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Samsung CLP-550's


Date
: 03/9/05 – 05:09:17 AM

Author
:

Category
: Printers

Page 1 : Introduction

Manufacturer
: Samsung Canada

Many of us have already heard of Samsung Global and Samsung USA. Those introductions were made when we reviewed the Samsung 192MP and Samsung ML-2251n. To skip the repetitiveness, I'll talk about something a little closer to my home: Samsung Canada. Since 1987, Samsung Electronics has been serving the needs of Canada. They made sure we got our fix of Consumer Electronics (yes Samsung makes Washers and Dryers!), Information Technology products (LCD, Printers, Optical Drives, Laptops, etc) and Wireless Terminals (Cellphones and such).

Now that we know what Samsung has to offer in Canada, let's move on to what we'll be dealing with here at the O² lab (aka my house), a mere 50KM from Samsung Canada! Today I'm looking at the CLP-550N and CLP-550 Color Laser Printers. The printers represent the two flavors of the model, the network capable (CLP-550N) and non-network capable (CLP-550). While Samsung can be regarded as the king of LCDs, let's see how these two laser printers stack up against the competitors.

Page 2 : Specifications

Before we move on to the actual physical device, I figure it will be a good idea to start off with the specifications. If you were to go out and buy something, you have to ask yourself: Will this meet my needs? To answer this question, it's good to start with a standard list of the specifications.

Along with the added 10/100 BaseTx feature coming standard on the CLP-550N, this model also has twice the standard memory. It comes with 128MB as opposed to 64MB (Max 320MB) on the CLP-550. When it comes to comparing it against the CLP-500N, the 550N again has twice the memory (CLP-550N has 192MB max), but also utilizes a different processor and language. The CLP-500 has a Samsung SPGPm compared to the PowerPC 266 Mhz on the CLP-550. The last quick comparison before we move onto the printer features is against the CLP-500. Again the differences are the processor, no 10/100 Base Tx, and less memory. All four models are capable of 802.11b wireless internet via an optional adapter.

The latest model of the CLP-500 series is the CLP-510 and CLP-510N. We'll be taking a look at those another day.

Page 3 : Features

There are 5 key features that Samsung is focusing on to make the CLP-500 series a huge success: low noise sound environment, professional color matching, highest paper capacity, built-in-duplex, simple and easy toner changing.

Sound Environment

The CLP-500 Series offers a technology called NO-NOIS (Nonorbiting Noiseless Optical Imaging System). This new technology offers a noise level of merely 48dB allowing you to focus on work and not printing.

If you visit the CLP-550 webpage, an animation does a very good job at describing how it works; in words, it may be a little tough. In the printer, the toner is stored in fixed locations and transferred via a continuous rotating drum to the image transfer band. In previous models, the toner was located in the drum; the drum would rotate and then stop to transfer the toner.

Professional Color Matching

With 1200dpi, the resolution of your print is going to be high. Although this takes longer, you can always scale down to the default resolution. Although this has no relation to the professional colors, it will make those prints even better. By utilizing calibration software, Samsung automatically recalibrates each print, maximizing color accuracy. If you're not happy with the way the software works you can do some manual tweaking. When it's finally time to print out your masterpiece in the high 1200dpi with professional color, Samsung's proprietary TRC (Toner Reproduction Curve) technology ensures that the toner is consistent throughout the entire print; every last inch of paper having the same color consistency.

Highest Paper Capacity

To improve our printing needs, the CLP-500 Series offers a capacity of 350 to 850 sheets. As a university student in engineering, everything I do is by hand. So if I filled up the printer with 850 sheets, I would be set for well over a year! :)

Free Built-in-Duplex

Free is good, and I don't think anyone will argue with that. The CLP-500 series printers now come with duplex (double-sided) printing. This allows you to cut back on paper usage and make those 850 sheets last even longer.

Simple and Easy Toner Changing

Samsung boasts a three step process to change toner cartridges and a five click process to install the drivers! They definitely followed the "Keep It Simple Stupid" process!

Now that we know the specifics, let's take a look at everything Samsung has shipped to me. At 77lbs, gross package weight is actually 85lbs, do not drop this on your toes!

Page 4 : Package

The Samsung CLP-550N and CLP-550 arrived in equally massive boxes. This is the largest product I have ever received. The box was so big that the UPS delivery man first thought it was a TV. To get it into my house, it took the two of us to carry it from his van to my door.

The packaging on the top shows you how to open up and remove the beast. As you can tell, this really is a two person job!

The side of the box tells you the key specifications of the printer. At a yield capacity of 12,000 pages, anyone owning this in their home will be set for a good while. All of these specifcations are listed two pages prior.

