After way too much thought, i finally decided to go with the Samsung CLP-315W colour laser printer. Why did i pick it above the rest? Well, it was a close battle between it and the Dell 1320CN. In reviews and on paper, the Dell edges it ever so slightly, however i ended up buying the Samsung mainly because of price…
Price (tie)
photo credit: THEfunkyman
The Dell was £140 on amazon however they don’t ship to Ireland (it was only an amazon affiliate that sold it). Not too many places sell Dell printers apart from Dell themselves and at €230+ on dell.ie, it was just out of my range. The samsung cost me €166 including delivery from amazon.
Of course we can’t end the price comparison there… when dealing with printers there are two major costs… initial cost and cost of replacing ink. The Dell is cheaper when it comes to replacing toner (laser printers don’t use ink), however i asked myself “How often will i need to replace toner?” and the answer was “Not very often”. Once per year if even that. Remember, toner lasts for 1000+ pages so unless you’re printing daily and in bulk, you won’t need to fork out for replacement cartridges any time soon.
The Dell costs around €70 more up front, so that would go a long way towards buying a full set of toners for the samsung. If i was printing forests of paper and need backup toner on hand, then of course the Dell would make more sense.
Wifi (samsung)
Not needing wires is great. It means less clutter yet more connections. I spoke before about being able to print from bed and having things on my desk for the morning after. Now i failed to mention that my bed is literally a few paces away from my desk but we’ll pretend it’s in a different room and up a few flights of stairs just to make this feature sound more useful 😉 The samsung has wifi and is in fact the world’s first colour laser printer (or was back in late 2008 when it first launched). The Dell is an old fashioned networked printer. No frills like wifi.
Looks & Size (samsung)
photo credit: fashionfightspovertydc
Do looks matter in a printer? No, but there’s no doubting the Samsung is easier on the eye than the Dell. It’s also a lot smaller. I have plenty of space for a printer but the smaller the better. Generally the bigger they are, the noisier they are too. The samsung boasts about it’s noise level so it must be quiet enough compared to the competition.
Speed (dell)
photo credit: koadmunkee
No doubt about it the dell destroys the samsung here. In all reviews and on paper too.
- Dell: 16ppm black / 12ppm colour
- Samsung: 16ppm black / 4ppm colour
The samsung takes longer to process colour because of it’s small size. It has to juggle things about. The dell sticks two fingers up at size and rolls out colour pages almost as quick as black. I noticed a lot of my printing is actually just in black though. The vast majority of it. For college reports i’ll have loads of text and the odd image or diagram so the speed shouldn’t be a massive issue for me. It will certainly be better than an inkjet anyway 😉
Print quality (dell)
photo credit: Richard.Fisher
If you want to print photos, don’t buy a laser jet… stick to inkjet. Print quality on lasers will be acceptable. More than acceptable for regular documents which is what i’ll be printing. However in reviews, the Dell also seems to come up trumps in general print quality. The blacks are black and the colours are ‘decent’. I’ve read one or two reviews on print quality from disappointed Samsung owners.
Why did i choose the samsung?
Quite simply, the Samsung was €166 delivered. The dell was €230 with dell.ie plus it wasn’t in stock. On amazon, the dell would have come in at about €200 with delivery (if the affiliate shipped to Ireland) and the only reason i know that is because i tried to order it before i ordered the Samsung 
However, the Samsung is cheaper to start off, plus it has that wifi which will come in handy. It’s also smaller, looks better and is less noisy. So it was a toss of the coin type decision for me… i would have been happy with either but now that the Samsung is on it’s way, i’m looking forward to it.