New printer - feedback

I took John Rumm's advice and went for a Samsung in the end.

Specifically the CLX-4195FW. So far I'm very impressed.

Scanning - excellent quality with scan2email and scan2usb. xsane works over the network too, but you have to do something weird to set it up the first time.

Photo printing quality I think is *very* good for a laser. Test is excellent too.

Web interface has about a million options.

The only thing that is wrong is it forgets the default Scane From: mail address if you power cycle it (sleep is OK though). I did flash the firmware to the latest, which may be the problem.

However, I nearly fell off my chair when I phoned Samsung, expecting a 3 hour wait to talk to a yabber fool in India working off a script.

After going only about 3 levels deep into the phone menu and choosing "Printers", after about 30 seconds of ringing and irish sounding bloke answered the phone (and confirmed it was an irish call centre).

He listened to everything I'd done (I'm used to fault reporting, so I gave it quickly and briefly). He agreed with my assessment that it was firmware related and it was worth factory resetting the config. Except he didn;t know how and it's undocumented.

He emailed my a few hours later with the engineering menu access codes and instructions to reset the config. I did. It didn't help.

2 days later he emailed back apologising for being away and saying he would escalate the problem.

It's not fixed by I am extremely impressed with the handling. Not even a critical problem (workaround: reset from address in web interface), though it is irritating.

Reply to
Tim Watts
Loading thread data ...

The weak point on these sort of machines tends to be the auto doc feeder. How's this one?

Reply to
GB

On Saturday 12 January 2013 13:52 GB wrote in uk.d-i-y:

Granted it's new, but it seems pretty good.

The only software weakness is the fact that you cannot scan with "pseudo duplex" - the ADF is simplex only and I doubt it has enough RAM (256MB) to buffer one set of sides to allow a manual turn over.

Reply to
Tim Watts

In article , Tim Watts writes

Thanks for feeding back, I'm also in the market for a colour laser, not particularly a multifunction but it would mean one less box in the office.

At 300quid odd it's no economy model so I would hope the print quality was spot on ;-). A good colour display does justify a bit of extra cost as I've seen quite a few good printers spoiled by a crap (or no) display and most punters can't remember how to interrogate or can't understand the details of a web interface

Toner costs are a bit worrying, at 200quid a set that brings cost of printer plus one set of spares to 500quid so I'd be looking for something really special. This isn't really something for Joe Soap at home.

With ongoing costs of modern stuff so high I'm tempted to replace the failing internal parts of my Dell 1320C to get some more life out of it and take advantage of the lower toner costs (40quid a set for compatibles).

Although no solution yet on your tech issue, top marks for effort so far, I've had similar good service from OKI in the past.

Reply to
fred

I reckon the internal sleep mode on the new HP laserjet color printer here saves more in electricity over a year than I spend on toner.

I bought 'compatible' cartridges and instead of 200 notes it was a lot less - about 120 quid. It's now had the whole set replaced after a couple of years. Probably about 1000 pages in all.

if you remember that 200 quid is not more than 200 kilowatt hours and there are 8500 hours in a year, 22 watts of power saved is the same price as the toner.

24x7 kit really adds up..I am fighting to get it all down, but two desktops, a printer, a router, a pair of speakers, two scanners, a big 100Mbps switch, a PABX and a low power server..well...there's a reason why this home office is generally the warmest place to be :-)
Reply to
The Natural Philosopher

U missed out the Aircon costs in the Summer;!.....

Reply to
tony sayer

One of the benefits of a home office is that there is no necessity to dress for work.

And if you have - as I have - worked in an uninsulated tin roofed factory in Johannesburg, not much the UK can throw at you is really significant.

Reply to
The Natural Philosopher

On Sunday 13 January 2013 19:03 The Natural Philosopher wrote in uk.d-i-y:

Beware the laptop's forward facing webcam when starting a Skype chat!

Reply to
Tim Watts

No cam, no skype.

Reply to
The Natural Philosopher

Umm .. thats more info than we really need;!...

Yes I remember you saying some years ago, and to think that end of Africa is the same latitude to the north end .. yes must have been bloody unbearable!...

Reply to
tony sayer

It helps that Jo'burg is at 1,750m

Reply to
Bob Martin

Doesn't help in summer.

But I did see snow in winter once.

Reply to
The Natural Philosopher

HomeOwnersHub website is not affiliated with any of the manufacturers or service providers discussed here. All logos and trade names are the property of their respective owners.