expect from a colour printer, the contrast is poor, the default brightness isn't right - the colours aren't sharp and give the look of "bleeding" - but there isn't any - it's just the way the printer drops the ink on the page. You really get better results from inkjets these days and I can't believe this printer is out for sale on the market. Even the printing speed isn't impressive!

The main reason I avoided HP (comparable printer cost) was because of the cost of replacement parts. Kyocera have been fantastic printers for black and white prints. What can I say ... if we can get rid of this we will go for an HP or another Epson Aculaser. Very, very disappointed, Samsung - and disappointed with all the magazines and web-sites that rated this printer so highly!

BEWARE!