By Christopher RogersPosted Monday 29th June 2009 08:25 GMT
Mine sits on a shelf which is only the depth of the actual unit so when the drawer is open it hangs over the edge. Which would be okay but for the fact that somone snapped it and now drops beyond the position its meant to be in and swings on down. Its really really annoying.
By Bad BeaverPosted Monday 29th June 2009 08:27 GMT
Could we get some more information along reviews? Like, how much memory does this POC come with? I recently replaced a low brow IBM/Lexmark Laser with a cheapish Brother without paying much attention to this as it was intended to work in a low-volume home-network. What I did not expect was that the Brother apparently came with so little memory (in 2009!) that it will take several minutes for more complicated jobs (especially grafic-heavy PDFs of course, but using a nonstandard font with some applied effects will make it choke too, even if it's just a single page PDF <100kB). In fact it takes so long for some stuff to get printed one could think the thing was broken.
I would like to see a review exploring printers that are decidedly NOT in the disposable class and come with plenty memory and pre-equipped with a decent load of toner.
By Gene CashPosted Monday 29th June 2009 09:21 GMT
Laser printers were $5000! Where's my "get off my lawn" and "I'm an old man!" icons?
Seriously though, without a decent paper tray and Postscript, it's just junk. I have a Brother HL-5240 with both for only US$120. It's worth the extra wodge to do w/o CUPS or lpd.
Postscript means "no farking around with drivers for me, thank you very much!" except maybe a PPD for GIMP, but you can get by w/o one. And without drivers, you can even get rid of lpd and print directly to the device.
And why does reghardware have a "back to the article" link, and the regular site doesn't?
By Matt SmartPosted Monday 29th June 2009 09:50 GMT
...that the predecessor of this printer, the ML-1610, does have a cover for the paper tray, and it's almost identical in specification. And it's cheaper. And I can vouch for it being bloody good for the price I paid.
By Tony Smith, Editor, Reg HardwarePosted Monday 29th June 2009 10:02 GMT
The price we publish in the panel is the recommended retail price or equivalent, which we quote so that buyers can more readily assess what discount they're getting from a given supplier.
As Simon mentioned in the paragraph before his Verdict, £50 is what you'll typically pay if you shop around. But you may pay more - or less.
By kissingthecarpetPosted Monday 29th June 2009 11:25 GMT
I second that (also I didn't realise the 1st toner was a starter, so I was v.pleased to find out that the refurbished(seems identical to the original) from the cartridge I got for £20 would print over 2x as many sheets)
Works 100% on Debian testing as well (didn't rate the Samsung driver installer - didn't bother with it in the end as it worked out of the box anyway)
So just to clarify, if you had possession of a time machine, a machine that has the ability to to transport you (+ cargo of Samsung printers) through the fourth dimension, you would then use this technological marvel in order to..... sell printers?!
Is it a no-brainer? I suppose it is if by that you mean the sort of purchase that someone with no brain might make. TCO is key when buying any printer. £38 for for a 1500 page toner cartridge, is pretty extortionate.
Also WTF is going on with your PPM calculations. The time it takes to warm up and print the first page, this doesn't count towards the sustained PPM count, the article said:
"Our five-page text print took 30 seconds, so a straight 10ppm, but when we increased the run to 20 pages, it completed in 1:24, a speed of 14.3ppm. This isn’t far off the spec"
14.3 pages per minute, isn't the maximum measured speed, it is the average speed. If it took 30 seconds for 5 pages and 84 seconds for 20 pages, it seems a reasonable guess that the last 15 pages of the 20 page run took 54 seconds - that works out at 3.6 seconds per page or 16.6 pages per minute.
By Nexox EnigmaPosted Tuesday 30th June 2009 00:47 GMT
Looks like the Samsung printer I bought ~4 years ago, except in black. That was a decent printer, and the Linux drivers were on CD and worked instantly with Slackware, which I consider to be unique, especially in 2005. Too bad the rubber on the paper intake roller deal decided to fall apart, so it could no longer suck in pages.
I replaced it with a Brother HL-5250DN, which was pricier, but prints faster, duplexes, has network support, and so far has lasted a lot longer than the Samsung. I guess it doesn't support PS like another commenter required, but I don't much mind messing with CUPS. Especially since I've long ago rolled my own package to install it.
By Chris CartledgePosted Tuesday 30th June 2009 08:18 GMT
Without the standby electricity use (most printers are idle most of the time), this does not give the give the total cost of ownership. Samsung does not see fit to list power consumption on its web site, but it is in the user guide and is quoted as follows:
Average operating mode: Less than 300 W
Ready mode: Less than 70 W
Sleep mode: Less than 6W
Power off mode: 0W
If this is right (and a journalist should surely check?), it is on 24*7, and it powers down from Operating to Ready in a few seconds and from Ready to Sleep in a few minutes, then this printer will cost about £6 a year to run in the UK. This is typical for a modern low volume laser printer, and although much lower than typical printers of two or three years ago, it still adds significantly to the TCO.
Good grief Chris, no we don't add up all power consumption of everything into the TCO because you can TURN IT OFF any, and I mean ANY time you like.
It's pointless to mention the power consumption when for it's class it is among the least power hungry. I suppose we'd all go back to using mechanical typewriters because it's less power consumption?
What uses more power is surfing the internet to inject comments about power consumption. Net power loss in pausing to consider it.
Comments on: Samsung ML-1640
That drawer... #
By Christopher Rogers Posted Monday 29th June 2009 08:25 GMT
basic information? #
By Bad Beaver Posted Monday 29th June 2009 08:27 GMT
no-brainer #
By paul brain Posted Monday 29th June 2009 08:34 GMT
I remember when... #
By Gene Cash Posted Monday 29th June 2009 09:21 GMT
Price? #
By Anonymous Coward Posted Monday 29th June 2009 09:26 GMT
Worth mentioning #
By Matt Smart Posted Monday 29th June 2009 09:50 GMT
All I need know is a time machine #
By Neur0mancer Posted Monday 29th June 2009 09:57 GMT
@AC Re. Price #
By Tony Smith, Editor, Reg Hardware Posted Monday 29th June 2009 10:02 GMT
@Matt Smart #
By kissingthecarpet Posted Monday 29th June 2009 11:25 GMT
@Neur0mancer #
By Peter X Posted Monday 29th June 2009 12:13 GMT
no brains #
By steogede Posted Monday 29th June 2009 12:46 GMT
@kissingthecarpet #
By Matt Smart Posted Monday 29th June 2009 16:32 GMT
Also ideal for... #
By cornz 1 Posted Monday 29th June 2009 20:23 GMT
Looks like... #
By Nexox Enigma Posted Tuesday 30th June 2009 00:47 GMT
Power consumption #
By Chris Cartledge Posted Tuesday 30th June 2009 08:18 GMT
@ Power Consumption #
By JC 2 Posted Tuesday 30th June 2009 13:32 GMT