…as compared to an HP at $200.00 +

The HP 1315 (closest competition at $149.99 will not work with Apple

I don’t print color; at least 99 percent of my printing is black. James (no last name, but his business ID is SOAHH024) told me that the color cartridges needed to be replaced. He said that, although I’m printing in black, the color toner gives it an “extra” jolt of black.

I’m now facing about $125 to get my printer back up and running. I realize there is a cost of doing business, but why am I forced to pay for color cartridges when all I’m trying to do is print in black?

Sometimes I yearn for the old days of Canon’s 200 series bubble jets. I could refill those cartridges for about $2 each. True, the quality wasn’t laser, but for run-of-the-mill printing it worked fine.

To Samsung’s credit, they were very prompt in shipping me a refurbished replacement while I tried to find out what the problem was.

thanks,

chuck

Samsung has had some poor performing printers in the past, but I have a feeling this one will last a long time in my home network. I still have a couple of HP Laserjet 6L’s around the house for cheap black and white printing. Those go back to 1997 and 1998, but keep printing. Hopefully the 315 will be like that.

It doesn’t do pictures well at all. I kept my old printer to do pictures on. The 315W is awesome when doing clipart graphics. The printing is crisp and clear with absolutely no complaints from me. Text prints out beautifully.

I took out the ink cartridges and shook them to redistribute the toner. That made the printer happy and I didn’t have to buy more. The printer ink is not expensive at all when compared to inkjet.

Overall, I like the printer because I have an alternative to printing my pictures on it. Most of what I do is text and graphics using clipart, etc. The quality is great. I can live with the slowness for now but only because I like the quality of the printing (other than pictures).

It just takes too long to warm up to print the first sheet each time.

My experience with the CLP-315 is brief; I bought mine a week ago. I had checked a number of blog sites and reviews, and concluded the machine is very good, especially for the price. It’s $200 in general, but was listed at TigerDirect and Office Max at $150. I bought mine at Office Max.

Granted, the toner cartridges are expensive, but the same can be said for ink-jet cartridges. If my projected output in actual usage, which would be about 600 pages for the color toner cartridges, and about 1,200 for the black cartridge, proves factual, the cost per page will be about half that from the five-year-old H-P deskjet printer the CLP-315 replaced. (The deskjet’s printer head assembly jammed, and cannot be cleared.)

Consumables for all printers are expensive. The extremely low prices for printers, both ink-jet and laser, reflect a strategy of drawing in the customer by all but giving away the hardware, and making the profits on the consumables and replacement parts.

The cost of ink-jet and laser-toner cartridges is “the cost of doing business,” as it were. Cars, houses, and many other devices are similar. Their costs of operation, such as gas, maintenance, electricity, etc., ultimately far exceed their purchase price. Except for repairs, these costs are relatively small and accumulate gradually. Quill.com sells the Samsung toner cartridges for about $10 less than the going street price.

So far, I have printed about 100 pages, most of them in color. Mr. Biggs’s description of them as being “in vibrant color” is spot on. I am very impressed. Although printed on plain, but enhanced, paper (24-pound bright stock), they rival the output of the retired deskjet, and have the added benefit that the images are water-tight, they will not smudge if wetted. Ink-jet inks are very bad in this regard.

The installation was very easy. I installed the driver and operational software on my iMac. When the printer was turned on, the Mac recognized it immediately. The printer’s “Smart Panel” and “Printer Setting” controls are available from an icon in the menu bar. The settings are straightforward, and even include an adjustment for altitude! The printer has just two controls: the power switch and a “stop” button.

With only one week’s usage, but a bit heavy for about three days, it may be premature to state that I have had no problems with the CLP-315: no jams, balks, or sulking refusals to operate.

At this point, I certainly have no hesitation about recommending this printer. At a rated output of 20,000 pages per month, Mr. Biggs is dead right when he says, “This is a business printer.” That translates to “sturdy.” It won’t break down or wear out when hit with more than five or ten pages a day.

For all of us, reliability is a prized and expected attribute. If this printer delivers, it will be worth the cost: an industrial-grade product at a pauper’s price.