Cutting open the box, we're presented with layers of goodies.

Packed on top of the printer are two document packages: the various installation guides in one, and registration information and CDs in the other.

I do suggest reading through the manual before beginning. It'll save a lot of trouble and is only 32 pages, so don't let the thickness of the book fool you; it's very concise and comes in 6 languages. If you want the real printer manual, it's stored as a PDF and can be viewed after installing the software. This digital manual is a full 289 pages!

Below the documents is the first of many physical components of the CLP-550N.

On the first layer is the imaging unit, power cord and transfer band. All are key components in bringing this printer to life.

Also with the first layer is the transfer belt.

The layer below the imaging unit and transfer belt contains the 4 toners – black, yellow, magenta and cyan.

The third and final layer contains the laser printer body!

Even after removing two layers, this printer still seems to take up a lot of space. Taking it out was no easy task as I soloed this mission. If you find it difficult, do ask somebody for help. It is not a light unit and you can do some serious damage to yourself, especially to your back if you don't know how to properly lift heavy objects.

The ideal way to remove the unit is to tear the box in half so you have direct access to the body, but I prefer to keep the box.

Now that we've got everything out and it's all accounted for. Let's take a look at the body and set it up.

Page 5 : Body

One word sums up the body of this printer – big.

>From looking at the outside, you get the feeling that there is a lot of room on the inside. Space for the drum roll, transfer band, toners and large quantities of paper. The unit's simple grey and white look lets it fit into any office workspace.

Everything is tucked away nicely in a nice cube. I'll first start at the corner of the printer where all the cables collide.

To reduce the mass chaos of wires, Samsung has conveniently located the all the connectors at one spot. Simply position this near a wall and you won't have wires running around your desk.

The CLP-550N utilizes three interfaces.

The CLP-550 only has two interfaces: USB 2.0 and Parallel Port. You have the option of purchasing the other interfaces if you require them.

To add the wireless network card or to increase the memory, swing yourself around the side, pop open the tray and unscrew the panel.

In the CLP-550, you will be able to see all of the circuitry.

With the CLP-550N, the network card simply gets plugged into the expansion slot and mounted down.

A close up of the network card…

Both printers have two available memory slots.

Moving to the top is the output tray after the printer has done its job. You can tilt the edge to angle the paper to your preference. These tiny details won't really affect the 21 PPM black and 5 PPM color, however if you think it'll make a difference in office productivity, it is there for you!

Taking a closer look at the output, there are tiny bristles what "wipe" your paper as it is ejected. Four Pairs of rollers will keep your paper moving in both forward and backward directions.

A little ramp collects the paper and angles it upwards (if you want it to). This output tray has a capacity of 250 sheets.

Back down the side, we have a little sticker that shows some of the key selling points of the printer.

Scattered throughout the unit are various stickers telling you how to operate and maintain the printer.

Another tiny little sticker tells us that it prints color, but for 650 USD I'm sure you already knew that!

Moving on to some of the more important components, we have the control panel.

The tiny LCD display tells you the current activity/status of the printer.

To the left of the LCD display is the printer layout with a series of LED dots. I assume that if an LED lights up, you have a paper jam in that location.

Left of the LCD is the "Online/Continue, Cancel" feature. If you don't like the print that's currently running, just cancel it!

To the right of the LCD display are a series of buttons, mainly to the control the configuration of the printer.

As noted by the sticker, by pressing down on the "Upper Tray" button for two seconds, a two-sided color test page will print out.

Returning to the same corner where the power switch and inputs are, we'll open up the printer and take a look at the inside. Following the instructions on the sticker, we must first open the front door to get to anything.
Taking a look inside, this is where you will slide in the four toner cartridges.

You'll need to open the top and slide in the Image Transferring Unit and band before you can slide the toner cartridges in.

At the bottom of the front tray, the pictures explain how to open and close the unit's front and top lids properly. Failure to do so may result in damage.

Swinging around to the back, you have the choice of opening two trays up.

Opening up the top one shows you how the paper moves around; pretty complicated. This access hole will allow you to remove paper jams.

The lower tray is for when don't want to have paper coming out the top, but instead just out the side.

If you were to go below the control panel, you can pop open the side wall and reveal the waste cartridge.

Any excess toner is ejected in here. Once it is filled up, after 12,000 prints, you need to replace it.

On the side of the wall is a layout of the entire printer. It covers the process of replacing the waste cartridge and what to do if you have a paper jam.

Probably the most commonly used paper tray would be the one directly below the waste compartment. This tray holds 250 sheets.

