Samsung’s Laser Printer

There was a time when the only option one had when buying a printer was a DMP. Times changed, and inkjet printers became the obvious choice for most users with their low costs. Now this phenomenon can be seen in laser printers as well. Prices are heading south, and laser printers have always had the advantages of low running cost and maintenance.

The Samsung ML-5200A can be connected to your computer through two interfaces: USB or parallel port. While USB is the preferred option due to its high speed and hot-swap characteristics, some people might need to use the parallel port connection with old PCs that don’t support the standard. Unfortunately, the printer does not ship with a USB cable, and you will need to procure one yourself. A final caveat: USB drivers are included only for Windows 98, so if you are using any other OS you will have to stick to the parallel port. The printer is rated at 10 ppm and has 4 MB on-board memory that can be increased by a maximum of 32 MB. The drivers support watermarks and page overlays. The input tray can hold a maximum of 150
sheets.

In performance, text prints were fine, and a four point font is quite legible. The printer also lived up to its 10 ppm spec in our tests, and took about 17 sec to print the first page. We were, however, a little disappointed with its printing quality in line art and gradients. While it supports two resolutions–300 and 600 dpi–line-art reproduction wasn’t smooth and a grayscale gradient showed banding. Overall, this printer offers mediocre performance,
and is priced slightly high at Rs 24,900.

Anuj Jain at PCQ Labs