Samsung SCX 4500 Printer - The Fresh Multifunction Device
Electronic equipment has gone through the most amazing revolution in the last couple of years, along with this revolution TV’s PC’s and Mobile phones have slimmed down into the most stylishly developed electronic imaginable. The only piece of equipment that doesn’t seem to have fared so well is the Printer. They are still built out of bulky pieces of plastic that seem to have been thrown together as cheaply as possible. As least this was the case until the Samsung SCX 4500 printer and Samsung SCX 4500 Printer Toner came along.
Although this is more than likely less true in the case of laser printer, it certainly applies to color inject printers that come in below $100 and have almost become disposable, rather than replace the ink cartridges. Samsung is not a manufacturer that operates in this way fortunately, and although their equipment is easily affordable, they have also been intent on improving their quality of design.
The SCX 4500 Toner is a case in point, and really fits the profile of the “coolness factor”. It is a slimmed down, full feature, full functionality but powerful marvel of electronics design. It is a slim 13 x 15.5, x 6.5″ with a stylish exterior. It is simple to operate and incredibly quiet. In fact you are barely able to hear it when it is printing.
The MFP features a control panel with touch sensitive controls, but be warned, the settings are pretty limited. It makes use of SmartThru software for scanning and some of the printer functions and installing this to Windows XP took us 5 minutes. Remember to make sure that you have a USB printer cable handy as the machine is not shipped with this. You could make use of your old printer cable if you have one. There is very little warm-up time needed and you are able to copy a printed page in around 10 seconds.
Although the paper cassette is hidden in the bottom of the printer it has a limited capacity, but if you want a printer with a small footprint, what more can you expect. Print quality is reasonable, but considering the $300 or so price tag of this laser printer, this is to be expected.
Although greyscale printing is good and the scan quality is excellent at 600 x 2400 dpi. It is also a very simple task to replace printer toner plugs, just remove and replace.
The Samsung SCX-4500 is a more than adequate printer for home use, but it is not recommend it as a networked printer for office work, it does not have a built in Ethernet. Although if everyone in the office has their own printer, it is also fine. Users are also not able to print from a USB drive and it does not have a card reader. It is also not terribly fast at 16 pages per minute out-put, which places it behind some of the competition. However these slight flaws are easily overlooked as this MFP is so stylish, and sometimes style demands certain trade-offs.
Summary: The 4500 Toner is very cool and the design overshadows many of the limitations in functionality. If you are looking for a printer that does not look like a printer, then you are onto a good thing with this machine. For maximum efficiency, you do have to make sure that you use Samsung SCX 4500 toner plugs and this will ensure the best quality of print as well as keep your stylish new printer reliable.