Page 6 : Hardware Installation

Now that we've covered the body of the CLP-550N, it's time to move onto the installation of the hardware. This section will be composed of texts; due to the sensitive nature of the Image Transferring Unit, I decided it would be best not to use a flash or turn on the lights to take pictures. I pretty much assembled the printer in a dimly light room to prevent light exposure to the Imaging unit.

To start the installation, read over the installation manual several times and familiarize yourself with the components, levers and where everything goes. Once you have this part covered, you're pretty much set. By carefully following the proper order, you can have the entire printer set up in about five minutes. A quick summary of the installation would be: open both covers, slide in the Image Transfer Unit, slide in the Image Transfer Belt, push down on the belt, lock the two hinges and close the top cover. Slide in the four toners and close the front cover. After that, load some paper, select your preferred media and power on the unit.

Paper loading is pretty simple, just be sure to load up the trays below the maximum to avoid paper jams. Like I said before, everything is documented, with pictures, in the printer manual.

When you run out of toner, replacement is pretty easy. All you need to do is open up the cover, pull out the toners up to and including the one you need to remove, replace it, slide everything back in and close the cover. It's pretty simple.

Here's a shot of what the toner configuration looks like:

The last two steps to the hardware setup are plugging in your desired input and plugging in the AC power cord. Once you have that done, flip the switch and let the unit power up.

If you look at the LCD display, you'll see it "Initialize", "Setup" and be "Ready" to print. By pressing the "Upper Level" button and holding it for two seconds, a test page will print out in duplex format.

The first thing I noticed is that the warm up period is pretty long. During that duration, I heard a series of clicking and puffing sounds. After the warm up period and the test pages printed, the sounds stopped and the unit just hummed at a ready state.

Now that we know the printer works, it's time to move onto the software installation.

Page 7 : Software Installation

With the CLP-550N, there are three methods of connecting your computer to the printer: Parallel port, USB and network; only two with the CLP-550 (no network capabilities)

Neither of the necessary cables are provided so it is up to you to buy your own. I first tested the installation with my laptop through a USB 2.0 connection.

Windows will detect the new hardware and detect the Samsung CLP-550 printer in your Install New Hardware icon in the taskbar. The recommended process is to close the "find driver" window and use the supplied Driver CD. I followed these instructions and without a reset, I was printing out color with duplex enabled.

(More detailed network installation is specific for the CLP-550N)

Once you've plugged the CLP-550N into your network, the first thing to do is to find its IP address and check out the current configuration. To get the IP, I suggest logging into your router and checking out what is currently connected. You should find a name similar to "SEC0000f0abaa222" and its current IP.

By visiting that IP in your browser, you can access the Samsung CLP-550N information and configuration page.

In this setup, you'll have the option to do many things as presented in the next set of photos.

The first thing I suggest doing is giving the printer a more meaningful name and description.

The next thing is to consider giving the printer a static IP as it will make your installation a lot easier.

Now that the printer is configured, you can print a test page for reference when you go to another computer or just print test pages to find out all the little details about the printer.

Since we're done configuring the printer, let's get this puppy roaring on the desktop.

Step one is to go to your control panel and use the "Add Printer Wizard".

You will want to select local printer attached to your computer. The reasoning behind this is somewhat bizarre, but as Jason mentioned in his ML-2251N review, network printers are for printers connected to another computer.

Let your system search for the printer.

It will actually fail and you need to manually select and install via TCP/IP port (this is where a static IP comes in handy).

Using the TCP/IP Printer Port wizard…

select the generic network card…

and finish the TCP/IP Printer Port wizard installation.

The last step before finishing is selecting the drivers. You have three options here: use the generic windows drivers, grab the drivers from the CD or download the latest drivers from Samsung.

All done!

Now that the system and printer are configured, let's test out this new toy!

Page 8 : Testing

There's no simple benchmark that I can run which will spit out some numbers about any printer on the market. In order to judge a printer by its output, I looked at quality and quantity of the work. I'll start with the basics: speed. This printer is fast, I've read on other reviews that it spat out pages so fast they couldnt keep up with the counting… well, that's not necessarily true. I'm sure you can count to 21 in under a minute.
My first test was printing a black and white text document, 25 pages. You can download the test file [rul=here. I timed the printout and the clock started clicking when I heard the printer kick into gear to feed the paper and stopped when the last page came out. For the 25 pages, it was done in 69 seconds or 21.70 PPM; just over the specifications. The second test was printing eight pages of text in color. You can download the test file here. Using the same timing criteria, this job finished in 86 seconds or 5.58 PPM. Right off the bat we see that this puppy can easily meet the claimed specificationss. After the printing finished, it took the printer exactly 10 seconds to go completely silent – no humming, buzzing or anything.

Our second series of tests consist of duplex printing. The same documents will be printed double sided and the process will be timed. Our results….