I purchased a Samsung CLP500 color, auto-duplexing laser printer a few years ago and it constantly hounds me to replace various colors that I’m not using (I mostly use black) and often tells me that the black cartridge is empty EVEN THOUGH it is (currently) 95% full. After I finish the current one, I’m done with this printer, if not before = just too much trouble!

See, after the novelty of color and, I suppose, my need for it, wore off, I mostly just use it for black-on-white printing (which is not Sammy’s fault, of course). Frankely, the color cartridges are way too expensive: replacing all four cartrides costs more than the printer itself. Moreover, the printer only came with 2/5ths filled “starter” (dummy?) cartridges to begin with.

But being hounded to death to replace the color cartridges and especially the nearly full black one is enough to make me gun shy of buying Samsung again…if that’s the way they are going to play the printer game. Hopefully, they’ve improved, and, yes, I realize that all the brand names do that…but being told to replace a nearly full black cartride is too much for me…and being constantly hounded about the color cartridges I don’t use…and forced to shake them and so on to trick the printer…is not how I plan to spend my future printer money.

Besides, I can buy a new black-and-white laser printer for the price of their black cartridge, although it is supposedly good for 5 or so thousand pages. BTW, the printer also occasionally complains about the drum, too. Lasers are sensitive, I guess.

Actually, I think Sammy is a great company and quite innovative. The complaints above are mostly things that could be changed with small hardware/software tweaks on their part…once they realize, I guess, that we will just stop using their printers if that’s the way such printers behave, so Sammy won’t actually make money on the cartridges after all (wake-up, Sammy!).

So, don’t write off the above printer based on my comments; just be aware of these possible problems and perhaps investigate further. Hopefully, they’ve improved matters (read: made a more “honest” printer). Also, the printer above is a nice size, unlike the behemoth that I have (although mine auto-duplexes and probably has larger capacity, though I’m too gun shy right now to check). No, I haven’t completely written off Sammy lasers off yet, but I’m leary. Just my two cents. Sammy, are you listening? Do you care?

I purchased a Samsung CLP500 color, auto-duplexing laser printer a few years ago and it constantly hounds me to replace various colors that I’m not using (I mostly use black) and often tells me that the black cartridge is empty EVEN THOUGH it is (currently) 95% full. After I finish the current one, I’m done with this printer, if not before = just too much trouble!

See, after the novelty of color and, I suppose, my need for it, wore off, I mostly just use it for black-on-white printing (which is not Sammy’s fault, of course). Frankely, the color cartridges are way too expensive: replacing all four cartrides costs more than the printer itself. Moreover, the printer only came with 2/5ths filled “starter” (dummy?) cartridges to begin with.

But being hounded to death to replace the color cartridges and especially the nearly full black one is enough to make me gun shy of buying Samsung again…if that’s the way they are going to play the printer game. Hopefully, they’ve improved, and, yes, I realize that all the brand names do that…but being told to replace a nearly full black cartride is too much for me…and being constantly hounded about the color cartridges I don’t use…and forced to shake them and so on to trick the printer…is not how I plan to spend my future printer money.

Besides, I can buy a new black-and-white laser printer for the price of their black cartridge, although it is supposedly good for 5 or so thousand pages. BTW, the printer also occasionally complains about the drum, too. Lasers are sensitive, I guess.

Actually, I think Sammy is a great company and quite innovative. The complaints above are mostly things that could be changed with small hardware/software tweaks on their part…once they realize, I guess, that we will just stop using their printers if that’s the way such printers behave, so Sammy won’t actually make money on the cartridges after all (wake-up, Sammy!).

So, don’t write off the above printer based on my comments; just be aware of these possible problems and perhaps investigate further. Hopefully, they’ve improved matters (read: made a more “honest” printer). Also, the printer above is a nice size, unlike the behemoth that I have (although mine auto-duplexes and probably has larger capacity, though I’m too gun shy right now to check). No, I haven’t completely written off Sammy lasers off yet, but I’m leary. Just my two cents. Sammy, are you listening? Do you care?