25 pages of black and white text:
9.8 PPM (25 pages in 153 seconds)

8 pages of color text:
4.94 PPM (8 pages in 97 seconds)

Slightly above par for duplex black and white and slightly below par for duplex color. Needless to say, they are very close to the listed specs and those fractions of a second would be hard to notice.

The last printing test is color photos. I took 10 wallpapers and made full page print outs. The original set of images can be downloaded in this third PDF. Without any color calibration, you can see the Samsung Auto-Calibration at work. If you take the time to compare the images, they aren't exactly the same; a little manual work wouldn't hurt. I found the colors to be a bit red for my liking.

Another print out is from this test file I downloaded. It mixes all sorts of colors and shades together in one single file. Again, it is apparent that the colors you see on screen is not what you see on paper.

Noise levels

I find my ears are pretty sensitive to noise and when some people say their system is dead silent, I can still hear the fans humming away. On the topic of the Samsung printer, it's a slightly different story. No-NOIS is truly no noise when the printer is idling. When warming up I can hear gears turning and fans blowing. The same applies to when it is printing, though I think it is slightly louder when the paper gets ejected out. During duplex printing, the reserving of the gears is fairly distinct; however it is no louder than conventional office duplex printers. Granted that nothing can be absolutely silent, the Samsung CLP-550 does a good job at being as noise free as possible. In an office environment, you won't notice the printer working. You'll start a print, you'll walk across without knowing it ran and by the time you get to the printer, the job will probably already be done.

So we now know the printer works and is up to spec. Let's move on to our second to last page before we wrap things up.

Page 9 : Cost Analysis

If you got this far into the review and are serious about buying a CLP-550 series printer, it may be time to tell you how much things will cost. All figures are in US Dollars.

If you were to buy a unit, the base price with a toner capacity of 2000 pages in black and 1500 in color will cost you around 600 dollars, give or take depending on your retailer.

Now, we'll get into the little things. The cheapest component is the waste cartridge at 18 bucks. This will be good for 12,000 sheets. When you run out of black toner, a 7000 sheet capacity replacement will cost you 90 dollars. Each color toner cartridge will cost you 95-100 dollars. After 12,000 pages, you'll need to replace both the image transferring unit and transfer band. Each will set you back 140 dollars.

Although the total cost of the unit is 600 dollars, after the original starter toners are done, you'll need a replacement set. If you get all 4 cartridges, you will have spent around 1100 dollars.

By the time you need to replace the image transferring unit and transfer band, it'll almost be time to change the toners and waste toner cartridge. To replace all four toners, waste toner cartridge and to buy the image transferring unit and transfer band, that'll be 778 dollars.

At this point in the life of the product, you've replace the toner and waste cartridge twice and replaced the image transfer unit and transfer belt. The final cost: 1875 dollars. Let's not forget the 27,500 sheets of paper and the power this baby uses (400W Printing, 30W Idle). I'll let you decide if 2000 dollars is too much for you.

If you don't do much printing, ink cartridges for desktop inkjet printers tend to dry up and become useless; something that doesn't happen with toner. As well, draining all four toners will probably be something that takes well over a few months to accomplish; maybe even a few years.

In the long run, a CLP-550 printer could be a good investment.

Page 10 : Conclusion

I've had the CLP-550N and CLP-550 for about a month and I've done a fair bit of test prints. From my experience, the printer has turned out to be a very nice one. I'm quite pleased with the quality and quantity. The auto-calibration is not perfect, but its a great start. If you're an impatient person and need those prints ASAP, it may be time for you to get yourself either the CLP-550 or one of the CLP-510's, capable of 26 ppm. The one thing I'd like to see improved is the No-NOIS technology. To some they may think it is already dead silent, however I feel there is a bit of room for improvement. Perhaps a more silent means of feeding the paper into the printer will be more effective in reducing the noise. The clicking I heard during warm up and the noise the paper makes while being injected back into the printer during duplex printing or while being ejected out could be muffled.

My primary use for the printer was text files in black and white, and in this process I was thoroughly pleased by the printers performance. I think it is much better than some of the industrial sized units that my school uses. The text is crisp and it makes all my documents look very sharp. My pictures turned out quite well and only required minor calibration. The overall body of the printer is very sturdy, definitely requiring two people if you plan on moving it around very far; I don't expect this to be an issue with most people. Although this is only our second laser printer review, it is safe to say that Samsung is well on its way in becoming an industry leader in both LCDs and printers.

Advantages

Color laser
Duplex printing
Fast

Disadvantages

New model already released, CLP-510
Plastic handles don't feel very durable

Thanks to
Samsung Canada
for providing this sample to us.